Alison Brown Simple Pleasures LP

Unavailable on all formats since the early 2000s, Alison Brown's Grammy-nominated debut album Simple Pleasures was a leap forward for Scruggs-rooted banjo playing when it was first released in 1990. This led to her immediate recognition as a banjo pioneer and to her win in 1991 of the Banjo Player of the Year award from the International Bluegrass Music Association (the first female to win an Instrumentalist of the Year award).

The album was produced in 1989 by acoustic music icon and frequent Jerry Garcia cohort David Grisman (architect of "Dawg Music," the jazz-influenced breakout fringe of the bluegrass genre) and recorded with a cast of all-star musicians at Dawg Studio in Marin, CA. Players on the sessions included Alison Krauss (fiddle), David Grisman (mandolin), Mike Marshall (guitar, fiddle, mandolin), Matt Eakle (flute), Joe Craven (percussion) and Jim Kerwin (bass). The album's 12 tunes were all written by Alison and include the first recorded versions of some of her most well-known compositions, including "Mambo Banjo," "Leaving Cottondale," and "Weetabix."

For the 2024 reissue, the original 8-track, 1" multitrack tapes were transferred at a resolution of 192kHz/36-bit, and remixed and mastered by Matt Coles at Compass Sound Studio in Nashville. The Simple Pleasures reissue features liner notes from Mike Marshall, recording engineer Dave Dennison, and Alison.

Originally released on Vanguard Records in 1990, Simple Pleasures earned extensive critical praise both for Alison's compositions as well as her instrumental prowess and received a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. In his liner notes for the reissue, Mike Marshall wrote: "It is SO fun to revisit this first album of Alison's and to remember how she put her own stamp on the acoustic music scene back in the early 90s both as a composer and monster instrumentalist. It was refreshing and very much needed to have a woman showing us guys what was what and, in the process, paving the way for the next generation of virtuoso female bluegrass pickers."

One of the most multi-faceted minds in roots music, Alison Brown is a GRAMMY-winning musician, GRAMMY-nominated producer, and co-founder of Compass Records Group. She is the recipient of the USA Artists Fellowship in Music and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association. A pioneer among women in the music industry, Alison was the first female to win an Instrumentalist of the Year award from the International Bluegrass Music Association; in 2019, she became the first female 5-string banjoist to be inducted into the American Banjo Museum's Hall of Fame. Alison serves as Vice President of the Board of Governors of the Recording Academy, on the advisory board of the Salt Lick Incubator and the Earl Scruggs Center, and as co-chair of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize. Over the course of her career, she has continued to break down barriers for the 5-string banjo through both her solo discography and her live performances with the Alison Brown Quintet, as well as frequent collaborations with actor/comedian/banjoist Steve Martin, The Indigo Girls, and others. Alison's 2023 release, On Banjo, received critical acclaim for charting new territory for the 5-string banjo and a Best Album of the Year nod from AllMusic.

Her all-instrumental debut instantly earned respect among progressive acoustic music fans. Brown weaves cello, flute and congas into her hybrid string sound, and she maintains an innate elegance amid the tricky arranging.