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It could be said that Alison Krauss has one of the most beloved and celebrated voices in music history. Whether she's singing bluegrass or country or pop, it seems the word most often used to describe the singer's stunning soprano is "angelic." From her work with Union Station to her collaborations with everyone from Robert Plant to Dolly Parton to James Taylor and so many more, Krauss has been blowing listeners away (and bringing them to tears) ever since she scored a record deal at the age of 14 as a fiddle prodigy...and today, July 23, she turns 55.
Krauss was born in 1971 in Champaign, Ill., according to Billboard, where her mother encouraged her to start playing music early on.
"Mom suggested I take fiddle lessons when I was in kindergarten," Krauss recalled. "Mom played banjo and guitar, and when I started on the instrument, we used to play waltzes together at home that I'd have to play in fiddle contests. She just wanted me to practice so I'd do as well as I could."
Krauss' older brother, Viktor, was equally musical. It was an eventual collaboration between the talented siblings — a cover of Plant's solo hit "Big Log" — that led to Krauss and Plant making two albums together, the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning Raising Sand (2007) and Raise the Roof (2011).
In a 2024 interview with NPR, Plant said he was a fan of Krauss long before they started making music together.
"I loved Alison's voice from a long, long way away on the Welsh borders, where I used to hear her on the British radio, and I really liked the idea of putting myself in a position to be exposed to a totally different process and a different kind of music and a beautiful voice," he explained.
The Grammy Krauss won with Plant represent just a fraction of the awards Krauss has been honored with over the course of her career: With 27 Grammy wins overall as a performer and producer, she held the record for winning more Grammys than any other woman in history (until Beyoncé broke it).
Krauss is no stranger to the Academy Awards, either, as two of the songs she sang on the Cold Mountain soundtrack were nominated for Oscars. She also famously contributed to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, among many others.
While Krauss isn't known as a songwriter, she is renowned for her ability to curate the perfect collection of songs for an album, a process she called "probably her favorite thing" in a 2025 interview with ELLE.
"It's so exciting when you find a song that works for the band," Krauss explained.
"For a lot of songwriters, the writing is a tough process; it’s an emotional process. It’s heavy. For me, when I find something it's only joy," she continued. "I didn’t have to go through the terrible thing they went through. It’s almost like when I find one, there's an urgency to get to sing it, or to hear the guys sing it and play it. And sometimes you have a song that has been sitting around for years; they just haven’t found a place yet with the other tunes that you find. And you have to find, for me, a first song that starts a whole experience."
Four decades after she first launched her impressive career, Krauss is still racking up the awards. Just this month, Alison Krauss & Union Station were nominated for two IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards for Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, according to Billboard. In 2025, the group released Arcadia, their first album in 14 years.
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