Alison Brown Quartet – June 30th – Swallow Hill

Alison Brown Quartet (click here for tickets)
Swallow Hill Music and KGNU Community Radio 88.5FM/1390AM Present
Saturday, June 30 at 8 pm

$28 Advance; $30 Day of Show. $2 discount for Swallow Hill Music members 

An internationally recognized musician with a wide-reaching and loyal fan base, banjo vitruoso Alison Brownfirst came to national prominence when she was asked by Alison Krauss to join her band Union Station in 1989. Brown had already made a name for herself prior to that by performing extensively with fiddler Stuart Duncan, and on occasional pick-up sessions with artists such as Vince Gill, Byron Berline and John Hickman.

Brown’s journey to a professional music career took a detour while she attended Harvard, studying history and literature, then UCLA, where she secured an MBA and went to work as an investment banker. After taking a hiatus to return to composing and recording music, Brown assembled the material for her solo debut, the GRAMMY nominated Simple Pleasures. A three-year stint with Alison Krauss and Union Station and a year serving as band leader for Michelle Shocked followed as did bluegrass music’s highest accolade for an instrumentalist: the International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year in 1991.

In 1995 Brown put her financial background to work, founding Compass Records with her husband Garry West. Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2009, the Nashville-based Compass Records Group is an internationally recognized label group with a catalog of over 600 roots music releases.

Her newest studio release, The Company You Keep, features the musicians she has spent most of the past 15 years performing with: John R. Burr (piano), Garry West (bass), David Grisman Quintet alum Joe Craven(fiddle/mandolin/percussion) and Larry Atamanuik (drums) alongside guests John Doyle (guitar), Stuart Duncan (fiddle) and Kenny Malone (drums) on a set of engaging, upbeat and melodic tunes, many of which were co-written by Brown and Burr.