Press Release: Alison Krauss to Release Her Capitol Records Debut Album "WINDY CITY" on February 17th

Alison Krauss, one of the artists who performed at the Randy Travis Tribute show in Nashville, TN last week, is set to release her debut album for Capitol Records, titled Windy City, on February 17th.

Krauss, who created something magical in each one of these classic songs, bringing her own unique interpretation to each one, yet staying true to the original.  She commented that in making this album, “I always think that people are attached to the music of their parent’s youth.  You see a lot of people kinda go back to that period and they have a romance about it.  There is something past our own memory that makes us connect.”

The artists and musicians with which Krauss collaborated with on this album are some of the most well-known in the industry, and it was Producer Buddy Cannon, when it came to who he wanted on this album, said that he “wanted people and musicians involved with this that know the history and respect the history.  The complicated simple stuff.”

We are excited to share with you the Official Press Release with all the information on how to pre-order your copy as well as a video introduction to this new project. 

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Twenty-seven-time GRAMMY Award winner Alison Krauss will release Windy City on February 17, her first effort away from her band Union Station since Raising Sand and her debut for Capitol Records. The album features Alison performing 10 classic songs that she carefully selected with producer Buddy Cannon. The pre-order for Windy City launched today along with the release of the album’s lead track “Losing You.”

Following Raising Sand, her platinum 2007 album with Robert Plant that won six GRAMMY Awards including Album of the Year, and 2011’s Paper Airplane with her longtime collaborators Union Station, which won the GRAMMY Award for Best Bluegrass Album and topped Billboard’s Folk, Country and Bluegrass charts, Alison began to feel the tug of inspiration.

“Usually it’s just all songs first,” she says. “It was the first time I’d ever not had songs picked out, and it was just about a person.” That person was veteran Nashville producer Buddy Cannon. Alison had always enjoyed the occasional recording sessions she did for Buddy.  But something else happened when she came in to sing her lead lines on Hank Cochran’s “Make The World Go Away” for Jamey Johnson’s 2012 album Living For A Song. “That was absolutely the moment,” she says. “Wow! Buddy really makes me want to do a good job.”

Buddy has used his playing, songwriting and production skills to bring out the best in a wide variety of artists since the early 70’s. He has written award-winning and chart-topping songs for artists such as Vern Gosdin, Mel Tillis, George Strait, Glen Campbell, George Jones and Don Williams. He has also won the ACM’s “Producer Of The Year” award and produced albums for Willie Nelson, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Alabama, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Chesney, and even Merle Haggard’s final solo album.

At the beginning Alison thought the songs chosen should be older than herself. “I wanted it to be earlier than I remembered,” she explains. And although the two of them subsequently decided to relax those boundaries just a little, it was only to allow in songs that somehow had the same kind of feeling as the others. Mostly, it turned out, these were songs of heartache, but of a distinct and particular kind.

What she and Buddy have created is an unusual and invigorating chimera – an album suffused with sadness that somehow rarely sounds that way. “It’s almost like you didn’t know it was sad,” Alison says, “because it doesn’t sound weak. It doesn’t have a pitiful part to it, where so many sad songs do. But these don’t. And I love that about it. I love that there’s strength underneath there. That whatever those stories are, they didn’t destroy. That that person made it right through it. I love that.”

Alison inhabits – and liberates – the very essence that makes each of the songs eternal. While they span different eras and musical genres, there is a unifying sensibility. Some of the songs are familiar – like “Gentle On My Mind,” a signature song of Glen Campbell’s, and “You Don’t Know Me” which was a hit for Eddy Arnold and Ray Charles. Others were lesser known, like Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared For You” and “All Alone Am I,” originally recorded by Brenda Lee. Some were songs she’d never heard before; some were songs she’d known nearly her whole life, particularly those she brought in from the bluegrass world. Alison had no idea when she suggested to Buddy that they record “Dream of Me,” a song she recalled from childhood, that he had written it. It took some persuasion, but he agreed to sing backup on the track, along with his daughter Melonie Cannon.

The song list for Windy City is as follows:

1. Losing You – Written by Pierre Havet, Jean Renard and Carl Sigman. Originally recorded by Brenda Lee for her 1963 album Let Me Sing.

2. It’s Goodbye And So Long To You (background vocals by Dan Tyminski and Hank Williams Jr.) – Written by Raymond Couture and Harold J. Breau in 1952. Originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers with Mac Wiseman, it appears on their 1979 collection The Essential Bluegrass Album.

3. Windy City (background vocals by Suzanne Cox and Jamey Johnson) – Written by Pete Goble and Bobby Osborne. Originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers for their 1972 album Bobby and Sonny.

4. I Never Cared For You (background vocals by Suzanne Cox and Sidney Cox) – Written and originally recorded by Willie Nelson in 1964 as a single for Monument Records.

5. River In The Rain – Written by Roger Miller for the 1985 Broadway musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

6. Dream Of Me (background vocals by Buddy Cannon and Melonie Cannon) – Written by Buddy Cannon, Jimmy Darrell & Raleigh Squires.  Was a top 10 single on Vern Gosdin’s 1981 album Today My World Slipped Away.  Alison originally heard the song performed live by Jim & Jesse McReynold’s in the early 80’s. 

7. Gentle On My Mind (background vocals by Teddy Gentry and Suzanne Cox) – Written and recorded by John Hartford for his 1967 album Earthwords & Music. It was popularized by Glen Campbell as the title track of his GRAMMY Award-winning 1967 Capitol Records album.

8. All Alone Am I – Originally written by Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis for the film The Island of the Brave, the song was later given English lyrics by Arthur Altman and popularized by Brenda Lee as the title track of her 1962 album.

9. Poison Love (background vocals by Dan Tyminski and Jamey Johnson) – Written by Elmer Laird. Originally recorded by Bill Monroe as the b-side to his “On the Old Kentucky Shore” single released in 1951.

10. You Don’t Know Me – Written by Cindy Walker & Eddy Arnold. Originally recorded by Arnold in 1955 as a single, it was later popularized by Ray Charles on his 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.

Alison Krauss effortlessly bridges the gap between roots music and genres such as pop, rock, country and classical. She has released 13 albums and has sold more than 12 million records to date. With 27 wins, she is the most awarded female artist in GRAMMY history. She has received a multitude of other honors, including nine Country Music Association awards and 14 International Bluegrass Music Association awards. Alison has also contributed songs to numerous films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain.

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