A prime example of an artist caught between the intransigent rock of the mainstream and the intangible hard place of the underground, Allison Moorer has managed to have it both ways, and neither. She’s played the Academy Awards and house concerts, sung with Kid Rock and Phil Lee, and been shuttled among three labels under the Universal umbrella (which she has since departed, leaving before this second outing with U-South even hit the shelves).
One hopes that, like Kelly Willis has, Moorer will eventually find her place. Certainly she has both the voice and the songwriting talent to deliver some of the best music of her generation, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that she needs to work outside the image-focused framework of the Nashville machinery.
Much of Show underscores that. Culled from two sets at Nashville’s 12th & Porter nightclub on January 4 of this year, the disc presents Moorer in a mostly unfettered setting that lets her musical starlight shine. The backing is somewhat slick but mainly just exquisite, and producer R.S. Field coaxes a studio-worthy sound out of a live setup.
Early highlights include a spot-on cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Cry No Tears”, her Oscar-nominated balled “A Soft Place To Fall”, and the subtle but splendid “Let Go”. The drama is turned up a notch mid-set when Moorer brings out sister Shelby Lynne to duet on a couple cuts; “Bring Me All Your Lovin'” in particular burns with the heat of their well-documented sibling rivalry.
It’s the final two tracks that sum up Moorer’s predicament, though. On “No Next Time”, her alt-country pal Lonesome Bob joins in for the final chorus and delivers the most soulful vocal turn of anyone onstage that night. Moorer then returns for an encore and introduces Bob Ritchie, a.k.a. Kid Rock, whose overwrought caterwauling on “Bully Jones” recalls no one so much as Michael Bolton. (If Ritchie’s affection for country music is genuine, which it seems to be, he’d do well to study how the genre’s great singers expressed themselves with more than melodrama.)
The Kid Rock cameo might push units, but it’s the aesthetic Lonesome Bob epitomizes that pushes Moorer to do her best work.
