The lead track on Alison Krauss & Union Station album “Arcadia” is “Looks Like the End of the Road,” but it’s more of a new beginning for the band.

“Arcadia” is the first album in 14 years by AKUS, which features Leavittsburg native Jerry Douglas on dobro. The band comes to Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica in Cleveland on Sunday as it nears the end of an 80-date tour, but another album and tour already are planned for 2026.

“I love the band the way it is right now,” Douglas said last week during a phone interview before a show in Virginia Beach. “It’s the greatest, better than it’s ever been, and it’s more fun. We’re doing a lot of stuff off the new record and trying to give everybody the songs they want to hear. So we have a couple of medleys that have a lot of the songs that we would otherwise have to throw out to make time.”

In the decade plus between tours, Krauss released a solo album and did two albums and tours with Robert Plant. Douglas recorded and toured with The Earls of Leicester and the Jerry Douglas Band. He led multiple “Transatlantic Sessions” tours in the UK featuring folk, country and bluegrass musicians from both sides of the pond. He produced two Grammy-winning bluegrass albums by Molly Tuttle (bringing his Grammy win total to 16) and did recording sessions for several hundred albums by acts spanning multiple genres. Douglas guessed that his dobro playing can be heard on more than 2,400 records since he graduated from LaBrae High School in 1975.

He can be heard on tracks by just about every country and bluegrass artist imaginable (except for Taylor Swift) as well as Phish, James Taylor, Mumford & Sons, Billy Joel and Johnny Mathis.

Douglas described himself as a chameleon, adapting to any and all musical environments. He clearly didn’t need an AKUS reunion to keep busy, but the band fills a unique niche that none of his other ventures can match.

“I got a voice in front of me that no one else has,” he said. “Alison’s just a phenomenon. And this is home. It feels like home to me … I would say the biggest piece of my pie is devoted to this. This is what I really love to do. This is a magic act. I hear things that I don’t hear anybody else ever do in this band. That’s what keeps me coming back, just the educational part of it. But the music is so beautiful. It’s right in my wheelhouse. I love backing up singers, and I don’t know of a better one.”

Union Station has a slightly different lineup this time. Dan Tyminski decided to continue with his solo career, so Krauss, fiddle and lead vocals; Douglas, dobro, lap steel and vocals; Ron Block, banjo, guitar and vocals; and Barry Bales, bass and vocals, are joined by Russell Moore, guitar and vocals, from the bluegrass band IIIrd Time Out.

“With Russell, oh man, we have just this other zone we can go into, because Russell has such a high voice,” Douglas said. “If she wants to keep going up, he can go with her. It’s been amazing just to watch it all come together.”

While it’s a challenge to fit in the new songs with the old favorites, one thing the band makes time for every show is an instrumental showcase by Douglas. Some nights it’s dobro-driven versions of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” and Chick Corea’s “Spain.” Other nights it might be something else.

Earlier this year, Douglas played a different Simon song at a prestigious venue for a large television audience. He joined Mumford & Sons on stage at Radio City Music Hall for its rendition of “The Boxer” for the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” concert in February. Dozens of musicians were part of the concert, and the audience predominantly was current and former “SNL” cast members, past hosts and other celebrities.

Sitting at the end of the aisle where Douglas was with his wife, Jill, was actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

“She said when I went up on stage and he saw me up there, he turned around and looked at her and went, ‘I like’ (in his Borat voice),” Douglas said. “He gave her a Borat comment, which meant the world to her, and he couldn’t have been nicer.”

Douglas spent most of his time talking to Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, he said. He also thanked recently retired NBC news anchor Lester Holt for bringing him the news for so many years, and also talked with fellow Northeast Ohio musicians Devo, who also performed that night.

He decided a long time ago not to pass on the opportunity to interact with those whose work he admired and those who influenced him. Those encounters range from shaking hands with Prince — “It was like shaking hands with future man: no bone, no cartilage, just a life force coursing through it” — to having a 45-minute conversation with Paul McCartney.

With the exception of a show in Arizona on Nov. 1, the current tour ends on Sept. 28. Douglas recently finished producing a new album by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. He has a short run of shows with his band in November, a sold-out music festival with Del McCoury in January in Arizona and another run of Transatlantic Sessions concerts in early 2026. There are other ideas as well; it’s just a matter of which ones he can make a reality.

Everything but vocals are finished for the next AKUS album, and its release will be followed by another extensive tour.

While Douglas has played plenty shows in Northeast Ohio and the Mahoning Valley over the years — including concerts at Packard Music Hall and Powers Auditorium with AKUS and bar gigs as a teenager with his father’s bluegrass band — Sunday’s concert at Jacob’s Pavilion at Nautica will be his first show at that outdoor venue on the west bank of The Flats in Cleveland.

“I’m having a big, big old reunion with all of my neighborhood pals,” he said. “We’re all showing up there early, and I’ll be in a good mood that night.”

If you go …

WHO: Alison Krauss & Union Station and Willie Watson

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, 2014 Sycamore St., Cleveland

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $55 to $153 and are available online at axs.com.