ISSUE #39 MMUSICMAG.COM SPOTLIGHT BarloweKristin

ALLISON MOORER On a new studio set, the acclaimed roots artist mines pain for poetry

FIVE YEARS AGO, AS ALLISON MOORER up on the record was ‘Blood,’ which I wrote released her seventh studio album, Crows, almost four years ago. I was pregnant and she was married to singer-songwriter Steve trying to fi gure out how I was going to work Earle and pregnant with their son. Now, as and be a parent. I didn’t know what the she releases her latest, Down to Believing, balance would be—and I still don’t. much has changed. Her near-decade-long “I’ve written a ton of songs over the marriage to Earle has ended, and their son, past few years. But it wasn’t until I did a John Henry, has been diagnosed with autism. bunch of demos of songs that eventually But Moorer has never been shy about ended up on the record—‘I Lost My Crystal exploring personal issues in her music, Ball,’ ‘Down to Believing’ and ‘If I Were Issue #39 and has proven herself a master at fi nding Stronger’—that I realized I had the makings beauty in pain. “I’ve been writing about of an album. I’d never just thrown a bunch M MUSIC & MUSICIANS my family and my experiences since day of songs together and made an album—I MAGAZINE one,” she says. “They shape and color don’t work that way. They need to be saying my fi lter, so they have a lot to do with something. So I had to give thought to what how I see the world. Yes, the songs are that would be. Once I fi gured it out, I pulled very personal, but really, I don’t see any out some other songs I had lying around that other reason to write.” I knew would fi t .” Although the process isn’t easy, Moorer Moorer turned to Kenny Greenberg— works to make sense of personal issues who had produced her fi rst two albums— through her art. “I don’t sit around lamenting to helm the project. “I called in Kenny that I’ve had these things happen,” Moorer because he’s great in the studio, such a says. “I try to fi gure them out, and fi gure out wonderful guitarist and he gets things how to make the best of it. It’s a wonderful done really quickly. When you don’t have gift, to make art out of that.” a big budget you need that,” she says. The new record didn’t come quickly. “Working with Kenny put me in a really The songs were written over a period of safe spot. To have him at the helm made several years, with no particular plan for an me feel it was O K .” album. “The fi rst song I wrote that ended –Lee Zimmerman

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