She has begun participating in different talent contests since 1979. Two years later, when she was just ten years old, she made her own music band. In the 1983 she got a win in the State Fiddle Championship in Illinois. Afterwards, the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest.

In the 1985 she recorded her song along with Jim Holies, Bruce Weiss and her brother. They released their first album, which was titled “Different Strokes”. It was an independent project, which was located on the Fiddle Tunes label. It was a very good experience for her and the next year she signed a deal with Rounder Records. She released her own debut album in the 1987, it was titled “Two Highways Too Late to Cry” and was pretty successful.

Since that time she made her appearance as a member of the “Union Station” band along with Jeff White, Alison Brown, and Viktor Krauss. In the 1989 her album was nominated for the Grammy in the category of the Best Bluegrass Recording. The next year, her new album “I've Got That Old Feeling” finally win this award. In the middle of 1999 she released another album “Forget About It”. Her songs “” and “Now That I've Found You with So Long, So Wrong” were very popular in the 90s.

In the 2000 she took a part with her band with a soundtrack for the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. They went for a tour and got a huge level of fame. Afterwards the band released new album “New Favourite”, which was successful too. Later they also released a live album in the 2004. She had a collaboration with Robert Plant and in the 2007 she released her own project “Raising Sand”.

Later in the 2011, along with her band mates, she released “Paper Airplane” as the Union Station own project, which was produced by all band members. Alison released a few songs like “Lonely Runs Both Ways” and “A Hundred Miles or More”. She also was involved with work for few official soundtracks for a couple of movies and appeared on some charity events.

Alison was married to her longtime boyfriend Pat Bergeson. They tied their married knot in the 1997. Their marriage was pretty short and in the 2001 they got to divorce. Alison and her husband have a son, Sam, who was born in the July of the1999. She has managed to hide the details of having a boyfriend from her fans. Her net worth is about 16 million dollars.