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''Lonely Runs Both Ways'' is the twelfth album by bluegrass music group Alison Krauss & Union Station, released November 23, 2004. The album won the band three Grammy Awards in 2006, including Best Country Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocal for the song "Restless", Best Country Instrumental Performance for "Unionhouse Branch", and Best Country Album. The song "A Living Prayer" was honored with the award for Bluegrass Recorded Song of the Year from the Gospel Music Association. - Wikipedia
Alison Krauss and Union Station have managed a trick that has evaded (or perhaps never occurred to) so many other bluegrass acts, adding a pop sheen to their music without diluting their traditional approach. Even before the O Brother soundtrack, Union Station was the top progressive bluegrass outfit. The band's impressive personnel includes dobro master Jerry Douglas, whose icy slides add heartache to songs like "Lonely," and Soggy Bottom Boy Dan Tyminski, who turns Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty" into a desperate country blues. Yet despite their advanced musical pedigrees, the players shy away from the lightning fast licks common to the genre, placing every note for maximum impact, especially when they're backing up their boss. And Krauss' ardent vocals inevitably steal the show. Her voice is warm and achingly sincere, like the smoky taste of late autumn honey, a soothing presence that turns the lead of sadness into golden drops of reassurance. She gives the plaintive "Wouldn't Be So Bad," a new song by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, the smooth sound of a classic '40s pop ballad and makes self-destruction sound almost attractive. "This Sad Song," a Krauss original co-written with Alison Brown, shows the band's more traditional side, with a killer hook played on fiddle and banjo, Tyminski's low-down lead vocal and the stellar instrumental work of the ensemble, while "A Living Prayer" gets a simple treatment with two guitars and some inspired gospel singing from Krauss.