Award-winning Roots Musician Alison Brown Comes To The Orpheum

Grammy and Emmy winning artist Alison Brown and her touring quintet will perform at the Chatham Orpheum Theater on April 24 at 7 p.m., the latest concert in the Exit 11: Live at the Orpheum series presented by the Cape Symphony. 

Brown is a world-renowned roots musician, a five-string banjo player with 12 solo albums to her credit. She was the recipient of the 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame’s Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum honor, an award recognizing outstanding women in the music industry. Most recently, she released an album of duets with Steve Martin, “Safe, Sensible, and Sane,” that debuted at number one on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. The music video for their song “New Cluck Old Hen” was released this past Friday.

Brown said she is looking forward to the event at the Orpheum.

 “I'm bringing the band up for the show and I'm really super excited about it,” said Brown. “It's my usual touring quintet and we're going to be playing music from all my records, newest records and some stuff from the record Steve Martin and I put out in the fall as well.”

The album with Martin features many popular artists. Jackson Brown, Della Mae, Vince Gill, Jason Mraz, Indigo Girls, Tim O’Brien, and Aoife O’Donovan all contributed to the record. The positive recognition has been something Brown said she appreciates.

 “It's great. I mean, all artists need positive affirmation and I'm always super grateful when the music that we make connects with people,” said Brown. “It's pretty fantastic getting to collaborate with somebody like Steve Martin. Of course, it's an incredible privilege, too.”

Brown’s touring quintet is made up of John Ragusa on flute, Jody Nardone on piano, Garry West on bass and Bryan Brock on drums. Brown noted that they get the opportunity to play with each other a couple of weekends each month. The group’s consistency across time is something that makes the band feel like family, Brown said.

 “When you're on stage with people, there has to be a big element of trust that everybody has each other's back,” said Brown. “I think that when you play with people that you've played with for a long time, you can really be comfortable because you have been through so much together and you really know that the guys are there for you, so it makes it easier to go out on a little bit and take some chances, whereas if you were just playing with the band you've never played with before, you wouldn't necessarily take those chances.”

Throughout her career Brown has made a habit of blending genres to synthesize something new. In her most recent solo album, 2023’s “On Banjo,” Brown wrote a Brazilian Choro, classical-influenced pieces, and banjo and fiddle duets. Across the course of her catalog she has incorporated jazz, folk, pop, and even Latin into her music. The merging of standards and sensibilities is something Brown said she has gravitated towards throughout her career.

 “It's something that happened very naturally for me. I always found that writing a straight-ahead-like bluegrass banjo tune is the hardest thing for me to do — I think maybe because Earl Scruggs and so many people have covered that ground so well,” she said. “When I started to write my own music, I just found that it incorporated all kinds of different influences. As a musician, in a way, it's like whatever you've been listening to that's kind of in your aural environment kind of seeps into your music.”

Brown’s environment, she would say, played a big factor in contributing to her eventual sound.

 “I grew up in Southern California playing bluegrass, but my dad was a big jazz fan, so he always had Joe Pass records on in the background. And in California, bluegrass music is much more wide open. Like in a Southern California bluegrass band, back when I was growing up, people would play an Eagles song next to a Stanley Brothers song. There was a real blending of modern and historical.”

Brown, who took to the banjo after hearing an Earl Scruggs album, said it’s hard not to reflect on her career and her art after being recognized by the Country Music Hall of Fame.

 “I started off, you know…the daughter of two lawyers, and they really wanted me to go to medical school. Instead, I went to business school. I was an investment banker for a while. And I think about it all the time,” said Brown. “I definitely have taken the road less traveled. And there are a lot of challenges to doing that. So that once something like that happens and you get recognized by the Country Music Hall of Fame and get an honor that connects you to the god of the banjo, at least in my world, Earl Scruggs, it's just, it's an incredible pinch me moment.”

To purchase tickets for the event, visit chathamorpheum.org. To learn more about Brown, visit alisonbrown.com.