This story is part of Illinois Student Newsroom’s series: Champaign’s Honorary Streets: the Stories Behind the Signs.
CHAMPAIGN — Alison Krauss, the 27-time Grammy-Award-winning vocalist and fiddle player who grew up in Champaign, played the hallowed Grand Ole Opry at the age of 17. She went on to become one of the youngest artists inducted into the radio show.
In 2015, a portion of West Hill Street in Champaign, between Elm and Prairie streets, was designated “Honorary Alison Krauss Way.”
Viktor Krauss, Alison’s brother and collaborator, said the family’s house was never quiet when they were growing up. Their father worked with the Krannert Center on opera productions. Their mother was a banjoist.
Viktor, a jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist, listened to Oscar Peterson and Led Zeppelin records. He said his sister was inspired by bluegrass.
“There was a lot of Tony Rice records,” Viktor Krauss said. “There was also a band called New Grass Revival.” He said that after Alison was introduced to bluegrass she trained for fiddle competitions in the Champaign County Fair.
In 1985, as a 14-year-old, Alison signed with Rounder Records.
“There were two people that were partners in the label who had heard her in different contexts. One said, ‘Oh yes, you got to hear this fiddler.’ [The other said,] ‘Oh yes, you got to hear this singer,’” Viktor Krauss said. “And it turned out to be the same person.”
He said Alison’s ability to recall and repurpose melodies from years past helped make her a powerful songwriter. Rick Sadowski, a producer and audio engineer, recorded Krauss when she was 15. He said she has a natural ear for composition.
“She’s no dummy. She understood what she wanted, even at that young age,” Sadowski said. “I never won an argument with Alison [in the studio].”
Sadowski was introduced to Krauss by her guitar player Lonnie Meeker around the time of her first record deal with Rounder.
“I didn’t know Allison Krauss from squat when she came in that first day that we met,” Sadowski said. “When she struck that first bow across the string and started playing, I was completely in awe. My jaw hit the ground. I’m sitting there going, ‘Ah!’”
Sadowski said as soon as she could drive, Krauss was at his studio day and night, experimenting.
“She is such an artist. She is such a perfectionist, and she is so good at what she does,” he said. “If you want to hear what an angel sounds like singing, listen to Alison Krauss.”
Sadowski said he’s honored to have been with Krauss along her journey.
“She’s the biggest thing in Nashville, and she’s just this little old girl that come over from Champaign, Illinois,” he said. “She’s not highfalutin, she’s as honest as day is long.”
Krauss has collaborated with legends like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Emmylou Harris and Mavis Staples. In 2007, she and former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant released the album “Raising Sand.” It won five Grammys, including Album of the Year.
She returns to Champaign this fall for a Sept. 13 hometown show at State Farm Center, touring behind “Arcadia,” Union Station’s first album in 14 years.