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Mockingbird | 
| Artist: Allison Moorer
Label: New Line
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £9.68
You Save: £4.31 (31%)
New (24) Used (2) from £8.24
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 35979
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 4.9 x 0.3
MPN: 39106
UPC: 794043910623
EAN: 0794043910623
ASIN: B00113R1I4
Release Date: February 18, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Mockingbird | | • | Ring Of Fire | | • | Dancing Barefoot | | • | I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl | | • | Go Leave | | • | Revelator | | • | Both Sides Now | | • | Daddy Goodbye Blues | | • | She Knows Where She Goes | | • | Orphan Train | | • | Where Is My Love | | • | I'm Looking For Blue Eyes |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Some hits, some misses March 18, 2008
Much has been made of this as a covers album.
I go back to the golden age of Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou, who in the early days seldom penned a song of their own. They were singers. They picked and interpreted songs. Some were well known, many were not, and oftentimes theirs was the first version with which the wider world was familiar, making theirs the definitive version, and not the original. It's with that standard and that approach in mind that I come to Alison Moorer's 'Mockingbird'. Many of the songs here are not just better known in other versions, they are part of the popular music canon, so I wondered is it even possible to wrest songs like 'Ring of Fire' or 'Both Sides Now' from their creators, and make them your own in a new and vital way? The answer on this evidence is no. 'Ring of Fire' follows on from husband Steve's experiment of incorporating beats into his music, and is presented here as a chilled late night version. But with strings. And pedal steel. And if that sounds like one (or maybe two) too many arrangements for one song, you have the right impression. And all three undermine the song itself. Where is the wild desire? Where is the burning flame? 'Both Sides Now' is similarly unsuccessful, this time offering little more than karaoke with a professional backing band. The self-penned 'Mockingbird' opens this set, and is a decent enough song, well suited to Moorer's fine smoky voice, here not a million miles away from the aforementioned Ronstadt, but the easy listening arrangement, topped off by a truly dreadful sax break does the song no favours. The arrangement of Nina Simone's 'I Want a Little Sugar in my Bowl' descends into pastiche, and Ma Rainey's 'Daddy Goodbye Blues' with Moorer's voice treated to sound like an ancient recording (the original dates from 1928) teeters on the brink, but is rescued by Moorer's surprisingly gutsy performance, which stands out as the least polite of the album - she really lets rip. Perhaps inevitably, given the presence on the recording of the song's author and original performer, together with original producer and and arranger, Julie Miller's 'Orphan Train' does not stray far from the original, and the same could be said of Gillian Welch's 'Revelator', though this at least is a great cover in spite of that. Another success, and perhaps surprisingly, is Patti Smith's 'Dancing Barefoot' which Moorer delivers with real passion and desperation in her voice. The song's closer, Jessi Colter's 'I'm Looking for Blue Eyes' is a conventional country performance , which really suits Moorer's voice, and less surprisingly is also a success.
Ironically, given that I bought this album more as a fan of producer Buddy Miller, it's hard not to feel that on this occasion it is Miller's production that frequently lets the side down.
Moorer Magic February 20, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
In her 7th studio album since 1998, Allison Moorer has covered eleven songs by other female performers. (The yearning "Mockingbird", featuring a great tenor sax solo, is her own composition). So, was this a risky strategy given the risk of unfavourable comparison with the originals?
On the evidence presented here, it was a well considered move because this is a stunning album. With producer Buddy Miller she has re-interpreted these songs and made them her own.
Gone is the jaunty, Mexican trumpet suffused "Ring Of Fire" replaced by a brooding, intense reading with an insistent drumbeat and violin and viola adding to the emotion she attaches to the lyrics.
Kate McGarrigle's "Go, Leave" is an exquisitely moving performance with her soulful alto voice, reminiscent at times of Lucinda Williams, bringing a resonance to the words. A lonesome cello echoes, with a simple beauty, "go, leave, she's better than me."
Gillian Welch's "Revelator" has Celtic undertones as Moorer's voice glides over the mysterious lyrics, "Queen of fakes and imitators, time's the revelator."
She takes on the blues with expressive versions of Nina Simone's "I Wanna Little Sugar In My Bowl" and Ma Rainey's "Daddy Goodbye Blues" and breathes new life into Joni Mitchells's "Both Sides Now".
The album closes with an emotional take on Jessi Colter's "I'm Looking For Blue Eyes" with a spare acoustic guitar letting Moorer's voice take centre stage.
A great production by Buddy Miller, a stellar cast of supporting musicians and majestic performances by the underrated Alison Moorer.
 Sweet! February 13, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I saw Allison Moorer in Birmingham with Steve Earle and she was simply fantastic!! I can't wait for the album, I loved Dual and this looks set to be even better. One of my faves.
Mockingbird - live February 11, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I saw Allison recently, performing at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. Sensational! The opening track from the CD, "Mockingbird", showcased her soulful voice to a tee. "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" and "Both Side Now" equally just as amazing. Can't wait to catch this beautiful mockingbird again at the Roundhouse next week when the album is out
Nothing if not soulful January 23, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Back in 2001, I was first exposed to the soulful voice of Allison Moorer with her ALABAMA SONG, an album that I reviewed as the best CW collection I'd heard in ages, especially the tracks "Alabama Song" and "A Soft Place to Fall". Her next couple of releases fell short, in my opinion, and I've been waiting for one that struck me as better than average. MOCKINGBIRD, though not back up to 5-star level, is at least that.
Listening to this CD on the way to and at the old 9 to 5 cotton field, I was impressed favorably (or not) enough by several of the tracks to offer comment:
Track 1, "Mockingbird" - The best of the lot at musically rendering longing in the mellow way that I appreciate, and one I'll perhaps pull off onto my iPod in the play list entitled "My Five Decades' Greatest Hits", which currently holds about 170 songs.
Track 4, "I Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl" - If you've just lost your true love and you want to get quietly drunk and thoroughly miserable in the corner of a crummy saloon that has several letters of its neon sign shorted-out and cigarette burns on the bar, this is the jukebox selection that needs to accompany the process.
Track 7, "Both Sides Now" - Just because you have the lyrics to this classic and the band to back you up doesn't mean you should necessarily sing it. This was perhaps the worst track on the CD, sounding amateurish at best. Where's Joni Mitchell when you need her?
Track 8, "Daddy Goodbye Blues" - The acoustic quality of this blues offering is different enough from the other eleven tracks to be jarring. It sounds like it was performed in someone's garage rather than a recording studio. Was the producer trying to be cute, or what?
Track 10, "Orphan Train" - A ponderous gospel dirge, if you like that sort of thing, that would make an excellent addition to the soundtrack of a film set in a blighted West Virginian coal mining town.
Track 12, "I'm Looking for Blue Eyes". In the tradition of I'm-far-from-home-and-broken-hearted-and-dang-your-cheatin'-ways ballads, this is the best for crooning-along in your battered pick-up as you make a night crossing of a desolate and lonely expanse of moonlit desert with your only friend, your faithful dog, in the co-pilot's seat. (C'mon, Buster. Let's hit the road, boy.)
The remaining six inclusions were, to my ears, non-descript. Not bad, just not memorable. Tracks 1 and 12 put the CD over the top into 4-star status for me, with Track 4 getting honorable mention.
I've heard it said that only people who've "suffered" can be poets. I'll take the liberty of extending that observation to include singers, particularly country/western vocalists. If the hypothesis is valid, then much of the happy horse manure I hear on CW radio station must be sung by artists with an insufficient background in heartache. This cannot be the case with Allison Moorer.
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