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7:30 PM SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 2018 PAVILION
TOMMY EMMANUEL †
–Intermission–
ALISON KRAUSS
† Ravinia debut
ALISON KRAUSS
Born in Decatur, IL, Alison Krauss first got into
music through classical violin lessons at age 5,
but soon became enamored of bluegrass fiddling
and quickly began winning contests. She made
her first contribution to an album early in her
teens, but by age 16 she had already earned her
own recording contract with the Rounder label
and released her debut Too Late to Cry. After Two
Highways (1989), her first album with backing
band Union Station, was nominated for the Best
Bluegrass Album Grammy, Krauss captured the
award with her two subsequent albums, I’ve Got
That Old Feeling (1990) and Every Time You Say
Goodbye (1992), and made her first foray onto
Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. It was
her 10-year retrospective Now That I’ve Found
You: A Collection that propelled her to stardom,
scaling the Country chart to number two and
breaking into the Billboard 200 chart at number
13, achieving double-platinum sales. She was
subsequently nominated for her first four CMA
Awards, including Female Vocalist of the Year,
and won all of them. Krauss and Union Station
followed up with So Long, So Wrong in 1997,
continuing their Grammy-winning streak. The
Union Station lineup was bolstered by the addi-
tion of dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas as Krauss
and the group recorded for the O Brother, Where
Art Thou? soundtrack, together also cutting the
gold albums New Favorite (2001) and Lonely
Runs Both Ways (2004) into their catalogue. Af-
ter Krauss’s award-winning collaboration with
Robert Plant, Raising Sand, the group reunited
in 2011 for the top-five hit Paper Airplane , which
earned Krauss her 27th Grammy Award, making
her the most awarded singer in Grammy history.
Last year’s Windy City, her first solo album in
nearly two decades, comprised 10 covers of clas-
sic songs from Brenda Lee, Glen Campbell, Wil-
lie Nelson, The Osbourne Brothers, and more.
Alison Krauss is making her fifth appearance at
Ravinia, having taken the stage with Union Sta-
tion three times dating back to 1996 and with
Robert Plant in 2008.
TOMMY EMMANUEL
Tommy Emmanuel picked up his first guitar at
the age of 4, and two years later he was working
professionally—with Tommy and his brother
Phil quickly picking up impressive six-string
skills, a complete family guitar band was quick-
ly formed and began touring across their native
Australia. From high school onward, Emmanuel
busied himself working as both a session musi-
cian, recording with the likes of Air Supply and
Men atWork, and amember of a variety of bands,
including several years with the hit rock group
Dragon. But despite his success with that group,
Emmanuel wanted to do more than tour a single
setlist for weeks at a time, so in the late ’80s he
began playing solo gigs, often improvising to the
mood of the room. He also began recording his
own albums, starting with 1987’s Up From Down
Under and gaining steam through the early ’9os
with Determination, which won him his first
solo ARIA Award from the Australian recording
academy as well as an APRA Award for its jazzy
track “Stevie’s Blues.” Emmanuel joined the ros-
ter of Columbia Records as a result, following up
in 1993 with The Journey, his first top-10 record
in Australia and another ARIA winner. He also
received ARIA nominations for his next three
albums: Terra Firma, featuring his brother Phil;
Classical Gas, another top-10 hit, featuring the
Australian Philharmonic Orchestra; and Can’t
Get Enough. It was after these discs that he got
the opportunity of a lifetime—to play alongside
Eric Clapton, Doc Watson, John Denver, and
his greatest childhood influence, Chet Atkins,
on what would be the latter’s final recording
project, 1997’s The Day Finger Pickers Took Over
the World. Two years later, Atkins bestowed
Emmanuel a personal honor, naming him one
of four artists he considered a “certified guitar
player.” Emmanuel has since recorded over a
dozen albums, earning two Grammy nomina-
tions along the way and most recently releasing
Accomplice One, which features such guests as
Jason Isbell, Mark Knopfler, Suzy Bogguss, and
Jake Shimabukuro. Tommy Emmanuel is mak-
ing his Ravinia debut.
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2018 104