Showing posts with label Shawn Colvin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shawn Colvin. Show all posts

Monday, April 14, 2008

Covered in Kidfolk, Part 4: Daddy's Little Girl
Coversongs for Fathers and Daughters



My younger daughter turns three tomorrow, and we've spent the weekend celebrating with extended family: a trip to the circus yesterday, brunch and a slightly damp walkaround at 19th century "living museum" Old Sturbridge Village today. It's been exhausting, to be honest -- putting the girls in their spring dresses, driving back and forth the length of Massachusetts, and advocating for the kids sanity among the best intentions of so many family members is a lot of work.

But I'm grateful for the distraction. Because if I had a chance to really sit and think about how big my little girl is getting, I'd probably just end up crying.

I remember, from her older sister: three is the turning point, where a child begins to turn from a state of constant parental need to wanting space and freedom, a room of her own. Sure enough, when we asked the wee one what she wanted for her birthday, she asked for a bunk bed -- which was, for her older sister, the moment we could no longer lie in bed together, late at night in the darkness, and do what daddies and their children do: share stories, snuggle close, and, finally, listen for those sweet deep sighs, the ones that mean sleep has finally come to take my child from me one more time.

The elderchild read her first book all the way through this week -- just us and Sam I Am on the couch past her bedtime, struggling with would nots and could nots until the triumphant end. I was proud, and it seemed right. But my mind and heart play tricks. While milestones seem perfectly natural for the older child, and always have, there's a part of my heart that rails against change when it comes to her younger sister. I want so much for her to be little forever, it hurts like hell.

She's getting big without me, more than her big sister did. We get so little time, just her and me, and she is still adjusting to Mama as a working girl -- she clings to Mama when she comes home, and will not talk to me for the rest of the evening. This tiny towhead who once insisted on her Daddy, and only her Daddy, in the middle of the crying night is losing her lisp, and gaining her independence, and fighting to hold on to her Mama, and all I can do is watch the clock, and ache to hold her in my arms while they are still strong enough to carry her.

So it's been a poignant time for me, there on the couch with the elderchild while the wee one snuggles in with her Mama. I've always felt like I give the second child short shrift; it seems like we had so much more time, so much more focus when there was only one. Now so much more of our life together is spent in threes, trying to manage the play between them. Now here I am, running out of time.

I'm proud of them, and I feel good about the time we spend together, on the whole. But my little girls are growing up, and though there's nothing I can do about it except take the moments as they come, and fight for every one I can, I miss their smaller selves. And my heart breaks when I think how precious, how rare, the moments are about to become.



There are several popular folksongs about fathers and sons which have been covered within the genre -- stellar versions of Cat Stevens' Father and Son and Paul Simon's St. Judy's Comet jump to mind, though Ben Folds' Still Fighting It remains so definitive it is practically uncoverable. But with the exception of a few sappy countrypop tunes, there aren't so many songs written from fathers to daughters out there.

One reason the crossgender parent-to-child song may be so rare is that it provides a weaker outlet for the narrator to project their own sense of childhood into the child. Which is to say: The narrative trick which turns a song about fathers into a song about fatherhood, which makes mincemeat of my heart in songs like Harry Chapin's Cat in the Cradle and Mike Rutherford's Living Years, is unavailable to us. No matter how much I love my children, I can never claim to know what it is to be a little girl with a Daddy.

But though like the moments I have with my own little girls, songs which speak directly and explicitly to our lot as parents with daughters are precious and few, what songs there are tug powerfully at the heartstrings. So today, a short set of songs which speak to my own complicated feelings for my own little girls. I've deliberately left out songs which name sons or mothers, though I've allowed myself a couple of songs which are open enough to come from any parent to any child. But this set of songs is intended first and foremost for daddies to give to their daughters. As such, it runs from sugar and spice, through everything nice. Because whether you listen as a child or as a parent, that's what memories are made of.

Unlike our previous kidsong posts here on Cover Lay Down, a vast majority of the songs included herein were not originally intended for children. Instead, most teeter on an open line, innocent enough to apply to either a lover or a child, unspecific enough to allow a good interpreter to choose, if they wish. To me, the delivery and intention of the performances below resolves the lyrical vagueness in a way that makes them perfect for sharing between parent and child. But many work well as more general songs of love and affection. You're welcome, as always, to make them your own in any way you need them to. That's the heart of folk, right there.


  • Livingston Taylor, Isn't She Lovely (orig. Stevie Wonder)
    Like brother James, Livingston Taylor specializes in sweet songs delivered in a crisp, light crooning tenor over bright acoustic stringwork. This cover of Stevie Wonder's tribute to female innocence comes from kidlabel Music for Little People, off out-of-print collection That's What Little Girls Are Made Of.

  • Lucy Kaplansky, Goodnight My Angel (orig. Billy Joel)
  • Eliza Gilkyson, Child Of Mine (orig. Carole King)
    A pair from the incredible kidfolk compilation Down at the Sea Hotel: Cover Lay Down fave Lucy Kaplansky with a gorgeous tune originally penned by Billy Joel for his own daughter, and Eliza Gilkyson with a breathy, slow country blues take on a Goffin/King classic which suggests misty-eyed regret even as the lyrics celebrate a child's independance.

  • Shawn Colvin, Say A Little Prayer (orig. Greg Brown)
    So many female coverversions of songs written by fathers for their daughters. This one, which treats the late-night illness of a child with a stoicism and a lightness masking the secret fear all parents have for their sick children, is more poignant than many, more mystical than most. Shawn Colvin is but one of many strong folkwomen on the highly recommended all-female Greg Brown tribute Going Driftless.

  • John Haitt and Loudon Wainwright III, My Girl (orig. Smokey Robinson)
    Languid and dreamy, floated over a majestic piano and guitarstrum, the beauty of this version lies in the distance between Wainwright's melodic voice and Hiatt's rasp. Listen for the high harmony; it's chilling. Originally a B-side, subsequently off out-of-print Demon Records compilation album From Hell to Obscurity.

  • Ani DiFranco w/ Jackie Chan, Unforgettable (orig. Nat King Cole)
    Originally a song with unspecified female subject, this song was transformed when Natalie Cole chose to re-record it with the ghost of her father. Though the end result was a song more from daughter to father than the other way around, I think the sentiment holds, even in Ani DiFranco and Jackie Chan's unusual take. From When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear.

  • Ben Lee, In My Life (orig. The Beatles)
  • Chantal Kreviazuk, In My Life (ibid.)
    This song may not have been intended to speak to the way all other loves pale in comparison to the sudden, deep love we feel for our chidren, almost from the moment they are born. But it says it, all the same. Many good versions to choose from here; in the interest of diversity, here's Aussie Ben Lee's tentative, nasal tenor and slow wash of sound off of recent indie tribute album This Bird Has Flown, in sharp contrast with Canadian Chantal Kreviazuk's bright soprano, layered over production suprisingly similar to the original, from the Providence soundtrack.

  • Billy Bragg w/ Cara Tivey, She's Leaving Home (orig. The Beatles)
    All my fears in one song: the parents who never truly understood their child, even as she leaves them behind without a goodbye. Another repost, and more Beatles, gorgeously performed by Billy Bragg; so tender and wistful, it's just right for the occasion.

  • Sheryl Crow, You Can Close Your Eyes (orig. James Taylor)
    One of my very favorite songs to sing to children: a stunningly simple lullaby of eternal parent/child tomorrows from James Taylor, covered in folkpop well enough for a Grammy nomination for Sheryl Crow in the Best Pop Female Vocalist category.

  • Gray Sky Girls, You Are My Sunshine (orig. Jimmie Davis)
    I sing this song to my children, as my parents sung this song to me. Though the Elizabeth Mitchell version I posted in our very first Covered in Kidfolk post sounds more like my parents, the simple, sweet plaintive harmony from local "organic country slowgrass" folkies Gray Sky Girls best parallels that which I hear in my head and heart.


As always, artist and album links above go to online sources for purchasing genuine plastic circles which offer the best chance of profit for musicians, and the least amount of corporate middleman skim-off. Teach your children well: support the artists you listen to.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Covered In Folk: Classical Music
(Bela Fleck, Chris Thile, David Wilcox, Brooks Williams, etc.)



Most people think of modern folk music as inherently coupled with the singer-songwriter movement. And it is true that, once upon a time, those who would grow up to become the folk troubadors of their own tomorrows learned their songs the traditional way, at the knees of their elders, that they, too, might pass old songs on to a new generation, and tell their own stories in familiar forms.

But the primary instruments of folk music turn out to be more versatile than the folk tradition would suggest. And though many modern musicians surely came to folk the old-fashioned way, through listening and picking, plenty others have grown up in modern home environments and schools where formal lessons are a norm. Today's radio dial speaks in a variety of tongues and timbres. And a parent's treasured record collection allows for a broad base of source material far richer than that which can be learned from the old folkie or bluesman next door.

The result has been a world in which the potential for early imitation can come from almost anywhere, and does. And as the ways we listen, store, pass along and learn our music change, so does the method by which musicians gain their craft, and stretch it out. It is a world of crossover, in which classical cellist Yo Yo Ma sits in with James Taylor in concert, The Kronos Quartet plays the hell out of Robert Johnson's Crossroads, and bluegrass musicians like Bela Fleck cut entire albums of classical music. And, since all these remain the music of the folk, for the folk, and by the folk, when the sound comes together just right, it's still folk music if we want it to be.

On one level, then, like indiefolk, folk rock, and Celtic Punk, the inclusion of classical music in the folk musician's repertoire is just another example of the hyphenate hybridization of genre which is so common in the world of modern music. But on another level, I think there is reason to celebrate this phenomenon as something very special.

For one thing, the ability to interpret classical themes and motifs effectively is not something that all kinds of folk musicians are even capable of. Doing so calls upon a kind of technical adeptness that is anathema to the strum patterns so prevalent in folk musicians who have learned their trade from blues or rock.

On an even grander scale, making classical music "come out" as folk collapses an exceptional historical dichotomy which presents classical music as the exact opposite of folk music. To take a form which its composers and its audiences have long maintained is so complex, so rarified, that it can only be fully appreciated after years of careful listening and quiet appreciation, and put it in the hands of musicians and instruments which are, by definition, "jus' folk", is a revolutionary act on a scale far beyond that of any other folk hybrid form.

In other words: it takes both skill and guts to do this. And perhaps this is why, though the passage of melody and theme from the commonfolk to the highbrow has been a common theme in classical music for over a century, from Bartok to Copeland, it remains rare to hear serious application of classical music to the instrumentation of folk, at least in the hands of musicians who themselves identify as coming from the folk tradition.

Today's coversongs involve neither songwriting nor singing, for the most part. Instead, here's a surprisingly diverse set of genuine classical music played on acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins, fiddles, and other rude country noisemakers by a set of musicians from many folk traditions: contradance, "true" folk, flamenco, Klezmer, the bluegrass and appalachian camps. One hand, this is nothing more than another example of the same phenomenon that makes electronic folk a legitimate (albeit still very fuzzy) term in the hands of promoters and artists. On another level, this is more folk than anything else, a set of adept artists bravely trading on their popular cache to bring cake to the breadline. Relax, and enjoy.



As always here on Cover Lay Down, all song and artist links above go direct to label and artist websites, where you can and should purchase these and other incredible soundscapes. Because while buying your music instead of downloading it might be a classical model, supporting artists without the middlemen is most definitely folk.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Caroline Herring, Lantana:
covers of Kate Wolf and All The Pretty Little Horses



Ever wonder what happens to the artists who win Best New Artist at SXSW? If they're Caroline Herring, they release a strong second album and then disappear, putting their recording career on hold to focus on marriage and motherhood. Now, after a long hiatus, Herring returns to the forefront of the folkworld with Lantana, a stunning, intimate collection which I've already shortlisted as one of my top ten folk/roots/Americana albums of 2008.

Taking time off for family is an especially risky move in today's music world, where momentum is king -- bloggers, who constantly seek "the next big thing", share no small responsibility for accelerating this process. But with true genius, Herring turns her time out of the limelight to her advantage, treating it as both subject and sustenance, crafting a strong, polished set of tunes which speak to the the complex balance between traditional family roles and career ambitions which women are asked to internalize in modern society.

The result is a revelation. Herring's five years out of the studio only intensified what was already a stellar ability to create and deliver poignant, powerful songs about the world around her in a pure, rich southern-twanged voice reminiscent of some of the the best female folksingers of the past thirty years. The songs on Lantana are simultaneously authentic and new, applying traditional folk storytelling and verse structure to stories of women in today's rural South who, like Herring herself, have struggled to find their place between the demands of the heart and post-feminist possibility.

At its best, this album is haunting and beautiful, combining strong songwriting with solid, effective production and stunning vocal delivery. Paper Gown, a murder ballad of the finest order which retells the chilling story of Susan Smith, is especially gorgeous example of Herring's ability to create song of the first order: catchy, thoughtful, sympathetic, and deep, the song roots itself in your soul, lingering long after the music has faded from the ears. Even in her quieter, more peaceful numbers -- including a deceptively simple cover of traditional lullaby All the Pretty Little Horses and a beautiful, wistful version of Kate Wolf's Midnight on the Water, both of which we feature below -- Herring brings a depth of emotion which few contemporaries can muster

Universally accessible yet rooted deeply in the sounds of Herring's native south, Lantana is the best singer-songwriter CD I've heard in a very long time. Let's hope it's the first of many more to come from this up-and-second-coming talent.


Lantana doesn't come out until March 4th, but you want more of Caroline Herring as soon as possible, so pre-order Lantana over at Signature Sounds today. Act now, and you can pick up this magnificent album for under ten dollars -- a real steal in today's market.

Still not convinced? Check out Paper Gown over at fellow folkblog Here Comes The Flood. Their description of Caroline Herring's sound as "gothic country" is right on the money.


Today's bonus coversongs include another take on Kate Wolf, and a set of songs which used to be my favorite versions of the slave lullaby All The Pretty Little Horses before Caroline Herring hit it on the nose:

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Covered in Folk: Simon and Garfunkel
(Indigo Girls, Jonatha Brooke, Shawn Colvin, and more!)


Hope no one minds two Covered in Folk features in the same week; in my other life I've got student grades to process and a new term starting up Thursday, so I needed something quick. Upcoming features include the coversong repertoires of some stellar voices from across the folk spectrum; in the meantime, here's a post I've been sitting on for a few weeks, ever since our feature on the solosongs of Paul Simon.


You need me to say something about Simon and Garfunkel? THE Simon and Garfunkel? Okay, how about this: every single person I know knows the lyrics to at least one Simon and Garfunkel song. Me? I can sing Cecilia in my sleep. In harmony.

Rolling Stone lists Simon and Garfunkel at #40 on their most influential artists ever; by "influential", they're talking about the effect of this American folk rock duo on the world of professional music, the stuff that garnered them a lifetime achievement award at the 2003 Grammy awards. But much more noteworthy is the fact that, three generations later, their songs have become part of the base set of popular tunes which pepper the sonic landscape for the developing ear in suburban American culture.

It's not just that I know all the words to a song older than me. It's that I learned them when I was fourteen, and I still remember them. Even in an earbud age, kids still come home from summer camp with the songs of James Taylor, the Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel in their ears, because this is the canon of the acoustic guitar, passed down from older teen counselor to song circle. Now that's folk. It's truths like that which give us hope for the next generation, and the next beyond that, too.

Today we present a carefully chosen, predominantly female-voiced set of Simon and Garfunkel covers, firmly grounded in the folk world but willing to veer towards alt-country (Johnny Cash), folk pop (The Indigo Girls), and indiefolk (The Purple Raiders, Emiliana Torinni) where the song warrants it. Nothing comprehensive, mind you. Just some great songs, performed and interpreted with love and guitars. And isn't that the best kind of tribute?


  • Indigo Girls, Mrs. Robinson
    The tomboyish, politicized folk harmonies of the Indigo Girls charge every word with a gleeful yearning, create the perfect happy medium between the original song and that amazing cover by the Lemonheads.

  • The Purple Raiders, Mrs. Robinson
    ...though this even more ragged demo might have more indiecred. I'd say more about alt-country upstarts The Purple Raiders, but their website is all in German.

  • Johnny Cash w/ Fiona Apple, Bridge over Troubled Water
    This one got lost among the Nine Inch Nails and U2 in the last cover-heavy years of Cash's career. Some sappy synth-vocals in the background, but Johnny Cash's broken-voiced hope clears the maudlin bar.

  • Emiliana Torrini, Sound of Silence
    Folk rock at its psychadelic, Icelandic best. Once a stand-in for Bjork, Emiliana Torrini can turn a great song on its ear without straying too far from the original sound. She can also build a hell of a wall of sound.

  • Brobdingnagian Bards, Scarborough Faire (trad.)
    A tradsong popularized by Simon and Garfunkel, done over by faux buskers the Brobdingnagian Bards on the punnishly-titled A Faire to Remember. Our first nod to the filksong and re-creationist fairefolk movements here on Cover Lay Down.

  • Jonatha Brooke, Bleecker Street
    Musicians and music lovers of a certain age know we're a bit too young to know Bleecker Street as it was in the heydey of the American folk revival. But we sure recognize a debt to our forefathers when we see it, and Jonatha Brooke pays hers back with interest. Absolutely stunning. From the incredible out-of-print folkscene tribute album Bleecker Street: Greenwich Village In The 60's.

  • Shawn Colvin, The Only Living Boy in New York
    A repost from our first few weeks, but I couldn't resist: Shawn Colvin's sweet, soaring, just-before-9-11 cover of this song is the archetype for the truly great Paul Simon cover. Feel the love, and own it, too.

  • Alison Brown w/ Indigo Girls, Homeward Bound
    Jazzfolk fusion bluegrass banjo wizard (and Compass Records founder) Alison Brown generally brings guest vocalists in for her coversongs; here, the sweet harmonies of the Indigo Girls bring us back full circle.


    As always, all artist links above go to artists' preferred source for purchase; if you like what you hear, pick up the recorded works of these modern inheritors of the folk world by clicking on their names above.


    And here's a little bonus section coverfolk from Paul Simon's oft-forgotten partner -- a man who has read one thousand twenty three books since June of 1968, and wanted to put a Bach chorale piece on Bridge Over Troubled Waters. There are others, but this Art Garfunkel stuff's a little too lite for my ears.

  • Wednesday, January 16, 2008

    The Jones Street Boys Cover:
    The Band, John Hartford, Bill Monroe, Peter Rowan



    Brooklyn-based folkgrass band The Jones Street Boys released their first album, Overcome, back in October of 2007; since then, they've raised a couple of eyebrows on the americana and alt-country blogs, but not nearly enough. I heard them for the first time last week, but I'm not afraid to be late for the party when I've got such a great housewarming gift for all those out there who appreciate the No Depression end of modern folk music.

    At heart, The Jones Street Boys are a bluegrass band; their members have played Merlefest alongside Gillian Welch and Nickel Creek, and their instrumentation is heavy on the banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin and upright bass. But add a sweet harmonica worthy of Springsteen, a barrel-house piano, and the ragged, heartfelt delivery of Wilco or The Band, and the result is gorgeous, stripped down, pulled back, intimate blues-tinged americana.

    If this is bluegrass at all, it's lo-fi alt-country bluegrass music with a hint of midnight trainsongs and fireside song circles, a dollop of happy roots rock, and the pure infectious joy of making plumb great music. In fact, their sound is so damn infectious, I haven't listened to anything else in days.

    The range of these five top-notch musicians is impressive, too. Their ability to hold back and control the flow, floating the sparse harmonica and lead vocals over a bed of solid bass, mandolin, and drumkit and some sweet campfire harmonies, creates a ragged alt-country tension that lends the perfect note of longing and exhaustion to their slower songs. And when they cut loose, the result is pure acoustic glee.

    Overcome runs a pretty broad spectrum, from full-bore youngfolks jams to sparse, weary americana; of these, the three covers that appear on this self-produced album hover around the americana end, but I'm not complaining. All are excellent, as covers and as song. Their cover of Twilight, my favorite song by The Band, bears the sound of encores at midnight; John Hartford's Tall Buildings, which closes the album, beats Gillian Welch's version hands down. And in these capable hands, lesser-known bluegrass classic Walls of Time, originally by Bill Monroe and Peter Rowan, becomes a majestic, bittersweet masterpiece.

    This is great stuff, a perfect meld of traditional blues-and-bluegrass instrumentation and No Depression-esque sensibility. Thanks to The Planetary Group for allowing us to pass along these covers, that you, too, might get The Jones Street Boys stuck in your head.


    Want to hear more? Stream the entire album over at The Jones Street Boys website, and then buy Overcome via Insound, the band's preferred source for purchase. And when you do, keep an ear open for Argentina, a beautiful, uptempo original easily worth the price of purchase.


    Today's bonus coversongs offer other artist's versions of the same songs covered on Overcome, for comparison's sake. It says what it needs to about the genius of The Jones Street Boys that, in other contexts, these covers would stand out more.

    Sunday, December 30, 2007

    And A Happy New Year
    (On The Turning of Time and Calendar Pages)



    It's human nature to turn inward in times of timeturning. It's reassuring that we do; it bespeaks our still-close relationship with nature, and the planet. In a world long teetering on the verge of disaster, our innate need to constantly reground ourselves in history and ecology gives me more hope than anything at the future and continued existence of the human race. That it happens everywhere, regardless of country or creed, only reinforces my faith in all of us.

    May your year turn joyfully. May you put to rest all the anxieties of a lifetime passed-so-far, and pass clean into the new possibility. May you live more and more in the connections between, and less and less in the margins. May you cover the world, and may the world cover you.


    I resolve to continue to promote folk artists and their labels by linking to their preferred source for purchasing wherever possible, rather than supporting megastores and megalabels who really aren't interested in music, or in musicians or their audiences, except as a means to a dollar.

    In addition, I resolve to continue to serve an astute listening public (that's you!) by continuing to bring you songs, singers, and songwriters in context as long as it is safe, legal, and fun for all of us...and by feeling grateful for every comment, email, and download. It's nice to feel appreciated, folks. Thanks for listening, and have a very, very happy new year.

    Don't forget to come back Wednesday for another installment in our very popular Covered in Folk series. This week I'll be featuring folkcovers of Paul Simon tunes.

    Monday, December 24, 2007

    Best of the Season:
    The Holiday Halfcovers of Over The Rhine

    One last holiday post, though I promised otherwise. Because the holiday songs of Over The Rhine transcend the season. I saved the best for last.



    I just re-discovered Over The Rhine, and they blew me away. The sweet breathy girlvocals, the moody guitar and piano, the exquisite musicianship and tonality. I'm a bit too much in awe to say much, honestly.

    Post-folkers Over the Rhine have been around for fifteen years, touring with everyone from Dylan to the Cowboy Junkies. In that time, they've gone from a foursome to a married twosome, mellowed out significantly, and produced not one but two holiday albums: 1996 masterwork The Darkest Night of the Year, and last year's fan-only, absolutely mind-blowing Snow Angels, which didn't truly hit the mass market until this holiday season.

    It was Snow Angels which recaptured my heart. Most of the album consists of heart-stopping originals: identifiably Christmassy, of a variety of types, all resonant with the best of the fireside yule. But it also includes two half-covers, new Christmas songs which start with or contain the kernels of traditional Christmas songs. I'm not sure what to call these, except so incredible, you just have to hear them.

    For our final holiday post, then, a featurette: three Over The Rhine holiday songs -- one old, two new -- that are more than covers. Each uses the familiar as a starting point, adding lyrics, rechording the sound, twisting melodies beyond recognition. But this isn't like that tiny shard of Jingle Bells at the head and tail of Joni Mitchell's River. This is something new, on the far edge of the coversong, but still identifiably a cover. And it's gorgeous.


    Look, I know it's late in the season to push holiday music. But I swear, I plan to keep Snow Angels on the turntable until February, at least. And new Over The Rhine album The Trumpet Child, too. You will too, when you hear them. Get them now.

    Today's bonus coversongs are more true to their much more recently written original. But they're both sweet and sleek, just the thing for that last, late-Christmas afternoon light.



    Bonus bonus (late addition): in case your Christmas isn't truly here until after the holidays, here's the best version I know of Blue Christmas, by Chaim Tannenbaum, off The McGarrigle Christmas Hour. (Do you think Chaim Tannenbaum is his real name? Translated, it means "tree of life".)

    Sunday, November 4, 2007

    Covered in Kidfolk:
    Lullabies and Softsongs For Cool Moms and Dads




    I've been a teacher for almost fifteen years, and a Daddy for five; I'm lucky to be able to live in a world where I can be with kids, and play. But other than a short period of time where my daughter's favorite song was Andrew W.K.'s thrashpunk anthem She Is Beautiful, this means there's a constant struggle in my house between what I like to call "that same damn circus record" and what the kids dismissively refer to as "Daddy's music".

    But listen up, Dads (and Moms): when the kids demand more appropriate age-specific earcandy, we don't really have to lose. In a world where an entire generation is trying to keep their cool in the face of diapers and snailspace trick or treating, you don't have to listen to that pap that passed for kids music in the disco era. Or Barney songs. Or that awful, too-chipper CD of baby-fied classics your mother picked up at her local all-natural toy store (sorry, mom). There's a brand new crop of kidsingers out there -- a holy host, from Dan Zanes to a thousand younger artists -- and they're not afraid to get 'em while they're young.

    For the indie and rock crowds, I suppose, this demand for "real" kidmusic does seem to have opened up a new niche market. But folk music has long carried the torch for the authentic in kidsong. My 1970s childhood was filled with acoustic guitar and rough-tinged voices on already-old records from Guthrie and Leadbelly, and newer acts from Peter, Paul, and Mary to Bill Staines. When folk music came back for the Fast Folk second wave, it brought along its sense of childlike wonder; the demand bought Grisman and Garcia and Taj Mahal a second round of folkfame, and made way for new acts, like the jamgrass-for-kids Trout Fishing in America.

    Since then, as the new generation grows through its indie stages, our favorite streetwise musicians grow up and have kids of their own -- and out come the guitars and the quiet, simple voices, calling up half-remembered favorites from a time when everything was simple and pure. Suddenly, everyone's a folk singer.

    Like ice cream comes in vanilla and chocolate, kids songs come in two primary flavors, the quiet and the silly -- but there are infinite variations from creamy to nutty. Next week, maybe, we'll get a case of the sillies, and need to shake it all out. Today, three generations of folksingers -- oldtimers Bill Staines and Garcia/Grisman, fastfolker Shawn Colvin and bluegrass staple Alison Krauss, and a host of newer artists from the wide margins of modern folk -- bring us a set of lullabies and resting songs for a quiet Sunday afternoon.


    Click on artist/album names to buy some incredible music for the young and the young at heart. And remember, kids: buying music from the artist's preferred source gives you peace of mind so you can sleep like a baby.

    Sunday, October 28, 2007

    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


    Friday, October 5, 2007

    Shawn Colvin, Cover Girl:
    From Tom Waits to the Talking Heads (and then some)




    The profitability of cover albums may be indirect for artists, but as a way to raise awareness, it's a masterstroke. Way back when genres meant something, the internet hadn't changed our music distribution models, and the Adult Alternative label hadn't subsumed well-produced folk music, recording a cover album was a sneaky strategy for folk musicians to broaden the listener base and please the fans all at once.

    Shawn Colvin's 1989 debut Steady On garnered her a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and deservedly so: the combination of Colvin's polished, slightly southern-twanged voice and co-writer and producer John Leventhal's lush sound made for seminal work of modern folk, irresistible to those of us looking for the next Suzanne Vega. But Colvin's sophomore Fat City was less well received -- as with so many musicians who spend decades honing that first pressing, the gems were fewer for the second go-round. How to broaden and recover that fresh-faced folk appeal?

    Enter Cover Girl, a 1994 album which primarily took covers from Colvin's live recordings (a staple of the on-the-road folksinger) and added a few in-studio layers of bass and atmospheric noise. The end product required little studio time or rehearsal for Colvin; the strategy allowed her to remain in the public eye while she worked up her next album of original material, and it paid off in music and reputation, if not in actual sales.

    Though one or two Cover Girl tracks suffer from overproduction -- including, sadly, her cover of The Police's Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic -- the hit-to-miss ratio here is high. Colvin's simple guitar and little-girl voice breathe new life into a wide swath of material, from bluesman Chris Smither's Killing the Blues to Band b-side Twilight. Here, we hear her bring backroads innocence to one of two Tom Waits cuts, and her wistful, melodic take on a Talking Heads synthpop classic:

    • Shawn Colvin, This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (orig. Talking Heads)
    • Shawn Colvin, Looking For The Heart of Saturday Night (orig. Tom Waits)

    Colvin appears not to sell her CDs direct from her website, so instead of directing you to buy today's featured album via the artist, I'll note that you can, and should, get Cover Girl for $7.69 at CDUniverse.


    Today's bonus covertracks:

    • Colvin covers Simon and Garfunkel's The Only Living Boy in New York (live)
    • folkcombo Salamander Crossing try Colvin's Shotgun Down The Avalanche
    • Alison Krauss makes funky, fast bluegrass of Colvin's I Don't Know Why

    Wednesday, October 3, 2007

    Eliza Gilkyson Covers:
    Dylan, Greg Brown, and an unexpectedly poignant piece from one hit wonder World Party




    Eliza Gilkyson has apparently been flying under the folk radar for quite some time now -- her Wikipedia entry lists no birth date, guesses at her age, and is comprised entirely of a single sentence about her musical family connections and a list of her 15 studio albums over a 28 year career.

    I must admit, it was a surprise for me to find Gilkyson so unwritten. If her regular appearance on folk collections is any indication, she's well-respected as a solid voice within the folk community, appearing with names from ani to Shawn Colvin. Heck, someone who played a feature set at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival back when her 2000 cut "Hard Times In Babylon" was all over the folkwaves deserves more than a stub.

    To be fair, her relatively recent rise in familiarity, if only within the apparently non-wikipedian folk community, is also due to her appearance on two cover albums -- 2002 Greg Brown tribute Going Driftless and 2001 Dylan recast A Nod To Bob. The former is a masterpiece of the modern folk community; the latter is a generally solid all-folk tribute album to Dylan; both contain covers from a wide breadth of excellent folkies and singer-songwriters, and will surely come up again here on Cover Lay Down.

    Gilkyson's cuts on these albums are equally powerful, melodic, raw and twangy; though you can hear the weary age in her voice, there's something plaintive, simple, even hopeful about her interpretations. But don't take my word for it. Take an earful, and hear for yourself.

    • Eliza Gilkyson, Love Minus Zero (orig. Dylan)
    • Eliza Gilkyson, Sleeper (orig. Brown)

    Her catalog is vast, and though I can't claim to have heard it all, what I have heard is worth owning. I especially recommend Gilkyson's penultimate album Paradise Hotel, which includes a wonderful cover of 80s one-hitter World Party's Is It Like Today, and her 2000 Red House Records release Hard Times in Babylon, and not just for the title song. Get them direct from the label -- Red House deserves your support. You can hear more Gilkyson on MySpace, too.


    Today's Bonus Coversongs:

    • Gilkyson covers World Party's Is It Like Today
    • Greg Brown does Dylan's Pledging My Time
    • Shawn Colvin does Greg Brown's Say a Little Prayer