LITTLE ROCK — Alison Krauss and band are flying again - or maybe they’re rolling down the road - these days, thanks to a paper airplane.
Or at least, the Paper Airplane album is taking them to even greater heights. In February she and her band, Union Station, won twice at the 54th annual Grammy Awards ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, boosting their career total to 13 for the band and 27 for Krauss herself.
The awards were for Best Bluegrass Album and Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical). Paper Airplane was released in April, when it debuted at No. 3 on Billboard’s Top 200 Album Chart and No. 1 on the magazine’s country, bluegrass and folk albums charts. The album was Krauss’ 15th but the band’s first in seven years, as Krauss and band members tooka break and pursued other projects, including Krauss’ Raising Sand collaboration with former Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant.
Regardless of how many awards pile up, band members are not bored or blase about the honors they accrue.
“Not yet, at least,” says Dan Tyminski, the band’s guitar and mandolin player who, along with Krauss, sings lead and harmony. “We attended this year’s Grammy Awards, and it’s always a thrill to be there. We joke that if we put all ofour awards in one room there would be 81 or 82, but as nice as that is, and it’s definitely an honor - I don’t think any of us have been changed by our winning them.
“I think we were all born to play this music; I know I was.”
Though he was born in Rutland, Vt., Tyminski jokes that he’s from “southern Vermont,” and that he grew up with parents who love to hear live music. He knew what he wanted to do with his life when he first heard J.D. Crowe and the New South in 1979.
“I was 12 years old and my brother came home from the service,” Tyminski recalls, “and the tape in his car was by Crowe and his band, which included Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice and Jerry Douglas. That was allI needed to hear to know where I was going.”
Douglas, of course, is now a part of Krauss’ band, renowned for his stellar skills on dobro and lap steel. The other members of the group are Barry Bales on acoustic bass and Ron Block on banjo and guitar. All except Block sing at times.
Tyminski, who joined Union Station in 1994, laughs at hearing he has been called “the angry singer” because of the topics of some of the songs he’s featured on, as well as for his most famous vocal to date - singing “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” along with having been the singing voice of actor George Clooney in the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
“I guess I have found myspot as the aggressive one,” Tyminski, 44, says. “And I figure I’ll be singing about my constant sorrow for a long time to come, but it’s worth it, for getting to work with George and the Coen brothers and T Bone Burnett, who were all involved with that movie, especially seeing how far outside the bluegrass genre of music that album reached. It made people come out to see live music they had not previously paid much attention to.
“We hear that all the time, and the fun part is when they then ask, ‘What else can I listen to?’”
Besides those Grammy Awards, a couple of other honors have come the way of Krauss and Union Station, with both involving a couple of musical legends. While in California for the Grammys, the band was part of the MusiCares Person of the Year tribute to Paul McCartney.
“We got to meet Sir Paul and played some of his music,” Tyminski said. “We played his ‘No More Lonely Nights,’ and he was very complimentary to everyone and made time for all the folks on stage, and the whole room consisted of people who had been influenced by his life’s work.”
The band’s other honor was being asked to “perform” on the 500th episode of The Simpsons, which meant “we got to have our take at the show’s theme song.”
Tyminski has another honor he takes great pride in: having a Martin D-28 Signature Guitar model created to honor him. The guitar is made of East Indian rosewood, ebony, Adirondack spruce and other materials.
“It’s the thing I’m most proud of,” he says. “The Martin guitar has always been a part of bluegrass music, so that was a big honor for me.”
Krauss, a working musician since she was proclaimed a fiddle prodigy at age 14, signed with Rounder Records, her home ever since. She has sold more than 12 million albums, which have won her the 27 Grammy Awards, making her the most decorated female artist and tied for second for the most awarded artist overall in the history of the Grammys. (The late Georg Solti, who conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for 22 years, won 31 Grammys.)Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas
7 p.m. Friday, Robinson
Center Music Hall, Broad
way and West Markham
Street, Little Rock
Admission: $60-$70
(800) 745-3000
ticketmaster.com
Weekend, Pages 34 on 03/22/2012