Alison Self

Alison was born and raised in Petersburg, VA in a working-class family that was pretty void of musical talent. Alison isn't aware of any musicians in her family, she thinks her grandpa looked at a guitar once, but swears that she has been singing since she learned to talk and started playing publicly around 2006. Alison plays a mix of honky tonk and old-time country on the guitar currently, although she played ukulele for her first handful of years performing. Her influences range from Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells to Roger Miller and Bessie Smith. Alison spent about 10 years based out of Richmond, Virginia where she was described as Richmond’s chanteuse “with a huge voice unlike any other female singer in Richmond” and until the end of her time living in the region (2015), was a well-known musician who also was a booker, had side projects, and toured the region. Alison traveled west in 2015, cruising in a ‘96 Oldsmobile with no working windows. Alison had stints in Southwest VA then Nashville TN, until her car broke down outside of Denver. She played some shows and worked for a few months, decided it was time to go and drunkenly bought a $20 plane ticket to Austin TX. Figuring she had nothing to lose she sold her car for $200 and got rid of mostly everything she had carried with her and made the move. Austin was home for Alison for the past two years until she decided to uproot once again and make the move to Portland OR back in October 2018. Alison was diagnosed with colon cancer a few months after arriving in Portland, she still continued to play shows when she was able, and after surgery and chemo was officially cancer free by June 2019. Traveling and restlessness have been strong themes in Alison’s songs, which are influenced strongly by her 20’s spent hitch hiking and hopping a few freight trains here and there. Simply put, Alison writes from lived experiences.