| CD REVIEW (This review was also published on www.701.com) |
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| Ms. Moorer has been singing since she was a mere tot. Only four years after graduating from the University of South Alabama and working as a background vocalist, she was offered a contract with MCA Records, at the age of 25. This attractive, blue-eyed redhead has indeed applied her degree in public relations, as one look at her website will prove. She's obviously not above marketing the merchandise. Director/actor Robert Redford personally chose a collaboration between Allison Moorer and Gwil Owen (The Thieves, a.k.a. The Motherf****ers, who toured briefly with the Jeff Healey Band) to be on the soundtrack of his movie, "The Horse Whisperer". It is called "A Soft Place to Fall" (not to be confused with blues-rocker Deborah Coleman's "Soft Place to Fall") and appears on Allison's d�but CD, Alabama Song. It garnered the duo an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song in 1999. The listener is immediately drawn in by the mellow but certainly not morose "Tumbling Down", introduced by some Rhodes and piano tinkering and further filled out with a string section, electric and pedal steel guitar, in addition to the requisite rhythm section. The ensuing track, "Cold in California", with its Five Man Electrical Band rhythmic keyboard "sampling" intro and coda, tells the story of a romance lost to the change in season, drawing a parallel between the coldness of locale (Tennessee) and the coldness that sometimes reigns in the heart - very nice. Rather than put herself forward as the "leader" of the band, Ms. Moorer seems content to regard vocals as just another instrument, and in fact, the instruments are listed before the player's names - an unusual layout. The honky-tonky gem, "Ruby Jewel Was Here", is just one of the songs here utilizing a veritable treasure chest of instruments! With too many musicians to mention, it's great to see that she has included other female musicians in the mix, including Alison Presswood, Yvonne Hodges and Kim Morrison. For that matter, most of the multi-genre tracks are so fully "orchestrated" instrumentally, it seems to me they require a "fuller" vocal style to complement them, although it actually states in the liner notes that "Absolutely no vocal tuning or pitch correction [was] used in the making of this record". Ms. Moorer is pleasant enough in "sotto voce" mode, but her voice does grate a bit on certain classically overproduced tracks. My favourites were the slow and smoky little number called "No Place for a Heart", with its sensual electric guitar and unusual Rhodes work, "Going Down", a great little rocker, with multi-instrumentalist Michael Webb going full-tilt boogie on piano, and the acoustic, gypsy-like, "Dying Breed", a perfect wind-down for the CD, where Ms. Moorer's voice takes on a vague similarity to that of Cher in her early days. |
| MISS FORTUNE - ALLISON MOORER |
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