ALISON BROWN • Pushing the Boundaries of Banjo, Bluegrass & Musical Innovation

While Bluegrass along with other genres such as Jazz, Classical, and Blues seldom dominate the overall Billboard Top-20 sales charts of popular music, with the creative traction of new artists such as Michigan’s own Billy Strings and the innovative experimentation and compositional talents of Nashville’s Alison Brown, who will be appearing at The Midland Center for the Arts on Sunday, January 26^th, for a 3:00 PM performance, that landscape has considerably changed.

As one of the most multi-faceted artists on today’s roots music scene, acoustic music has never been so beautifully represented as by Alison Brown, who is a remarkably gifted banjo player, guitarist, composer, and producer. She has won and has been nominated for several Grammy Awards and is often compared to another banjo prodigy, Béla Fleck, for her unique style of playing.

Every one of Alison’s endeavors is marked by innovation, intelligence, and grace. As a banjo player she throws out the textbook when it comes to playing the instrument, resulting in  a sound that blends the rugged drive of Bluegrass with the harmonic sensibilities of Jazz and beyond.   

Alison’s 2023 release ON BANJO is a musical autobiography of sorts, showcasing her compositional talents as well as her impeccable technique on a set of tunes inspired by Bluegrass, Brazilian Choro, Latin and Classical influences.  Joining Alison on the project is an eclectic cast of guest musicians including Steve Martin, Sharon Isbin, Sierra Hull, Kronos Quartet and more.

Even more fascinating than her musical achievements is the unusual path Alison took to becoming an internationally recognized banjoist.  After completing her undergraduate studies at Harvard University and receiving an MBA from UCLA, she pursued a career in investment banking.  Missing the Bluegrass music she'd grown up playing in Southern California, after receiving an unexpected call from  Alison Krauss who was  looking for a banjo player, she made the decision to give up her Wall Street career to pursue music, touring  with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and Michelle Shocked before forming her own group, The Alison Brown Quartet, in 1993.

To date she has recorded 12 solo albums, received 4 Grammy nominations and 1 Grammy award, and In the mid 1990s, Alison co-founded the internationally recognized roots music label the Compass Records Group which Billboard Magazine has called “one of the greatest independent labels of the last decade.”   The Compass Records Group oversees a catalog of nearly 1,000 releases across multiple label imprints, including Compass Records, Red House Records, Green Linnet and Mulligan Records.  She also currently serves on the Board of the Nashville Chapter of the Recording Academy and on the adjunct faculty of Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music.

With such an impressive resume, it was an honor to talk with Alison about the future of Bluegrass music, the genesis of her tour, and her advice for up-and-coming artists in advance of her appearance at the Midland Center.

REVIEW:   Growing up in Southern California, what memories can you share about becoming engaged with music in general, and what factors drew you to the banjo?

Alison Brown: I was living in Connecticut and my family moved to Southern California when I was turning the age of twelve and my first memories were discovering Bluegrass music in Connecticut, which is almost as unusual as discovering it in California.  I was taking guitar lessons at the age of nine from a law student who was also a banjo player. He brought over an Earl Scruggs record and I fell in love with the sound of the instrument.  My parents said I could take up the guitar and learn the banjo later, so my summer project when I was age ten was to take up the banjo, but I didn’t get into the instrument really until I moved to Southern California and started playing when I hooked up with this folk group playing Bluegrass in a Bluegrass club. There was a robust vibrant scene for Bluegrass in Southern California that I didn’t expect. I thought I’d never hear the banjo again when I moved there and couldn’t be more wrong.”

REVIEW:  Were you living in Laurel Canyon to get hooked up in the scene so quickly playing clubs?

Brown: Actually, I was living in La Jolla near San Diego and was playing in different bands with Stewart Duncan, an incredible fiddle player and one of the ‘Nashville Cats’ who played with Dolly Parton, Keith Urban, George Strait, Elvis Costello, and Diana Krall.

He and I grew up together and played in different bands together and are about the same age.  I would go to L.A. on the weekends to meet him and play all the clubs that were part of that scene like The Troubadour, The Ice House, all those places.  I was definitely part of that Laurel Canyon scene, but was just there ten years later - although, it was still very much a happening scene with some great players like Byron Berline.

REVIEW: It’s fascinating that you graduated from Harvard and UCLA and became an investment banker until you got that call from Alison Krauss and quit your career on Wall Street, which is a fairly radical and life-changing move. What were the reasons you decided to make that jump and take that leap of faith?

Brown: I had been doing investment banking for three years and realized people woke up each morning who actually looked forward to refunding bonding issues, which I had been doing for cities and municipalities. I was on the public finance side of investment banking. My background was in developing bonds for municipalities and is super-dry, not as exciting as corporate finance. But there were people who thrived on it.

I realized when I would wake up wondering when I would ever get the chance to play the banjo again that I needed to take time off and start writing music. Alison needed a banjo player, so I did a weekend gig that turned into a three-year stint.  I wasn’t brave enough to make that shift totally all at once, so it happened more incrementally.

REVIEW: You also played with Michelle Shocked before forming your own group. What was that experience like and how did it inform your decision to go out on your own back in 1993?

Brown: I was writing some band oriented music and did one record playing all-original music with Alison Krauss titled Simple Pleasures that David Grisham produced. It got a Grammy nomination and I felt like the time had come to put my own group together along with tunes I’d been writing. That transition happened almost simultaneously with forming Compass Records, which I did along with my husband 30-years ago this year. I did two things in tandem - started the band and the label.

REVIEW:  Your 2023 release ‘On Banjo’ showcases so many different influences from bluegrass to classical to Latin & Brazilian, and also featured a litany of great guest musicians like Steve Martin; and most recently, with Michigan’s own Billy Strings,  Bluegrass has blown into a major musical force filling arenas. Have you noticed growing interest in popularity with Bluegrass through your own endeavors, and what do you attribute that to?

Brown:  Billy filling arenas is like the 500-year flood for Bluegrass in the sense that it generates growing popularity toward the genre, but I think it’s more realistic to look at it from the point that certain artists will capture the public imagination. Billy Strings is a good example of that. He fills arenas and stays true to his roots and is a dye-in-the-wool Bluegrass musician and its great he’s succeeding at that level. He knows the old Stanley Brothers stuff and the fact he’s filling stadiums is that it’s a Rock show but he’s a Bluegrass musician, and that’s what it takes to expand the genre. For every 10,000 fans in the arena 100 might find their way to Doc Watson or Earl Scruggs.

People interested in Billy aren’t going to necessarily be interested in Bluegrass music because that interest doesn’t always extend to other artists, but its inspiring young people to see what’s possible. I was just in the studio the other day with a young band of kids from the Berklee School of Music and I think the sky is more the limit than for people of my generation because of the example of the success levels these newer artists are achieving.

REVIEW:  With four Grammy nominations and one win and an impressive litany of honors, what approaches do you take when writing and recording new material or planning a tour to keep your sound fresh and current and engaging?

BROWN: It depends upon the project. Each has its own requirements. Right now I’m working with Steve Martin and writing a lot of songs with him, and we’re getting different guest vocalists to sing; but with my own material I’m growing into different directions and am more self-indulgent - letting my mind wander a little bit and imagine different approaches or projects for the banjo and different possibilities.

What’s next? Maybe I’ll play with a string quartet. The banjo is more mainstream than people realize. It has a lot of deep history in different forms over its 250-plus year history on these shore than people think today of the banjo, which is limited to bank robberies and chase music. I like to pull the strings forward, although playing with Steve I am learning and finding a lot of different cool things you can do with two banjos.

REVIEW:  What advice would you offer to young musicians coming up in a business that has been so radically changed by social media and Spotify? A lot of young musicians think record labels aren’t important anymore.

BROWN: I have a lot of thoughts on that topic. Labels bring a lot of institutional knowledge that an artist doesn’t have and doesn’t want to spend the mental RAM to obtain. They don’t know best practices when it comes with digital service providers, or appreciate the fact that retail is still a big part of the game, especially with niche music.  No man, or woman, is an island. If you find good partners you’re better off than doing it all by yourself.

For a lot of artists it’s hard to undo that left brain right brain thing, and not a lot of people are suited for mapping their career and making sure their music is in the right place. There’s a lot you’ve got to know to make that happen, and it comes from a different mental space to actually creating music. For those reasons there’s a lot of value in label partnerships.

As for advice to up-and-comers, I like to tell people if you’re at a point in your musical career where you’re thinking about quitting, you probably should. The industry has changed a lot and its becoming ever more difficult to create a career in music, so the best thing if you really happen is to believe you can. But if that fire isn’t in your belly you can save yourself a lot of heartache, because it’s a very competitive industry.

The most interesting aspect of the industry is karma. When two artists stand next to one another, both equally talented, why does one succeed and the other never gain ground?  No one can predict that answer and that keeps it interesting.

For tickets to Alison Brown's January 26th performance at Midland Center for the Arts click this link. Show starts at 3 PM.