Allie Colleen – Who Allie Is

Updated: Aug 10, 2023

Allie Colleen

Who Allie Is

By Dave Parsons

For a new recording artist like Allie Colleen, it can be tough just getting started. You travel all over the map, anywhere they want you to play, paying your dues and finding your audience. You end up playing at far off places like the Marshall County Fair in Moundsville, WV, which is where we caught up with her.

“I got a job, which was an artist as an acoustic act first,” Allie Colleen explained to me before the show. “That was easy because you just played what people wanted to hear. You played what they wanted to sing along to. That's what you did. It was easy and it was very cool. It taught me a lot about singing, but I didn't learn about what I wanted to do on that stage until I got the people behind me to do it, and to really get that guitar out of my hand. I got to start singing like: What does Allie perform like? What Allie likes to sing…”

This self-knowledge helps the audiences to get an idea of Allie’s music as well, which is outlaw country. She continued explaining – often speaking in the third person – how her knowledge of herself opens her music up to others.

“I feel like just knowing Allie as an artist, the album that we do have out shows you exactly who and what she is as a songwriter, which I'm very proud of,” Allie says. “Going forward, these songs like ‘Halos and Horns’ that we have out of singles for people to check out, [that] is what I wait for all night in that set. it gets to be Allie. Whether she absolutely kills it and it's a success or if she crashes and burns, it's nobody but Allie.”

Allie sounds like 1,000 other singer songwriters in Nashville, who come to town with a dream, and pockets of songs that are like their children. In her case, though, she is a little different. She has a dad that has sold 183 million albums in his career. Allie Colleen is the youngest of Garth Brooks’ three daughters, but you won’t hear covers of his music in her show.

“It's been really amazing because a lot of the shows I hear ‘I heard from a friend of a friend who you were, that's why I came. But I heard your music and liked it and now I'm just here for Allie,’” she explains. “The conversation ends exactly where I would want it to. I'm not ever mad or upset in any way about how people find out about my music, who I am, or what it is. But you're going to leave being an Allie fan. That is the goal.”

It's a worthy goal. However, she does realize that her father’s reputation can color what the audience assumes of her.

“I sometimes get anxious that it also brings an expectation,” Allie says. “We're nothing similar. I mean, we're the same exact person when it comes to dad and daughter. I'm him 100 %. But when you look at two artists, we don't really do the same thing. I don't care what brings you to my show, but please come with a desire to learn who Allie is.”

The folks in Moundsville learned who Allie is as she took the stage. Opening with “Smoke Show” and following with a cover of the JoDee Messina hit “I’m Alright,” the crowd was listening and receiving the 17-song set Allie Colleen offered. Explaining most of the songs before she performed them gave a deeper understanding what she was trying to say as an artist. The story behind “Make Me A Man” showed her heart for family. The intro and delivery of a song not yet recorded called “While We’re Still Friends,” had her and the audience in tears.

The delivery of “Halos and Horns” was delivered with a deep passion for the material. Even the cover of “Strawberry Wine” that closed her set sounded new given a slightly different arrangement.

Overall, the 90-minute show at the fair was time well spent for those in attendance, and getting to hear an artist do almost their entire debut CD is a treat, particularly when you are offered the meaning behind those songs as well. I’m very sure that Allie reached her goal in Moundsville. The audience left knowing who Allie Colleen is.

Setlist: Smoke Show / I’m Alright / Don’t Give Your Heart To A Cowboy / Playin’ House / Blame it On The Weather / Fallin’ / Feels Like / Stones / Pink Lemonade / Make Me A Man / Tattoos / Blame It On The Wine / While We’re Still Friends / Halos and Horns / Sex On Fire / Rolling Stone / Strawberry Wine