Alison Brown: A story and Interview: Final Part 2
In light of the names previously mentioned, plus others such as Vince Gill, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Claire Lynch, Tony Rice and many others who contributed to Fair Weather. Alison has played with the cream of acoustic musicians. I asked her she felt about this. "It's a total thrill! Because, I came up as a teenager listening to all these guys. I wore their records out and I never thought that I'd get a chance to play with them, or write a song and ask these guys to play on it. So, I really have to pinch myself, I can't believe that I'm that fortunate. Tim's been at it a good twenty five years, maybe more. He's a cornerstone of bluegrass music, especially contemporary bluegrass music. He's an awesome musician. It's amazing to watch him night after night…step up to the mike, he's always perfect." I asked Alison to explain about her shift from music, to a business career in merchant banking and back to being a musician.
"Sure! My mom and dad are both lawyers and that probably explains part of it. They encouraged me to view music as an avocation. They thought it would be a kind of tough way to make a living. They wanted me to go to med school. I bailed out of that program before organic chemistry in college and decided to go to business school, because I thought there might be some way that I could combine my interest in music with business. I did an internship for a major label while I was in business school and just hated the culture. It was just pop music in Los Angeles during the mid-eighties and I just didn't resonate with it at all. So I decided to go and work for Smith Barneyin, because I could kind of relate to the corporate culture, even though the work itself was kind of dry. I thought that I would never play music for a living." Considering, that it is often said to be a man's world. As a successful woman in both the music and business fields, I asked Alison for her own thoughts on this subject.
But anyhow, certainly in bluegrass music there has been a real renaissance, because women have really come to the forefront. Probably starting in the early 90s and if you think about now, women are making some of the best bluegrass music. Claire Lynch, Ronda Vincent, Alison Krauss of course, Laurie Lewis, the Cox Family also are all making a big statement in bluegrass music. I think that I've benefited largely from the footsteps and having the path blazed by the women who came before. Making it easier for women now, to lead our own bands and have that be acceptable and embraced by the bluegrass audience." Alison told me about her part in the Celtic Connections festival at Glasgow. "We kind of joke, because we have played in Glasgow more than anywhere in the world, including anywhere in the US. We just keep getting the opportunity to come back to Scotland, which is just great! We are doing the support for Kate Rusby at the Royal Concert Hall and doing our own show at the Strathclyde Suite. Then I'm going to be part of this banjo concert the following week. So it will be kind of the Protestant banjo verses the Catholic banjo. (laughs) When we toured Ireland the first time, I was informed that I play the Protestant banjo, because it has a fifth string on it. So we will have some four string banjo and some five string too.'
Of her future plans, Alison says. "We're going back to Scotland in April. We'll be at the Shetland Island Folk Festival. It's actually a brilliant festival. We were there in 1994 and we still talk about it. It is really very unique. The music is part of life up there in the Shetlands and that's a beautiful thing. We don't have that in the States. I think it is a real loss. People sit around the television instead of playing music together. When we go up to the Shetland Islands and see how inter-generation the music is, it's fabulous! I feel that up in the Shetlands, everybody plays the fiddle. I'm sure that's not true! But it seems that when you go up there, music is just in the air they breath!" To sum things up, Alison says of the banjo. "Now that the Dixie Chicks are so big, the banjo is making a small resurgence in country music. I got a chance to play on a track on the Wilkinsons' new album. And that was the first time I'd got to do a country session and it was pretty neat that they made the room for the five string banjo!" Following my interview with Alison Brown, we were treated to a sensational concert. Opening the evening's entertainment was British bluegrass legend, Tom Travis ably assisted by Bill Forster on banjo and Brian Booth on bass. This polished trio offered a breathtaking set of traditional bluegrass in it's purest form, before the Alison Brown Quintet took the stage to blow the night away. It was a genuine pleasure to talk with such a pleasant and lovely person. I intensely look forward, to the next time I catch Alison Brown in concert. Graham Lees, Heywood. Write to | Website
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By Graham Lees
Photo: At Sheffield, England
"You
know I really think that women have made tremendous strides in bluegrass
music, even since I started to play. When I was learning to play banjo in
the mid-seventies, there weren't any female bandleaders that I can think
of. In country music it was really taboo for a woman to be touring on the
road without either a family member or her husband. That is why I think that
where there were women, they were in family bands, or their husband was in
the band. I think that Patsy Cline, maybe was one of the first women to break
out of that stereotype. I think I have read something like that!
Photo: BBMA Chairman Tom Travis accompanies Alison at
Sheffield