Liverpool Arts: Review: Alison Krauss, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

WITH her easy Southern charm and winsome blonde looks, Alison Krauss makes a perfect poster girl for the alternative country scene.

Now in her early 40s, Krauss’s 26-year career has seen her grow far from her bluegrass roots to the point where touts are eagerly selling tickets outside a sold-out Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

It’s not hard to see why Krauss inspires such devotion and acclaim (she has won an incredible 26 Grammy Awards). Her voice is an exquisite thing of beauty and the backing she receives from her superb band Union Station is often simply breathtaking, so much so that Krauss frequently steps back from the mic to let them have the spotlight.

Guitarist Dan Tyminski and dobro player Jerry Douglas both get their moments on centre stage, with Douglas’s dizzying fretwork on a Paul Simon and Chick Corea-inspired instrumental is one of the night’s undoubted highlights.

Despite her willingness to play her fiddle and be one of the boys, Krauss is the undoubted star of a show which tends to concentrate on the slower- paced and more tragic songs from her back catalogue (a fact she amusingly alludes to when she lists the various troubles that befall the unlucky Wild Bill Jones on the song of the same name).

Krauss’s choice of material, from her tender covering of The Foundations’ Baby Now That I’ve Found You to a lovely reading of Richard Thompson’s Dimming of the Day, all show the range of her remarkable vocals but her version of Keith Whitely’s When You Say Nothing At All sadly cannot escape the depressing spectre of Ronan Keating.

Judging by the reaction to each song, Krauss’s long term followers and newer fans attracted by her collaboration with Robert Plant and her film work with Cohen Brothers (a beautiful a cappella version of Down To The River To Pray is a lovely highlight), are more than satisfied but as good as Krauss and her band are, there’s a nagging feeling that they are rather going through the motions during what is an incredibly slick performance.

As Tyminski (who was George Clooney’s voice double in O Brother, Where Art Thou) launches into I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow for probably the umpteenth time of his career, one can’t help thinking that Krauss should be stretching and challenging both herself and her band to a greater extent.

Jamie Bowman