It's easy to hear what Music Row dislikes in Nashville-outsider singers like Iris DeMent, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. They're too real, too rocking, and too country for radio's slick confines.

        The marginalization of their careers makes sense. But how Music Row dropped the ball on Allison Moorer is mind-blowing. She's as country-radio-ready as they come.

        The singer — and we must stress she is a very fine singer — demonstrated at her Southgate House show Thursday night she can sing not only with the likes of Ms. DeMent and Ms. Williams, but with any of the country-radio clones with whom she was competing on her first two major-label records.

        Her 90-minute set featured songs from those MCA records plus many off the new album Miss Fortune, her first for Universal South, a major-label alt-country imprint in the vein of Mercury's Lost Highway, home to Ms. Williams and Ryan Adams.

        With radio play no longer a possibility, Ms. Moorer went out and made her most radio-programmable record yet. Yes, it has that great voice, but it also has strings, by-the-numbers ballads and generic blue-eyed soul. She can sing, but the entire package is mediocre Nashville fare.

        The same goes for the live act. Her voice was the focus, as she sang better than the words (most of which she wrote or co-wrote) deserved. An example was the solo encore performance of “Cold in California,” in which she accompanied herself on piano. Her powerful singing kept the room silent and transfixed, but the lyrics (“Is it cold in California like it is in Tennessee?”) embodied what people hate about contrived country hits.

        Her five-man band didn't add much. Most of the material was ballad-speed, and the band just sort of followed along, never making a fuss, behaving as an obedient country band should. It wouldn't hurt Ms. Moorer to employ a butt-kicker or two in her band. It has done wonders for Ms. Williams.

        Ms. Moorer isn't deserving of airplay because she's as good as the great Nashville outsiders. She should be a star because she's just slightly bad enough.

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