Allison Moorer - Mockingbird
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Free Music Notes for Mockingbird
Free Music Review: Mature County Singer
Hit: 4 Stars
I've never heard Allison's music prior to listening to this album. She has a mature and pleasant country album with Mockingbird. I'm not going to analyze her lyrics, but instead say that it is a truly enjoyable album. The album reflects at once both a maturity of standing on it's own and not needing to try odd sounds, perhaps being progressive with it's content more so than style. It's less folky than I expected. I'm hopeful that it is more mainstream than alternative. So I hope you'll read alternative not as experimental or risk, but simply as new. Enjoy.Free Music Review: Mock-ery
Hit: 1 Stars
Cover albums are a risky business at best. And for the life of me I cannot think of one that has entirely worked. Tribute albums are a different thing - at least with multiple artists paying tribute to a singular artist or cause.
But a singular artist covering music that has already been recorded is always an iffy proposition - especially if the material is well known and had been popular in the day.
I'm a huge fan of Allison Moorer's disk, 'The Duel'. But not so much of 'Mockingbird'.
The entire disk is marginal. Nothing shines - even for a moment. It is very frustrating, especially because Moorer has such a great voice. The song choices and arrangements are flawed. Deeply.
I don't think the fact that all the songs are by female writers has anything to do with it. Buddy Miller's production doesn't really add a thing to the songs - and possibly detracts from it.
A 4/4 version of "Ring of Fire"? The blandest cover of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot"? And an emotionless take of Gillian Welch's "Relavator? It was really too much to take.
I don't know why I do this to myself. I'm a sucker for a cover album, or the possibility of one and they never come out well. Not at all. Ever.
Here is hoping Moorer can come back with a new disk of original material that suits her. That suits me. But this ain't it.
Free Music Review: A Weathered Young Voice Sings New, New Country
Hit: 4 Stars
I grew up with country music, and thought I had left it far behind. Too much twang, and all too familiar trailer park life themes for the first person in my family generation to get to go off to college, even at state.
Then LeAnn Rimes and other female or male new country vocalists began to catch my attention as a riff or two drifted through my daily life with friends and acquaintances.
This album from leading Grammy-nominated newcomer in new country is mostly a cover of other writer's songs. Think Ring of Fire, plus. Slower tempos and balladeering dominate, and that is not a bad thing. Slowing down some gives singer Allison Moorer and her arrangers plenty of time to vary textures and musical settings across the songs.
Sugar in my bowl reaches for USA African American soul-blues roots and roadhouse beer-and-sawdust jukebox smells in equal measure.
By the end of the disc, I found myself quite happy to have heard it right through. I suddenly realized that I truly do hope Ms. Moorer's life has not quite been as full of heartache and weariness as her basic vocal qualities sometimes seem to convey. But those qualities are part of the draw. Pour me 'nother Jack Daniel, boy. I been through some stuff in my life, now.
Free Music Review: Beautiful Intro for new fans
Hit: 4 Stars
I'd never listened to Allison Moorer before hearing Mockingbird, but this is a terrific introduction. In covering more familiar songs, Moorer has a chance to combine her slight twang with a rich, velvet voice - she comes off, in every song, strong, centered, and not a little but sultry. But there's also a little bit of harder-edged Indigo Girls in her sound - it's a unique combination that stands out in these already familiar songs. My particular favorite is "Dancing Barefoot," which, to be honest, I'd only heard from U2 before now. Other standouts are the title track and "Revelator" - though everything here sounds great.
In short, this is whiskey sipping music: Mockingbird is richer and stronger the slower you take it.
Free Music Review: I absolutely LOVED this CD. Moorer has a gorgeous, sultry voice
Hit: 5 Stars
Moorer reminds me a bit of Eva Cassidy at times, the emotional tenor of some of her music (particularly the songs she writes herself), and the fullness of her voice.
Mockingbird is a collection of covers of other people's songs, and it is just wonderful. You'd never know these were covers, she sings them in such a way that you'd think she wrote them herself, for her voice and mood. Speaking of mood, this CD is definitely more subdued than most country music on the radio, but there are still twangy guitars, etc..., that give the music a subtle country feel.
Anyway, I listen to this CD when I'm feeling a little mellow and don't mind staying that way.