KRAUSS COLLECTS CLASSICS FOR CAPITOL DEBUT

After releasing more than a dozen albums for Rounder, Alison Krauss is moving over to Capitol Records, which will release her debut for the label, Windy City on 2/ 17. It is her first album without her band Union Station since 2007 Album of the Year Grammy winner Raising Sand with Robert Plant.

Krauss, whose biggest single was a cover of The Foundations’ “Baby Now That I’ve Found You,” interprets 10 classic songs on the new album, among them the Brenda Lee hit written by Pierre Havet, Jean Renard and Carl Sigman, “Losing You,” Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared For You” and John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind.”

Rather than select songs then hire a producer, Krauss changed her m.o. and first picked the producer, Buddy Cannon. She started the project with an emphasis on songs older that she is, a policy that was soon relaxed to include mostly songs of heartache.

“It doesn’t sound weak,” says Krauss, a 27-time Grammy winner. “It doesn’t have a pitiful part to it, where so many sad songs do. But these don’t. And I love that about it. I love that there’s strength underneath there. That whatever those stories are, they didn’t destroy—the person made it right through it. I love that.”

Precisely why it’s named Windy City, though, we have no idea. She explains the record in the promo video.

The song list for Windy City:

“Losing You” (Written by Pierre Havet, Jean Renard & Carl Sigman).

“It’s Goodbye And So Long To You” (Raymond Couture & Harold J. Breau)

“Windy City” (Pete Goble & Bobby Osborne)

“I Never Cared For You” (Willie Nelson)

“River In The Rain” (Roger Miller)

“Dream Of Me” (Buddy Cannon, Jimmy Darrell & Raleigh Squires)

“Gentle On My Mind” (John Hartford)

“All Alone Am I” (Manos Hadjidakis; Arthur Altman)

“Poison Love” (Elmer Laird)

“You Don’t Know Me” (Cindy Walker & Eddy Arnold)