- Alison Brown
Infobox Musical artist
Name = Alison Brown
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Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
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Born = birth date and age|1962|8|7|mf=yHartford, Connecticut ,United States
Instrument =Banjo
Genre = Bluegrass,Americana ,jazz
Occupation =Musician
Years_active =
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URL = [http://www.alisonbrown.net/ www.alisonbrown.net]Alison Brown (born August 7, 1962) is an American
banjo player andguitarist known for a soft nylon-string banjo sound.Biography
Born in
Hartford, Connecticut , Brown learned to playguitar at eight and banjo at ten. When she was twelve, she met fiddlerStuart Duncan . In the summer of 1978, Brown traveled across the country with Duncan and his father, playing festivals and contests. She won first place at the Canadian National Banjo Championship, which helped her land a one-night gig at theGrand Ole Opry .In 1980, Brown went to
Harvard College , where she studied history and literature. After graduating from Harvard, she earned anMBA fromUCLA . Brown worked for two years withSmith Barney inSan Francisco , and then took a break to pursue her music interests.In 1987,
Alison Krauss asked Brown to join her band, Union Station. Brown spent three years with Krauss. In 1990, she moved toTennessee , and was named International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year in 1991.In 1992, Brown became the band leader for
Michelle Shocked . This experience led Brown to merge bluegrass withjazz and folk idioms, in a manner similar to those ofBéla Fleck andDavid Grisman .In the early 1990s, Brown and her husband, bass player Garry West, started their own record label, Small World Music. This company eventually led to the launch of
Compass Records in 1995."
Stolen Moments ", 2005, in Brown’s estimation, is her most musically successful record to date. "For the first time, I feel like I’ve created a true hybrid sound that suggests its influences – bluegrass, jazz, celtic music – but when taken as a whole isn’t any one of these things." – Brown's words about the album on the group's official webpage.Her last album, "
Evergreen ", is a 8 song collection, and contains some of the band's favorite tunes from their Winter's Eve holiday program.Albums
*"Simple Pleasures" (1990)
*"Twilight Motel" (1992)
*"Look Left" (1994)
*"Quartet" (1996)
*"Out of the Blue" (1998)
*"Fair Weather" (2000)
*"Replay" (2002)
*"Stolen Moments" (2005)
*"Evergreen" (2008)External links
* [http://www.alisonbrown.net Official website]
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