Did any artist fall as softly from the Tony Brown stable as Allison Moorer?
Her 1998 MCA debut album Alabama Song was produced by Kenny Greenberg. Tony Brown, however, is listed as the executive producer, meaning he was likely tasked with the business and financial duties of the project more than the actual artistic and creative recording process.
The story has it that Brown attended a tribute show to Walter Hyatt at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Based upon the strength of her performance at that show, Brown offered Moorer a development deal.
Yet, despite Brown’s involvement, and a debut single featured in the Robert Redford film The Horse Whisperer, which would be nominated for a 1999 Oscar for Best Original Song, the album only peaked at #68 on the Billboard country charts.
The album’s lackluster chart success and ultimate underwhelming sales figures in no way diminished the true impact and significance of Allison Moorer’s absolute arrival as an essential artist with Alabama Song.
One can trace a direct line from Kelly Willis to Allison Moorer, two giants of alternative country and Americana. That same thread also weaves through the careers of mainstream artists like Trisha Yearwood and Miranda Lambert. The former because of their shared commitment to recording fully cohesive albums, the latter because Lambert considers Moorer her “all-time hero, No. 1 female singer-songwriter of all time.”
Revisiting Alabama Song provides ample evidence of why. It stands in line with other classic female country debuts like Sara Evans Three Chords and the Truth and Mandy Barnett’s eponymous first album.
Starting with the title track, Moorer says, “ I remember writing the first three verses at the kitchen table in our stucco house that was down a dirt road (sounds like heaven now) and playing it for Butch [her husband Doyle Primm] not too long afterwards. The chord progression borrowed heavily from “Girl from the North Country,” and “The Weight,” but I didn’t really know it nor did I know I needed to care. Butch suggested we write a bridge so we did — one that was in a key a whole step lower than the rest of the song and with some chords that have confounded many a bass player! The form is a little odd — instead of verse/verse/bridge/verse it’s verse/verse/verse/bridge/verse — a lot of folks got thrown by that at first and now that I think about it, I don’t know why we didn’t cut one of the verses so we’d get to the bridge sooner. Oh, well — I still think it’s charming in its irregularity, and luckily others who heard it thought so too. “Alabama Song,” with its tender melody, loping/easy tempo, and visual imagery became what I and most everyone else considered one of my best songs.”
“Alabama Song” was the third single from the album but it failed to even chart. Moorer said, “The very talented Morgan Lawley directed the video, shot over two nights in Hollywood. Those pants I’m wearing were made for me by Manuel (he would later remake Gram Parsons’ Nudie suit with the pot leaves and pills on it for the “Send Down An Angel” video) and the leopard print dress belonged to the stylist. That video remains one of my favorite pieces of work — somehow it’s classic.”
“A Soft Place to Fall” provided a gorgeous opportunity to feature Moorer’s rich, husky, and warm voice, one Silas House would late describe as “a powerful entity that prowls a room, raising goose bumps on the backs of arms.” The song is a bittersweet ballad about surrender and release. She performed this song live on the 1999 Academy Awards show.
The sass and sting of the break-up song “Set You Free” cuts through the threat of too much softness. I have always loved the line, “I’ll tell you a secret baby, I let go first.”
“Pardon Me” is contemporary kissing-cousin of Buck Owen’s “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache).”
Moorer’s “Long Black Train” forgoes the darker metaphor of temptation from Josh Turner’s 2003 hit of the same name, and leans into the literal need for a train to help you leave a place you don’t belong to get back home.
The bounciest number might be her co-write with Kostas, “The One That Got Away (Got Away With My Heart).”
The aching longing of “Call My Name” is some sort of melancholic response-song to Vince Gill’s ”When I Call Your Name.”
The defiant heartbreak and protective doubt of “Is Heaven Good Enough For You” is the album’s highlight for me.
Moorer’s legacy would begin to grow with each subsequent album, recording some outright classics along the way, but she set down roots and confidently first staked her territory with Alabama Song.
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