Allison Moorer Interview
C: That clever concept betrays the fact that you are a very intellectual lady.
A: Oh yeah, right.
C: Well, you must be to come up with such a clever concept.A: Actually I can't take all the credit for it. It was my idea but I didn't realise...I had already written a song called Mocking Bird and I thought maybe that'll be my contribution to the girl record and then I went "hey, that'd be perfect" but it took a minute for me to actually get it.
C: It just sums it up so perfectly doesn't it?
A: I thought so, I thought it did but it wasn't like I had it planned. Intellectual I don't know it was just lucky.
C: How did you make the selection of songs that you were going to cover, that must have been a challenge in itself?
A: Going in I thought "This'll be easy." I sort of...probably not what you'd call an intellectual but maybe a little bit obsessive impulsive and somewhat of a completist so when I started researching…y'know I think at one point I had a list of 35 songs and I knew I had to get it down to a manageable amount cause there was no way I was going to cut 35 songs. But y'know it was really hard to whittle it down, it just took me going through them and sitting down with the guitar and playing them and figuring out what I could contribute musically or y'know where I could take it.
C: A tall order...
A: The criteria was; what's the strongest lyrically, what's the strongest melodically, what can I not leave out as far as some of the artists who were so influential, like OK, I can’t do this records without a Joni Mitchell song, it would just be a crime, absolutely no way could I do a record of covers, y’know, by fellow female singer-songwriters without a Joni Mitchell, that would be stupid. So there were some of those like Joni Mitchell had to be on it, for me Nina Simone had to be on it, who influenced me as well, y’know, Patti Smith…at one point PJ Harvey was on the list, who I love, but then in my process of elimination I was like..erm without Patti Smith there is no PJ Harvey, so that’s my answer there. I couldn’t cut everything and I kinda went about it like that and also what suited me, what meant something to my lyrically.
C: And suited your voice as well, I guess?
A: And what can I bring that’s going to contribute something to this, that’s gonna make it maybe not necessarily different but…just a little bit of a different take or whatever.
C: So these are the sort of women who have inspired you?
A: Yeah, I did a version of Ring Of Fire, Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell, Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith, a great song called Go Leave, a beautiful, just devastating song, let’s see, a Gillian Welch song, one of my sister’s songs, my sister Shelby Lynne, I cut one of her songs, I mean how could I not include her?
C: It would be family insult!
A: Yeah, never could I say that she hasn’t been influential to me. A Julie Miller, she’s just brilliant, I also did that today; Orphan Train, it’s a rally really…I mean I can say this cause they’re not my songs, but there are some great songs and I am just so thrilled to have to…y’know it’s a different process because I’ve never done it before, I’ve never, in fact to date I’ve recorded maybe just one or two covers on my albums. So sort of go through that song selection process was a big deal and make it work.
C: A complex selection process…
A: It took a while, probably took me y’know six months to really...to make the finally selections. And it’s funny because what I didn’t include is really scary like I had a Carole King song on the list that I didn’t include, I had a Carly Simon song on the list that I ended up taking off. Y’know, it was also what group of songs made up the best record.
C: Yeah, that beginning, middle and end, it’s got to be a journey that you take someone through. This sounds wonderfully interesting, when’s it out?
A: We’re going to hope for January [2008], that’s what we’re hoping for.
C: And are you going to be touring then as well?
A: Yeah, Steve and I are gonna do a tour together, it’ll be a solo acoustic tour, because his new record is pretty folky and we wanted to do it just us and I’ll open the shows and we’ll also do some stuff together and make it a proper show. We’re start that in January over here in the UK and then we’ll take it to the States and I’ll sure we’ll be going for a while [laughs]
C: Sounds like it, that’s next year taken care of! [laughs] So why did you particularly choose female song-writers? Is this your tribute to the iconic women in the industry?
A: I wanted to get another record done. I have about, y’know, probably half or a little better of my next album written. But to tell you the truth, I was a bit sick of myself, at the moment. And y’know I’d done, written and recorded five albums in seven or eight years and was a little bit wiped out, a little bit burned out and honestly just a little sick of myself and wanted to sing someone…I just wanted to not necessarily sit back and take a break but I just wanted to sing without having to worry about ‘oh, is this good enough’ y’know?
Continued