RIP, Erik Darling 1933-2008 (Arranger of folksong, member of The Weavers)

Guitarist, banjo player, and well-respected arranger of folksong Erik Darling, who passed away last week at the age of 74, tended towards the leeward side of fame: he was the guy who replaced Pete Seeger in the Weavers, if that rings a bell among any of the oldguard folkies who remember a time before Dylan. He was also an Ayn Rand libertarian in the midst of a solidarity-minded social revolution, which caused friction in the midst of the pro-labor, liberal folk revival of the fifties and sixties, and probably contributed to the fact that you have no idea who he was.

But significantly, despite his political incompatibility with much of his audience, Darling had a gifted sense of how to reframe and update older, more traditional folksongs in ways which made them more atractive and fun for the predominantly young, white urban and suburban audiences that were discovering folk music in the fifties and sixties.

The impact of this on folk, writ large, cannot be underestimated.

Though Darling was well known within the folkworld for his virtuoso stringwork, which graced early recording sessions of Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Judy Collins, Jean Ritchie, and others before becoming part of the core sound of such early folk groups as the Folksay Trio, The Tarriers, The Weavers, and later, the Rooftop Singers, it is no accident that his peers and fans, in their obituary quotes and radioplay tributes, have primarily celebrated him for his talents as an arranger. Darling's deliberate approach to building song structure and song performance to maximize a given song's power was a revelation; the half century of folk groups and folksingers who followed in his footsteps owe him a huge debt of gratitude. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Darling's short exposition on the Anatomy of an Arrangement is a tight treatise that should be required reading for all songwriters.

In tribute, then, to Darling and other group members and early folkies who have faded out of our consciousness, while their work lives on as part of the folk tradition: roots folksman Dave Alvin with a swinging barrelhouse take on Erik's arrangement of old folksong Walk Right In, which was one of the early folkworld's biggest hits, and the beginning of the twelve-string craze; The Tarriers with their "original" version of what would become one of Harry Belafonte's longest-lasting chart-toppers, though the song, which was actually created by fusing two Jamaican folksongs, was a #4 hit for the Tarriers themselves; and the Grateful Dead with a very ragged but more traditional take on old Kingston Trio standard Tom Dooley, which turns out to have been based on Darling's arrangement from his early days with the Folksay Trio.

• Dave Alvin: Walk Right In (trad.)
  
• The Tarriers: The Banana Boat Song (trad.)
  
• Harry Belafonte: The Banana Boat Song (trad.)
  
• Grateful Dead: Tom Dooley (trad.)

Bonus points: actor Alan Arkin was a member of the Tarriers, too. Yeah, that Alan Arkin. Really.

Covered In Folk: (Not) The Grateful Dead (on Borrowed Tradsongs and the Dead as a Vehicle of Renewal)

Naturalismo, which I discovered when researching last week's post on Freak Folk, seems to be one of very few music bloggers to note the passing of Alton Kelley -- the sixties poster artist whose most popular work was probably the above skeleton-with-rose-garland poster, originally created for a 1966 Grateful Dead show at the Avalon Ballroom. You may not have seen the poster before, but you've seen the graphic it inspired on a hundred Volkswagen bumpers; the image, which Kelley and his long-time partner Stanley Mouse adapted from a nineteenth century illustration for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was the source from which the Grateful Dead took their early, longstanding, most recognizable iconography.

The relative dearth of recognition in the blogworld at Kelley's passing, coupled with the evolutionary story of the iconography of the skeleton in that poster, got me thinking about the similarly under-covered relationship between the Dead themselves and the folk tradition. I'm particularly interested in the way the Dead, like Kelley and Mouse's skeleton itself, served as a bridge between the images and objects of the past and the ongoing recognition of those objects in the present. If the skeleton reframed the imagery, the Dead reframed the tradition. And that's pretty folk, right there, folks.

I'm not claiming that the Grateful Dead are folk music, necessarily, though their credibility in the folkworld is pretty strong. The combination of their use of traditional appalachian folksong as source material and their pre-history as jug band artists align them closely with the bluegrass that preceded them, and the newgrass movements which would follow. And their tendency towards acoustic sideprojects, their use of acoustic instrumentation and folk instruments, their connection with the same hippie movement which brought forth and nurtured the second wave of the new folk revival post-Guthrie and Dylan, and their not-so-occasional stripped down performance makes a strong case for their inclusion in the folk canon.

Jerry Garcia's solo work and influence, especially, are a major component of this; by most accounts, though others in the band co-wrote their share of originals, it was Garcia who learned the majority of these traditional ballads and jams, on train rides and on back porch sessions, and brought them in for the band to arrange. And while his bandmates went on to play music across the genre map, both on hiatus and in the more recent aftermath of his death -- it's hard to argue that the solo output of, say, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, or Bruce Hornsby count as folk in any shape or form -- it was Garcia who would become almost as well know for his more delicate acoustic mandolin and guitar work with compatriots such as David Grisman.

One day, it is my intention to give that Garcia and Grisman folkwork the full attention it deserves. And previously, I've posted several sets of songs more properly characterized as bluegrass which follow the Grateful Dead take on tradition: two wonderful newgrass takes on Deep Elem Blues; a Single Song Sunday collection of covers of Rain and Snow; a great high-energy version of Grateful Dead "standard" Don't Ease Me In. But it's never to late to do more, especially in tribute. Today, a few traditional songs played by others from the less countrified side of the folkworld, post-popularization by the Grateful Dead, and in most cases, surely influenced by same.

• Bill Morrissey w/ Greg Brown, Hang Me, Oh Hang Me
  (from Inside; done by the Grateful Dead as "I've Been All Around This World")
  
  
• Greg Brown, Samson
  (from Honey in the Lion's Head, which is out of print but can be purchased digitally here; done by the Grateful Dead as "Samson and Delilah")
  
  
• Elizabeth Mitchell, Goin' Down The Road
  (from You Are My Sunshine; done by the Grateful Dead as "Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad")
  
  
• Abigail Washburn, Nobody's Fault But Mine
  (from Song of the Traveling Daughter; done intermittently by both the Dead and Garcia solo)
  
  
• Bill Staines, I Bid You Goodnight
  
• Zak Smith, We Bid You Goodnight
  (from Bill Staines' Bridges and the website of newcomer Zak Smith, respectively; done a capella by the Grateful Dead as an encore/show closer for many years)

I considered adding a few more traditional songs of and from the Grateful Dead playbook here as a bonus, but it's Friday, and we only do short posts here at Cover Lay Down on "off" days. Luckily, several recent and especially relevant posts on other (better) blogs are still live and worth the visit. So quick, before they're gone:

• Anyone's Guess has versions of Rosa Lee McFall from Garcia/Grisman and the Dead
  
  
• The Leather Canary has the abovementioned I've Been All Around the World as done by both The Grateful Dead and by new countryrockers The Deep Dark Woods
  
  
• For The Sake of the Song says Bob Dylan probably learned Viola Lee Blues from the Dead, and he's probably right.

PS: Much credit goes to the Grateful Dead Lyric and Song Finder as a general resource for today's post. As the plethora of links here and elsewhere remind us, the folkworld would be a much poorer place were it not for the obsessive pursuits of others.

Mothers of the Folkworld: Suzanne Vega, Ani DiFranco, Lori McKenna, Kris Delmhorst

Katrina, Narissa, and Amelia Nields, Clearwater Folk Festival, 2005

As a volunteer for performer check-in at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for several years, I had the rare privilege of meeting the children of several notable folk musicians, from Lucy Kaplansky's adopted daughter to Katrina Nields' newborn. Seeing my favorite musicians up close and personal was always a treat. But seeing folk musicians in parenting mode always felt like peering behind the curtain of the public persona to something real. And once you see that part of a musician, it flavors the way you hear their songs from that day forward.

The confessional, personal nature of folk music lends itself well to songs of family and parenthood; as I've written about previously, I have a special fondness for music which speaks to that side of life. But it's got to be especially difficult to be a mother who makes her living out of music. Working mothers have it hard no matter what, but musicianship isn't like other careers: the late-night shows, the marathon recording sessions, the constant need for one more focused, childless hour crafting song, all stand in tension with the closeness and availability good parenting demands of us.

Yet the folkworld is full of female musicians who -- with or without the help of sensitive, often stay-at-home dads -- work their touring schedules around the various and sundry blessings of childrearing, from nursing and naps to school plays and graduations. Previously featured folkmothers include Caroline Herring, Lucy Kaplansky, Rani Arbo, Shawn Colvin, and Cindy Kallet: some of my favorites, and a significant percentage of the women who we've featured here on Cover Lay Down.

I can't imagine what it must be like to sing a song to your child in front of ten thousand people, or, like Dar Williams did at Falcon Ridge last year, to bring them up on stage, so they can see what you see. And I can't imagine what it must be like to give birth, or to head out on tour for a week without your child.

But I trust that the blogworld is surely swimming with songs about mothers this weekend. And in the midst of all that, I thought it was important to remind us all that the reason we're here, on Mother's Day and every day, is because a few daring, real people -- people with families, with hopes and fears, with love enough to share -- have chosen to make their living making the music that fills our world. And, notably, this is a career path where neither family health insurance nor maternity leave policies are the norm.

Today, as a tribute to working moms everywhere, we bring you some coversongs of and from a few more singer-songwriters with children of their own. As always, if you like what you hear, please support these artists and their families by purchasing their albums, heading out to their shows, and treating them as real people whenever possible.


Lori McKenna was already a mother of three when she stepped in front of her first open mic audience at the age of 27; since then, she has spent most of her career playing part-time in the local New England folk circuit, staying close to home while slowly making a name for herself with a growing set of well-crafted songs that celebrate the simple pleasures of life as a struggling middle class homemaker.

Though McKenna recently turned country, resetting her down-to-earth lyrics to a newly countrified sound and touring as an opening act for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, her long tenure in the folkworld and her constant celebration of a vividly real motherhood earns her the lead-off spot on today's list. We featured McKenna sideman Mark Erelli's cover of McKenna's Lonestar earlier this week; here's a gritty lo-fi take on Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees from The Kitchen Tapes, and a much more polished but no less authentic look back at Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes from out of print American Laundromat compilation High School Reunion.

• Lori McKenna, Fake Plastic Trees (orig. Radiohead)
  
• Lori McKenna, In Your Eyes (orig. Peter Gabriel)

For a while there, Suzanne Vega was on the fast track to become the most prolific and popular folk musician to come out of the second-wave Greenwich Village folk scene in the early eighties; she is probably best known for Luka, her late 80s hit about a neighbor's abused child. But if you haven't heard much from her in a decade or so, it's because she decided to curtail her touring and recording significantly in 1994 in order to focus on her family after her daughter Ruby was born. Since then, she has produced only three albums of new material; the songs have gotten even more introspective, but her quality hasn't suffered one bit.

Here's Vega's take on two delicate songs about children from Grateful Dead tribute album Deadicated, plus some great duet work with John Cale on an old Leonard Cohen standard.

• Suzanne Vega, Cassidy (orig. Grateful Dead)
  
• Suzanne Vega, China Doll (orig. Grateful Dead)
  
• John Cale & Suzanne Vega, So Long, Marianne (orig. Leonard Cohen)

Urban folk feminist Ani DiFranco is a relatively new mother and ferocious touring machine who has taken a non-traditional path to motherhood even for the musicworld; instead of taking a hiatus to focus on recording and parenting, as so many other musicians have done, Ani brings her daughter with her as she tours. The model seems to be working -- Ani and family just made the cover of the most recent issue of Mothering magazine -- but other than this concert video of new song Present/Infant from her new DVD Live at Babeville, Ani has not yet recorded any of the new songs about motherhood which she has performed at her recent shows. So here's a few random covers of Ani DiFranco songs, including a great version of Joyful Girl, a song DiFranco wrote to honor her own mother, performed by jam band Soulive with Dave Matthews.

• Alana Davis, 32 Flavors (orig. Ani DiFranco)
  
• Allison Crowe, Independence Day (orig. Ani DiFranco)
  
• Soulive w/ Dave Matthews, Joyful Girl (orig. Ani DiFranco)

A swollen belly and a June due date make Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter and folk producer Kris Delmhorst an impending member of the folk musician mother club, but motherhood is already starting to affect her career; she was showing when I saw her at the Iron Horse a few months ago, and these days, she's rushing through a few dates in support of her new and absolutely stunning album Shotgun Singer before she goes on family leave. We've played cuts from Delmhorst here before, in recognition of her work with Peter Mulvey and father-to-be Jeffrey Foucault as part of folk trio Redbird; today, it's Kris' turn to glow with this fine, twangy interpretation of an old spiritual tune, and a sweet collaborative turn on Tom Waits' Hold On.

• Kris Delmhorst, Ain't No Grave (trad.)
  
• Redbird, Hold On (orig. Tom Waits)

Thanks to folkmusic.about.com for their feature on Folk Music Moms, which served as today's writing prompt. For more about volunteering at Falcon Ridge this July, check out the festival website. Oh, and if you're reading this, Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Single Song Sunday: Rain and Snow (On Traditional Folksongs as Tabula Rosa) Plus 3 bonus Grateful Dead rainsongs

Whether stripped-down so as not to overwhelm the authenticity of the song and singer, or jazzed up to resonate with modern musical sensibilities, it is the passage of familiar song, motif, and situation between audience and performer which makes the "folk" in folk music. Songs about trains are ultimately songs about longing; songs about the road resonate with those who wander and those who long for a change, though in different ways. Such songs play broadly to universal themes, the better to leave room for such connection. In collapsing the participant/observer gap, the songs have connected folk artists and folk audiences for a century or more.

We might say, then, that traditional songs like Rain and Snow (also called Cold Rain and Snow in some collections) are both heart and origin of folk music. Problematically, however, these same qualities which make tradfolk accessible can make writing about traditional songs an exercise in futility.

Many tradfolk songs have loose lyrics, thin and incomplete, which drift from interpretation to interpretation, and thus invite the sort of minute lyrical analysis only a music historian could love. Today's featured song is perhaps an extreme example of the problem of interpretation. It contains only twelve lines, four of which are merely repetitions of the previous line, and its lyrics are vague, naming lifelong trouble between narrator and spouse without ascribing cause.

Similarly, since the origins of traditional american folk songs like Rain and Snow are murky at best, historical analysis is no better an approach to understanding. Even the best write-ups can end up an exercise in cover geneology, offering little more than a litany of who-sang-and-when, ad infinitum. And this is the anathema of blogging, I suppose, which seems to me most specifically a medium of anecdotal small-scale sharing and interpretation, not mere enumeration.

But this is not to say that there is nothing we can say. The best approach to traditional song interpretation, I think, begins with a simple acknowledgement of what a song is. It is the parameters of possibility which make traditional folk song unique and interesting.

Rain and Snow, for example, is a beautiful, simple, melancholy song of spousal dissatisfaction which can be interpreted as many ways as humans can express such emotion. The way the doubled-lyrics degrade from storylyric to simple image to repeated, strung-out phrase at each verse's end requires singers to howl their emotional choices open-voweled. The song's last line leaves open the possibility that the song's narrator has been the cause of his own resolution, without necessarily calling it either way.

When combined, these traits make for powerful potential in the hands of the coverartist. The unresolved narrative, coupled with the simple lyrical and chord patterns, leaves ample room for true interpretation. Indeed, it is the tonality and approach of a given coverartist which will ultimately determine whether we take these lyrics as melancholy or resigned, the narrative as sinister or merely regretful.

Rain and Snow is generally considered a traditional fiddle-and-folk appalachian folksong, though old folkies likely know it best from the works of Pentagle and the Grateful Dead; it is so much a part of the Deadhead canon, in fact, that it was included on jazz/folk/world music label Shanachie's "The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead". Rather than rehash those old familiars, here's a set of six stellar post-millenial versions, from folk to roots to celtic to true blue bluegrass, just to prove that there's always more life to be had in tradsongs, the lifeblood of folk.

• Solas, Rain and Snow
  Celtic folk synthesists Solas bring a hopping-fast world-beat sensibility and powerful vocal harmonies to this reimagined and rechorded version of the old standard, found on their greatest hits compilation CD/DVD Reunion: A Decade of Solas.
  
  
• The Del McCoury Band, Rain and Snow
  
• The Chieftains with The Del McCoury Band, Rain and Snow
  Bluegrass elder statesman Del McCoury and his band of virtuosos tell the story straight, uptempo, and twangy twice: live from jamband mecca Bonnaroo, and with The Chieftains, Irish folkrockers known for stellar interpretations of traditional folksong, off their countrygrass collaborative effort Down the Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions.
  
  
• The Be Good Tanyas, Rain and Snow
  The only female-voiced version herein is a ragged, loose, wistful one, with traditional mountain instruments from banjo to brush. From Blue Horse, the first of three exquisite albums from the young reigning queens of Canadian indie americana.
  
  
• Peter Mulvey, Rain and Snow
  Low-and-raspy-voiced folk guitarist Peter Mulvey muddles meaning and motive in this muted solo guitar cover from previously-featured subway recording Ten Thousand Mornings.
  
  
• Blue Mountain, Rain and Snow
  Alt-country roots rockers and early No Depression magazine cover subjects Blue Mountain combined Southern mountain music with a mississipi blues style that brought new life to the folk tradition. After releasing final masterwork Roots, they broke up to pursue other projects in late 2001, but came back together in summer 2007 for a reunion tour that is still going strong despite a lack of label support or online store.

As always, wherever possible, artist and album links on Cover Lay Down go directly to each artist's preferred sources for purchase -- the best way to support musicians without giving money to unecessary middlemen. Order now, and put some tradition under the tree.

Today's bonus rainsongs have all been performed by members of the Grateful Dead at one time or another, according to the Grateful Dead Lyric and Songfinder:

• New Riders of the Purple Sage founder Dave Nelson covers the Grateful Dead's Box of Rain (live)
  
• Folk supergroup Redbird do a jangly version of Dylan's Buckets of Rain
  
• Neo-folkgrassers Crooked Still cover softly tradsong Wind and Rain

Previously on Cover Lay Down: Folk covers of songs of snow and winter

Chris Smither Covers: John Hiatt, The Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Chuck Berry, and Dylan

I seriously considered Chris Smither for our Covered in Folk series. After all, for much of his forty-year career Smither was a total unknown outside a very small community...unless you happened to know who wrote Bonnie Raitt's hit Love Me Like A Man. Smither has cred as a performer in his own right; he deserves to be touted for his own deceptively simple musicianship, not just his writing. The problem is, while his songs have been pretty consistently out in the open since he started out, his career path yaws like a ship in a storm.

Smither joined the Cambridge, MA folk scene in the late sixties, and hit the national radar in the early seventies with a spate of albums that showcased his emerging songwriting and raw, bluesy swamp folk style. But he faded into relative obscurity by the end of the decade, touring sporadically, releasing only one album in the eighties while his songs lived on in the hands of others. For a while, it looked like another promising musician had gotten lost.

But when Smither came back in 1991 with intimately recorded live album Another Way To Find You, it put him right back in the groove, winning awards and filling bars across the country. Since then, he's been prolific and celebrated; today, where the Dixie Chicks still sell more Patty Griffin than Patty Griffin, Chris Smither has transcended life as "the guy who wrote that song" to become a headliner again, reemerging from the dark eighties to impress a new generation with his foot-stomping blues/folk guitar style, his throat-scratching Florida by way of New Orleans tenor drawl, and his interpretation of both his own well-crafted tunes and familiar standards from the folk canon.

At his best, Smither's signature sound is a holdover from the days of Leadbelly, before blues and folk music split into distinct genres. Like those that came before him, he can play fast and loose with tempo, speeding through phrases on the guitar in raw emotive power. What distinguishes his style from the great grandaddies of interpretive fingerplucking is a preference for fastfinger slide over chord-playing, and a mellow, weathered grin all his own that shines through his lyrical play to flavor even the most wistful of folksongs.

The edgy, bluesy style Smither favors in performance is best featured on Another Way to Find You, in all its live, foot-stomping glory; his produced work shows an equally gifted ability to play the power of that wailing voice and sweet guitarplay off a full wash of sound. Here's a full house of covers from his second wave of fame -- a trio of solid tracks from Another Way, and a pair of more recent, more produced cuts -- just to prove that you can rise again:

• Friend of the Devil (orig. Grateful Dead)
  
• Down in the Flood (orig. Bob Dylan)
  
• Tulane (orig. Chuck Berry)
  
• Rock and Roll Doctor (orig. Little Feat)
  
• Real Fine Love (orig. John Hiatt)
  

Chris Smither sells all his in-print works, from 1984's amazing It Ain't Easy to last year's solid Leave The Light On, through his website, so you know where he'd prefer you buy them. Unfortunately, if you'd like to go back to his work from before the resurrection, you'll have to scour the used recordshops -- but they're well worth the vintage price, if you find one in good condition.


Today's bonus coversongs are a full house, too:

• Smoothjazz chanteuse Diana Krall covers Smither's Love Me Like A Man
  
• Bonnie Raitt covers Love Me Like A Man, too (live, from Road Tested)
  
• Chris Smither's original 1970 version of Love You Like A Man
  (our first NON-cover here on Cover Lay Down!)
  
• Smither makes Roly Sally's Killin' the Blues his own
  
• Shawn Colvin covers Smither's version of Killing the Blues