Amy Allison – A walking contradiction
As a band, the Maudlins have sharpened into a very practiced unit, with regular appearances around New York and the stray performance at SXSW or in Nashville. They now included Rob Meador on guitar, ex-Ghost Rocket Bob Hoffnar on pedal steel and dobro, Charlie Shaw on drums, and Art Baguer on bass.
Sad Girl, like its predecessor, was long in coming together and made with multiple producers. Five Maudlins cuts are supplemented by a couple recorded with Spencer; four others were culled from sessions with Jim Scott in Los Angeles featuring such practiced pros as Neal Casal, Greg Leisz, Don Heffington and Bob Glaub.
Allison says the Los Angeles experience was thrilling — and simple. “I had a little boom box, and these guys listened to my demos and they got it down, and that was it,” she marvels. “I have such a specific sound and feel to what I do that I think no matter who you’ve got playing, it’s going to have some of that — but they were very sensitive to it, and really listened.”
The production history may be complex, but Sad Girl holds together as a single offering that shows Allison’s writing in a pared down and yet more potent new style — more “honed,” she agrees. There is a balancing of country songwriting approaches, and even elements of pop-based, New York chanteuse cabaret songcraft.
The opener, “Listless And Lonesome”, is a standout new example of Allison’s touch: “You…promised the moon and the stars/And showed me the inside of bars.” The dark “New Year’s Eve” takes that moment of waiting just before the Times Square ball drops and imagines it as a lifestyle. The low and slow numbers “It’s Not Wrong” and “Do I Miss You” would be at home in a late-night bar on Lower Broadway — New York’s, or Nashville’s.
“Amy doesn’t stint on those gritty details that make a song or a character in a song interesting and real,” Cantrell observes. “She has a way of making the emotions of a song, the longing, regret or joyous feelings, very real and honest. A song like ‘The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter’ is just a classic — a rare, honest alcohol song from a girl’s point of view. The images are sort of funny, a woman downing this drink, but it also perfectly captures that self-deluding moment where your wits abandon you.
“On Sad Girl, the same quality is present. The song ‘Family’ is a good example of that balance of humor and pathos: ‘Who gives you life/Who gives you hell/Who makes you sick/Who makes you well.’ And who hasn’t experienced that?”
The new songs show her appreciation for the polished, professional songwriting traditions of both country and pop, both sad and funny, finished and universally simple, not drearily confessional or rambling or navel-gazing — and uniformly potent. They should prove rich fodder for other performers.
“I haven’t gone to Nashville, taken meetings and like that; but maybe I should!” she says. “I am going to try. The first time I looked at that I was told I was too ‘left of center,’ but with things like the Dixie Chicks doing that ‘Earl’ song, that’s supposed to be good again. I’d like to see them do “Listless And Lonesome”. Reba McEntire could do my songs, in Nashville, or on Broadway. Or her cabaret act! I saw her in Annie Get Your Gun and she was terrific.”
“I’ve always been a sad girl,” the title song declares, “since the day I was born, I’ve been oh so forlorn.” But that’s the singer in a very professional piece of songwriting, not to be entirely confused with the writer.
“I am pretty much a sad girl,” Allison adds face to face. “It’s sort of a temperament thing. But on the other hand, I’m very passionate about things; I get really enthralled. And my friends say that I’m the one who wears the cap and bells! Maybe they’re the tears of a clown.”
ND contributing editor Barry Mazor has been tracking rural music and such from an urban home base since the 1970s.