Allison Moorer Interview
C: Your set went down really well, this is your first appearance at Cambridge Folk Festival but is it your first performance in the UK?
A: No I've been over several times but this is my first Cambridge. I truly have been waiting to get an opportunity to play it.
C: Have you? It's a great festival, so iconic.
A: It is, it is. It's been around a long time and it's known for quality, I'm just happy to have been asked.
C: How does it compare to venues you'd play in the USA?
A: Y'know, it's pretty comparable to how I do it in the States. I play clubs in the States, or small listening rooms, y'know, festivals in the summer time when you can get booked on 'em but it's about the same. I've been coming over to the UK since my first record came out so I've developed things but it's parrallelly, if that's a word, I've just woken up from a nap, I'm not sure if it is [laughs] But y'know I've really tried hard to pay attention over here, come over with every record and at least make an appearance or do press or something because I don't want to loose y'know, all the....I've worked hard at keeping things going over here so I hope I don't ever have to let go of that.
C: For international recording artists, like yourself, it must be very hard to spin all the plates at once.
A: It can be. It's important to have...I've been lucky enough to work with great people over here. From the beginning they've just been really...y'know it's sort of positioning me in the right places and I've worked with Richard Wooton, and with Will McCarthy. At this point it's really like a family yknow.
C: That's so nice.
A: It's just nice y'know, I really like travelling in the UK, the continent as well any time y'know, and Steve [Earle] is the same, any time that we can come over that makes sense, we do ‘cause we liked it.
C: It's a nice break as well...
A: It's not that it's not work, it is, but…
C: It's always nice if you can combine it, though, isn't it?
A: We have done...sort of...the y'know 'Ok where do you want to go next'. We'll say "Oh I want to go wherever" and you'll say "well let's talk to Paul [Allison and Steve's booking agent], see if he can book some gigs" and we'll go play, hang out for a while and it doesn't really cost us anything.
C: One of the benefits though isn't it?
A: It's a beautiful beautiful thing, we have great life. It's a bit of a challenge a times like, y'know tonight after Steve's played we'll drive back to Heathrow to get on the plane early in the morning tomorrow to show up in Ireland and play another festival and then back to Heathrow tomorrow night and then fly out and go back to the States on Sunday. The following weekend we're in Colorado so it's a lot of hopping around but...we're ol' pros at it now [laughs].
C: With all that travelling you must have some remedies for jet-lag?
A: No, I think the best thing to do is to not try to turn around, y'know if you can sleep when you get sleepy and just…we don't have a normal schedule, when I'm not working I'm a pretty early riser but I tend to...y'know, jetlag has never really gotten me, I can adapt pretty easily.
C: Is New York still your home now?
A: Pretty much, we do have a place in Tennessee right outside Nashville and we're basing out of there mostly right now because Steve's father's been ill and they're there so we're trying to hang there more. But we do like to spend as much time in New York as we can.
C: I've never been myself but I've heard it’s a nice city, especially for the shopping.
A: Oh you'd love it! Lot's of good shopping so much so that it's a bit over-whelming.
C: I hear you've got a new record out in the New Year?
A: Yeah, I just finished it, it's called Mocking Bird and its an album of songs all written by female singer-songwriters so it's a cover record, except for one song which I wrote because my manager reminded me that I too am a female singer-songwriter and I said "Oh yeah, you're right!" so I wrote something for it. I'm really excited about it, it turned out really well. Buddy Miller produced it and [there are] great songs on it.
C: Mocking Bird? That's so fitting because they're imitators aren't they?
A: They are but I look at it as a bird that sing other birds songs, I'm happy to do that.
Continued