Metro Pulse/Music/Allison Moorer

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What:
Allison Moorer

When:
Aug. 3, 10 p.m.

Where:
Blue Cats

Cost:
$12 in advance, $15 at the door

Allison Moorer blurs genre lines in search of honesty

by Tamar Wilner

Allison Moorer eased onto the country music scene as gently as one settles into a rocking chair. Which is not to say she didn't climb a few steps to get there; but with a single song, Moorer secured herself a comfortable future. Swooning guitars and weeping fiddles ushered her ballad "A Soft Place to Fall" onto the The Horse Whisperer's misty soundtrack. The Oscar-nominated composition (co-written with Gwil Owen) was representative of Moorer's first album, which offered up a honey-laced meditation on heartbreak. From the truckstop-jukebox lament of "Pardon Me" to the rollicking Dolly Parton-style foot-stomper "The One That Got Away (Got Away With My Heart)," 1998's Alabama Song was unafraid to display its old-fashioned sensi-bilities. At a time when singers like Shania Twain reached out to the mainstream, Moorer seemed happiest embracing her Southern roots.

Moorer's second album, The Hardest Part, found her moving away from the strictly country sound. On her latest album, Miss Fortune, Moorer again shows she won't be defined by trends, either as co-conspirator or re-actionary. The new LP, due out Aug. 6, paints with a brush as broad as Alabama Song's was fine. But instead of catering to the current pop-country craze, Moorer dips into everything from rock and folk to jazz, blues and R&B.

"I don't think we ever go in thinking, 'I don't want it to fit in anywhere,'" Moorer says. "[But] one of the things I'm happy with is how we didn't say, 'We'll make it fit in with this [kind of music].'"

Moorer has also added to the colors on her palette. Whereas at least nine of Alabama Song's 11 tracks dealt with love, mostly of the lost variety, Miss Fortune tackles a variety of joys and sorrows. Moorer addresses drinking both as social activity ("Yessirree") and self-inflicted punishment ("Dying Breed"). Drugs come into the picture too—"Dying Breed's" protagonist fires up a spoonful of heroin, while the narrator of "Up This High" claims love gives a better buzz than her old habit of "chooglin' smoke."

"I do think there is a lack of shining a light on this sort of underbelly... Everything in life is not a Pottery Barn catalog," Moorer says. "I do think that's one of the things that makes me a country artist."

Some songs clearly describe other people—like "Ruby Jewel Was Here," a jazzy Southern rock anthem to a turn-of-the-century adolescent prostitute. The origin of other songs is less certain, and Moorer won't reveal which address her own experiences. Perhaps the most affecting track, "Dying Breed" haunts the album's final moments. "I take a pint of whiskey and crack open its lid/ I drink the bottle empty just like my poor daddy did/ I take after my family/ My fate's the blood in me/ No one grows old in this household/ We are a dying breed," Moorer sighs over a violin and accordion almost Klezmer-like in their sorrow. It's a poign-ancy strengthened by Moorer's own tumultuous history.

Allison and older sister Shelby Lynne were born into a singing family in tiny Frankville, Ala-bama. Their father performed locally, and their mother taught the girls vocal harmony. (Lynne would later cultivate her own musical career, reaching critical acclaim and a Best New Artist Grammy with 2000's I Am Shelby Lynne.)

Tragedy struck when Moorer's father killed her mother, then turned the gun on himself, leaving Lynne to act as parent. As an adult, Moorer suffered the death of friend and country artist Walter Hyatt, who died in a 1996 Valujet crash in the Everglades. Benefit concerts for Hyatt's fam-ily helped land Moorer a contract with MCA Nashville, and out of a difficult past came a lyricist who can't help but linger on the dark side. Moorer addresses the pain of long-ago death in Miss Fortune's "Let Go" and takes on her parents' untimely demise in The Hardest Part's hidden track. Even the in-love-with-love Alabama Song questions "Is Heaven Good Enough for You."

Though Miss Fortune qualifies as Moorer's most sinister album, it benefits from light touches. Bluesy vocal slides on "Tumbling Down" make that tune bittersweet, not self-pitying. Rock drum beats and an ironic tone make "Hey Jezebel" spirited rather than bitter.

"I like that rock 'n' roll is coming back," comments Moorer, who says The Strokes and Wilco have recently taken up rotation on her CD player.

As for her own departure from a strict Nashville sound, Moorer says she's not too worried about her fans' response. "I think some of them will love it. Some of them will say she's not being as country... I make music for myself. If people like it, that makes it sweeter."