The first thing most people notice about Amy Allison’s music is her voice. High-pitched and adenoidal—even animated to the point of sounding cartoonish—it takes some getting used to, much like the distinctive vocal timbres of Victoria Williams and Dolly Parton. It’s worth the effort, however, as her songs repay repeated listenings. Allison currently has two new releases out, an EP as half of the duo Parlor James and a full-length album issued under her own name; taken together, these records dramatize the difference between merely recreating the past and cultivating a tradition-rooted voice that says something about the present.
Dreadful Sorry (Discovery), the singer’s duo recording with Lone Justice founder Ryan Hedgecock, gives off an Appalachian gothic air, right down to the sepia-toned photos that grace the CD booklet. In fact, so plainly do its six tales of murder, suicide, and ill-fated love invoke country music’s pre-commercial era that Americana radio is touting the collaboration as the format’s answer to Fairport Convention. Except for “Down on Dreaming,” the record’s haunting closing song, Dreadful Sorry only succeeds at sounding old. Its highly stylized arrangements, which often graft a rock rhythm section to dulcet mountain strings, suggest lacquer applied to antique wood rather than oil worked deep into its grooves.
The Maudlin Years (Koch), recorded in New York City with Allison’s longtime band the Maudlins, draws more on classic country and pop music of the pre-Beatles ’60s. It, too, features period photos, including a latter-day portrait of Allison in a vintage party dress and another of the singer, age 6, sitting before a glass of milk at a Formica kitchen table. But Allison does more here than revive the sound of a former era: The records of Connie Smith, Skeeter Davis, and Lesley Gore inspire the singer only insofar as they ground her uniquely personal—and tragicomic—vision of heartbreak and romance.
“Cheater’s World,” a honky-tonk weeper that appears on both Dreadful Sorry and The Maudlin Years, makes for a telling study in contrast. The Maudlins have been backing Allison for nearly a decade, and it shows. A swinging and versatile combo, they invest the song’s wry opening rhyme, “I’ve been drinkin’ vodka and thinkin’ ’bout ya,” with the woozy longing and regret that it cries out for. Parlor James’ version of “Cheater’s World” sounds tentative and quaint by comparison. Though not without a mournful beauty, it lacks its predecessor’s depth of feeling; Hedgecock’s vocals—more Rick Nelson than George Jones—are simply no match for Allison’s Tammy Wynette.
Interestingly enough, The Maudlin Years is more of a stylistic mishmash than the Parlor James EP. But what holds the record together, musically and conceptually, is Allison’s inexhaustible gift for evoking pathos. Heartache is her specialty—it doesn’t matter whether she’s bemoaning forbidden romance (“Hate at First Sight”) or expressing feelings of abandonment (“You Just Don’t Know What It’s Like”). Allison’s deft turns of phrase only deepen the emotion of her songs; the following shameless play for sympathy from “This Misery” is a perfect example: “Tell him that I’m sorry but I’ve broken all the dishes/And tell him that I cut myself and needed seven stitches.”
Allison comes by her acerbic wit naturally; she is, after all, jazzman Mose Allison’s daughter. And yet it’s evident from the dedications, photos, and lyrics on her records that Allison’s female forebears have influenced her even more than her famous father. Indeed, in much the same way as Amy Rigby on her equally stunning Diary of a Mod Housewife, Allison employs domestic imagery to cast humorous and poignant light on life with and without men—things like waiting for her man to come home (“If you cared just a smidgen you’d walk through that kitchen”), shopping as a poor surrogate for love (“I’m down to five dollars, I’ve shopped in every store/But why does my heart ache the same as before”), and no-count husbands/fathers (“How can I believe it when you say you love our child/When I’m left holding the baby and you’re out running wild”). With its driving bluegrass rhythms, this last song, “Holding the Baby,” owes a musical and lyrical debt to the early Louvin Brothers; spiritually, however, it shares more with plucky pre-feminist anthems like Loretta Lynn’s “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’ ” and “Your Squaw is on the Warpath.” This is especially true of such lines as, “You tell me that you’ve got to have your freedom/You talk about our home like it’s a jail/Well, next time that you find yourself thrown in one/Don’t call on me to help put up your bail.”
For all its country leanings, Allison’s record in equally steeped in Brill Building pop. As such, some listeners may dismiss her variant of country music as impure, a stripped-down update of the Nashville Sound. But even the crustiest curmudgeon will have a hard time resisting the honky-tonk allure of originals like “The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter” and “My World Ain’t So Blue.” The former, produced by Nashvillian Jordan Chassan, is a distaff paean to the seductive power of the shot glass that approaches the work of George Jones and Webb Pierce, while “Walking to the End of the World,” an exquisite bit of neo-operatic grandeur, updates Skeeter Davis’ similarly titled pop hit from 1963.
With Allison it all boils down to her voice—songwriting, yes, but also her singing, which is funny, sexy, and smart, often all three at once. Hers is a big voice that sometimes sounds small and girlish, and it’s these nuances that get buried beneath the Parlor James EP’s tasteful production. But “Shady Streets,” The Maudlin Years’ final track, proves that, with Allison, there’s no need to gild the lily. A home demo featuring the singer backed by two acoustic guitars, the song has the natural authority of an Alan Lomax field recording. The moral force behind Allison’s expression of faith over fate is as undeniable as that of some of the great Delta blues singers. Whereas Dreadful Sorry strives for this sort of authenticity but merely looks and sounds old, “Shady Streets” pulls it off without even trying.
Parlor James opens for Marshall Crenshaw at 328 Performance Hall Oct. 29; both Parlor James and Amy Allison and the Maudlins play the Sutler Oct. 30.
