Allison Moorer

The singer-songwriter who ‘came out of the womb singing’ talks about new album and clothing line

By Carla DeSantis
Published: February 18th, 2008 | 12:00am

Allison Moorer has always been ahead of the curve. Her mom lied and forged her birth certificate when she was 5 to get her precocious younger daughter into first grade. Moorer graduated from high school at 16 and college with a very practical but as-yet unused public relations degree at age 20.

Although she is less known than her husband, Steve Earle, and her Grammy-winning sister Shelby Lynne, Moorer is a huge talent in her own right.

But like her husband, Moorer loves a righteous cause. She recently performed five songs as part of the New York Off Broadway play, Rebel Voices. When she’s not singing, she is sewing up a storm. Her own signature clothing line, 1 Turtle Dove, is also taking flight.

Moorer’s latest album, Mockingbird, is a collection of cover tunes by female songwriters, including her sister, Cat Power, Ma Rainey, Julie Miller, and Patti Smith. Produced by Buddy Miller, it’s a loving tribute to women’s voices. Moorer’s gorgeous voice adds a new dimension to a few classics as well as some under-appreciated gems, much like Moorer herself.

We caught up with Moorer between her sewing and singing to get the scoop on the inspiration for Mockingbird.

Who was the musician first, you or Shelby?
She’s older, so it was definitely her. She got her first record deal when I was still in high school. I think she was 18 or 19. I was a senior in high school and I actually moved to Nashville to live with her after I graduated high school and sang backup for her for about a year. Then I decided that I would go to college in Alabama because I really was too young to do anything else.

Why didn’t you pursue a degree in music?
I’m not really into formal music education. There are the obvious places you could go, Berklee and whatnot, but I wanted to do something practical. I was painfully aware of the fact that to support yourself you needed a degree that you could get a job with so you could get money to support yourself. At that point I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to do music. I’ve sung since I was a little girl, so it was always a big part of my life. But being around the music business when I was singing backup for my sister sort of soured me on it.

You’d think it would scare you to run away screaming.
It made me realize that it isn’t fit for human beings. I wasn’t sure anyone sane would want to be involved with it. But I never said I was sane.

How’d you decide to do an album of covers by female songwriters?
I wrote and recorded five albums in the space of seven or eight years, and I was a little worn out with the process. I also was sick of myself. I wanted to just get out of my own head for a while.

I thought, “What if I just do women because women don’t get enough attention in the music business?” We certainly don’t as writers, so I started to explore that. I thought, “Oh, it will be easy. I’ll be able to decide on songs.” But all of a sudden I had a list of about 40 songs.

I got it down to about 20 songs and then Buddy Miller and I sat down with them and got it down to 16. We recorded all of them and then decided on the 12 that made the best album, the 12 that made it all hang together.

It’s interesting to have Ma Rainey and Cat Power on the same album. Where else would you find that?
I think they’re the same kind of animal. They’re both female singer-songwriters. They both have strong voices and they’re both unique when it comes down to what sort of forms they’re working in. One of the things that’s cool about Cat Power is that she works in a blues form.

In your bio, you said, “In the music business you have two little boxes. Either you’re a whirly twirly girl or a too-angry raging woman. And that’s just not even close. Men face their own share of problems but they don’t face that.” Can you talk about that?
In popular music, that is what we’re faced with. We can either be the girl with the guitar singing softly with her little dress on and giggling and hoping not to offend anyone and probably showing as much cleavage as she can get away with. Or you can be of the Ani DiFranco or Patti Smith school. Reality is that most of us are all of that. People have trouble defining who I am or what category I fit into because I don’t fit in one. I’m me because I’m all those things. I’m a girly girl. I’m also a feminist.

Nobody seems to worry about that with men quite so much.
Well, they don’t have the battle that we have. I don’t mean that in a sour grapes way because I love men and I think they’re great and I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by them. It’s disappointing that we’re just reduced down to this and that.

Does an album like this help change that in some way? Are you making some kind of a political statement by doing an album of all female singer-songwriters?
Sure I am, because I wanted to shed some light on how brilliant women are as writers and how different we are from men.

And different from each other.
Yeah. “Both Sides Now” is quite a different song from “Daddy Goodbye Blues,” but when you get down to it they’re saying the same thing. These are really strong women even with a song like “Go Leave.” It’s so devastating but there’s a voice of strength speaking. And “Where is My Love” — that’s strength too. That was the theme I found after I recorded it because I didn’t see it at first. Women are strong. We’re expected to be everything. I’d put us up against almost any man.

And sometimes we are up against men. That’s where we get into trouble, because we’re up against them.
It’s not a contest and I celebrate the differences, because we need both. But I do think that in the music business we’re not encouraged to be feminine in a multi-dimensional way. We’re encouraged to be “feminine” in that they really like it when we show our tits and shake our butts and look cute on our record covers, and hopefully we’ll look good in WalMart.

It just blows my mind, really. It’s just silliness. So not only was making this album a way for me to narrow down a way to do a cover record; it was a chance to say, “Listen to these songs.”

Steve’s got a sister who’s a musician as well. It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that you align yourself with a lot of people who include DNA within their work.
I think it comes from my family being musical. I basically came out of the womb singing. My sister and I both did. She and I are incredibly close so trying to do this record without a song from her would have just been ridiculous. As an influence, obviously, she’s been huge in every way.

Tell me about your new clothing line, 1 Turtle Dove.
I started sewing about 10 months ago. My mother sewed and I’ve always been a big fan of fashion and I’ve always loved clothes. I’m very girly girl that way. I just love clothes, shoes, the whole thing, and I started feeling weird about mass production, just rampant consumerism and everybody having the same things.

Right. It’s Old Navy, Gap culture.
Yeah. Everything looks the same and most of it looks really bad, so I thought I should learn to sew because so many of these things that I see I know they’re not hard to make. There was a time I was shopping in stores like that, but now I won’t do it because if they’re selling clothes at that price point somebody’s getting fucked. I’m not willing to contribute to that. So I bought a sewing machine. My mother made most of our clothes when we were little so I knew how to lay out a pattern and cut it out. I have a pretty good memory for that kind of stuff and I thought it can’t be that hard. I know I can do this. I’m a smart person.

I bought fabric and Wendy Mullin of Built By Wendy’s book [Sew U]. I read her book and I was like, “Yeah, I can do this.” I bought some of her patterns and made some things for myself and it went from there.

I got really into it and became this fabric junkie. I started taking commercial patterns and modifying them and making them my own. I figured out what worked, what didn’t, and how to fit myself. Then I found this fabric that’s silk chiffon, black with little white stars on it.

One night I whipped up this little hippie peasant top with little, white capped sleeves and a drawstring neck. It turned out really cute. The next day I was shopping. I threw it on and I was in the West Village and I ended up going into this shop called Camp. I walked in, and the girl goes, “Where did you get that top?” “Well, I made it.” She said, “Do you sell your stuff anywhere?” I said, “Well, no, not yet. Maybe one day I’ll get to that but I’m just sewing for myself right now.” She said, “We would be very into having some of your stuff.” I said, “Really? OK. I’ll bring in some stuff for you to look at.” I was working on getting this record together, but I was sewing like a madwoman because I was really into it. Sewing makes me balanced. When I’ve got my head down in the sewing machine, I figure all this shit out. It makes me think not so hard about things but answers come to me.

It’s kind of down time. It’s creative but down time also.
It’s almost like turning my brain off, but my hands are moving so there’s something going on. I had a dress that I had made, and I had done hand embroidery on some pieces ’cause I’ve been embroidering since I was a kid. It keeps my hands busy. I took nine things in to Camp and they took seven of them and ended up selling four out of seven pieces plus I made them two of the tops like the one I was wearing. So far I’ve sold seven of those tops. She keeps ordering tops. Now I’m at this spot where I can’t do anything with the clothing thing because I have a record coming out and I’ve got to go on tour.

Sounds like a great opportunity.
I’m a big believer in listening to the universe and I’ve finally gotten old enough to quit fighting things.

It sounds like once you get a bug about something, you really go for it.
I’m the most hard-headed person in the world. That works for me and against me. Sometimes it makes relationships hard, but I think it’s more about listening and paying attention to what’s going on around you. I spent quite a few years in the music business going, “Why aren’t I more successful?” I was fighting things and wishing for things to be different from the way that they were or wishing to be someone different from the person that I am. But now I’m just going to be who I am, and that means writing and singing and playing and sewing and cooking. It’s OK to do all these things.

I think there’s inherently a female thing about that. I don’t find that men worry so much about their shortcomings.
Well, they’re also not expected to be as many things. And let’s face it: They aren’t expected to be mothers and superwomen and wives and domestic goddesses and great at their jobs. Men are just expected to be the breadwinners. That’s kind of where it begins and ends with them. They designed it that way. And we’re supposed to do it in 4-inch Manolos.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carla DeSantis is the founder of ROCKRGRL magazine.