Shelby Lynne & Allison MoorerNot Dark Yet
(Silver Cross/Thirty Tigers)Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer’s forthcoming release, Not Dark Yet is one of this year’s most hotly anticipated roots releases.
For the uninitiated, these two talented ladies have been through an awful lot throughout their lives. Raised in the beautiful and magical woods of rural Alabama, the sisters were singing just about as soon as they could speak, and music seems to be the only “language” these two have ever needed to communicate with and understand each other. Far from being an idyllic childhood, the two witnessed the killing of their mother by their father right before he took his own life. How these two have processed that event, and recovered from it to their present levels of functioning in daily society, would be impossible for any of us to comprehend. Yet that’s exactly what these incredibly talented sisters have done.
Each has pursued separate musical paths, one’s that have earned them a Grammy, an Oscar nomination, and many other awards and accolades along the way. Collectively, they have released twenty-four albums, but never one together until now. Not Dark Yet is the sister duo’s first collaborative album – not a duet record, but rather a celebration of something that has always been, two voices becoming one and finding home within each other. The record features these two gifted songwriters and musicians delivering inspired interpretations of songs by the likes of Merle Haggard (“Silver Wings”), Jessi Colter (“I’m Looking for Blue Eyes”), Bob Dylan (the aforementioned title track from his 1997 masterpiece, Time Out of Mind which Moorer says she’s been mesmerized with since her first listening), Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires (“The Color of a Cloudy Day”), the Killers (“My List”), and what they do on their cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium” will stop you in your tracks… minor keys are not supposed to lend themselves to harmonizing, but that’s exactly what happens here – with a tremendously successful result! To finish off the disc, Shelby and Allison wrap themselves around the past, plant their feet in the present, and look towards their future with their co-written “Is It Too Much.”
Recorded in Los Angeles in the summer of 2016, the album was produced by Teddy Thompson, who also knows a little something about growing up in a musical family. Not Dark Yet provides a potent look at the sisters’ individual and collective artistry and is a stunning if not extraordinary example of the transcendent bond these two musical sisters have always shared.
