Questions + Answers

From Cindy R.

I am wondering way your Mockingbird album is not on Apple Music, when so many of your others are.   I have it (along with other recordings of yours) on CD, but with the ever changing technology I no longer get to listen to it outside of my home, which is now Victoria, British Columbia (much better climate).

Warmest Regards,

Cindy R.

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Dear Cindy,

Thank you for your letter and your question.

One of my least favorite aspects of my recording career is that I do not own the majority of my work. When I signed my first record deal in 1998, an artist owning their own masters (what we call our official recorded work) was still a rarity. It was becoming more common, but I was a poor girl and needed the advance money that MCA Records offered me. I was too young and too desperate to get going on things to understand that that decision would greatly affect the rest of my life and greatly affect that work I did, do, and will get to do.

If only someone had taken me aside and explained that to me.

But they didn’t. So I went along doing what I thought I was supposed to do, which was to become deeply in debt to a record company in exchange for a little bit of money to live on and record two albums and have them promoted to the world. That was a trend I would continue through three more record deals, one of which was for the record you’re talking about, Mockingbird.

In 2006, I signed a deal with New Line Records, which was an offshoot of the film company of the same name. You can read about what happened to New Line if you click on the link in that first sentence — I don’t know why the record isn’t in print anymore and I don’t know why it isn’t on the listening platforms and since I don’t own it I can’t affect change in either department. But I did find this link so maybe you can find a copy if you would like to buy one. I didn’t have one for many years until a sweet someone sent me one after a call out on social media. I do love that record, an exercise in interpretation and learning, and I loved working with the great Buddy Miller as producer.

I’m happy to report that the last two albums I’ve made, Not Dark Yet and Blood have been released by my own labels and both are works I own the rights to. Progress, right?

I hope y’all have a glorious weekend.

Peace. Love.

Allison

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