When she was younger, Allison Moorer used to believe that she wanted an intellectual existence, a life of the mind. But now, at 42, she sighs, “What I’ve realized that I have is a life of the hands—I’m always just making something, or I’m writing or drawing something, because it makes me feel connected; it makes me feel real. It’s the same way with music—I just want to make it.” Hence, her latest ambitious set, Down To Believing, which documents her recent split from her husband, Steve Earle, and even the motherly guilt she felt when their son John Henry, now four, was diagnosed with autism two years ago. Moorer will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on her.
Moorer: Howard Zinn’s A People’s History Of The United States should be required reading for anyone applying for a driver’s license in this country. Everyone who gets behind the wheel needs to know how to make a left turn correctly, yes, but it would almost certainly improve our collective consciousness if we could all be more educated in how the roads we travel on really got there in the first place. It’s as important a book on U.S. history as has ever been written and, in fact, more important than most as it reveals a lot about what really went down from the point of view of women, workers, minorities and poor people. The People Speak is a documentary film that brings to life the accounts from that groundbreaking volume and combines them with its companion piece, Voices Of A People’s History of The United States (edited by Zinn and Anthony Arnove). Zinn narrated the film as well as co-directed and co-produced it with Arnove, and it contains beautiful, spellbinding performances from an impressive cast that turned up to make this true labor of love.
Video after the jump.
