Allison Moorer
Blood
2019
Released as a companion piece to a full memoir, Allison Moorer’s Blood demonstrates her mastery as a storyteller across multiple media. As great as her memoir is– it’s an essential read for any country music fan– it’s the album that takes a headier approach to unpacking generational trauma and where Moorer’s gifts shine brightest.
The notion that art is somehow more valuable when it’s strictly autobiographical is one of the most thought-terminating beliefs that’s taken root in the twenty years I’ve been writing about music. Moorer understands that, as Blood takes the well-documented horrors that she and her older sister, Shelby Lynne, experienced in their childhood, and uses it as inspiration for a song cycle of rare insight, rather than resorting to the types of “true crime” narrative tropes that would reduce the listener to a trauma voyeur.
Moorer’s long been adept at shifting narrative voices, but she’s never used that skill to take multiple perspective on the same sets of events. Here, she shifts between first and third-person narrators, from the point of view of a child who’s trying to make sense of the world around her to an omniscient narrator who can speak empathetically to the interior life of the perpetrator of unspeakable crimes. Moorer’s thoughtful approach ensures that, while this story is fundamentally hers, she is not always the main protagonist.
It gives Blood a structure that reflects how widely the impacts of trauma spread. Moreover, it allows grace and empathy to be extended to relationships complicated by both familial bonds and by violence. That Moorer accomplishes this on one of the most tuneful and beautifully performed records of her career makes Blood one for country’s canon.
Additional Listening:
More from Moorer
Moorer’s got at least three other canon-ready records in her catalog, and two of them fall within the scope of this feature:
- The Duel, a ferocious and sharply observed treatise on both personal and global politics and how they intersect.
- Down to Believing, on which she reunited with producer Kenny Greenberg, and dug into the messiness of grief, addressing both the dissolution of her marriage to Steve Earle and her response to her son’s ASD diagnosis.
And the Sister Act
Shelby Lynne’s put out some essential records in the last two decades, too.
- Identity Crisis is the best encapsulation of her attempts to define her artistry after her breakthrough with I Am Shelby Lynne.
- She’ll turn up in our year-end with her latest, Consequences of the Crown, which sounds like the true-in-spirit follow-up to I Am.
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I stumbled upon a vinyl copy this album in a record store in the basement of Black Market Vintage on Queen Street West in Toronto. The store may be named Record Cellar Canada. I was thrilled to find it while clothes shopping with my girlfriend and her youngest child.
I was an instant fan of Allison Moorer as of her 1998 debut “Alabama Song.” I saw her perform at the Horseshoe Tavern, which is just west of Black Market on Queen Street West. At the time, I believe she was touring to promote “The Hardest Part, ” her second album for MCA. An old friend was at the show with me and she knew not only did I love Moorer’s music, but I had a full on crush on her. In-between sets, Moorer was having a drink at a table on the show floor, seemingly alone. My friend being more ballsy than me, walked straight up to her and started sharing that she was at the show with a huge fan of hers who would love to meet her. My friend came back to our table and shared that Allison would be happy to meet me. I was mortified. The Horsehoe Tavern is a tiny venue, holding only several hundred people at capacity. Moorer was looking at our table, so I walked over and stumbled through a horribly uncomfortable and nothing of a share about how much I admired her singing, songwriting, and music. She was gracious and charming despite my cutting awkwardness. It may have been because of that moment that my girlfriend dubbed me “The Great Awk,” my own kind of flightless bird.
Thinking about, “Blood,” I am sure I read the memoir before hearing the album, such is my tendency to read about music before listening to it. The memoir is exquisite in its humanity and horror. A brilliant read. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
The album is every bit its equal. “Bad Weather,” “Nightlight,” and “Heal” stay with me the longest from a collection of ten stellar songs that are sticky in the best way imaginable because of their stunning significance.
This album is singularly special in its honesty and vulnerability.