Cover Lay Down

If tribute albums are a coverlover’s bread and butter, then in-studio covers are quite often the wine: sweet, dry, subtle, and the perfect complement to the studio recordings which bring one to a musician in the first place. But if I take an arms-length approach to live concert recordings, it’s because so many cause me more pain than pleasure. Years of ear training as a choral vocalist leave me unable to appreciate instrumentation which is even slightly out of tune, a problem endemic to the live session, where crowd-pleasing can rush the re-tuning process. Similarly, a somewhat snobbish demand for purity of sound turns me off of crowd noise, speaker fuzz, and muddy recordings that, sadly, are so common to the format.

My insistence on such standards often causes me to eschew tracks that other bloggers celebrate. Live stage sessions can produce otherwise-unrecorded rarities, a temptation for any collector – and I acknowledge that for many true fans, the opportunity to hear their favorite band take on a familiar tune can be more than mere novelty. But for me, far too often, the set-list cover is a vehicle for disappointment, as the perfect pairing of artist and song is marred unforgivably from the very first sour note or yahoo yell.

Which is to say: we celebrate execution here, not merely concept, and recordings made in front of an audience often trade one for the other. But if I nonetheless listen to the live recordings that come my way, it is because every once in a while, the live setting brings sound and sentiment together in a way that the studio cannot reproduce.

The classic example here is Shawn Colvin’s stunningly beautiful take on The Only Living Boy In New York, recorded just a few weeks before the 9/11 tragedy. But live albums, sound-board singletons and full concerts, radio broadcasts, and video-sourced concert tracks are ever emerging, and every once in a while, we find one worth celebrating on its merits. Here’s a few recent finds we love.

When We Get To Shore, the new live album from American roots singer-songwriter and banjo player Coty Hogue, is a perfect kick-off here. Performed in front of a studio audience with fellow Bellingham musicians Aaron Guest (vocals/guitar) and Kat Bula (fiddle/vocals), peppered with traditional tunes and a few great popular songs from both the country and pop canons, including the below takes on Second Hand News and a startlingly sweet, banjo-driven I’m On Fire, plus more from Hazel Dickens, Bill Monroe, and Hogue herself, the mostly-covers album is a revelation of sound, with harmonies galore, a comfort level that belies the musicians’ collective youth, and an edge sure to please the neo-traditional crowd. Those interested in follow-up should also check out To The West, Hogue’s twangy countryfolk studio debut, which hit #1 on the Folk DJ charts in 2009 for its rendition of traditional title track Going to the West; the album is well worth pursuit, both on its own merits, and to see just how far this singer-songwriter has come since her return to the Northwest Americana scene.

• Coty Hogue: I’m On Fire (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
• Coty Hogue: Second Hand News (orig. Fleetwood Mac)
  (from When We Get To Shore: Live at Empty Sea Studios, 2012)

I make a fine distinction in today’s post between in-studio performances and live concert recordings for a reason: as I note above, the urgency of performing for an audience shapes sound and sentiment in ways which are much more likely to prioritize energy over sound, both in the performer’s hands and mouth, and in the recording itself. But there are several fine folk and roots radio shows performed and produced from stage, and here we find a balance of sorts, with practiced engineers mixing for the folks at home while artists perform for the respectfully quiet audiences that sit before them.

The most notable of these revel in the energy of the live, and if a few sets suffer from the same haste and cavernousness as any concert, most benefit greatly from the high stakes of radio opportunity. Both of my favorites – Mountain Stage and eTown – drift past folk into the larger genre mix, with Mountain Stage prioritizing those who touch on the broad roots of and from their home in the West Virginia mountains, and eTown featuring particularly earth- and community-supportive bands and artists who generally claim the singer-songwriter mantle regardless of sound, but in both cases, the performances are well worth revisiting. And for those who love coverage, e-town provides a special treat: each show ends with all the bands who have performed that night performing a cover together on stage with the house band; the songs are often cut on the radio broadcast, but a visit to eTown’s YouTube page will net you the entire track.

• Karan Casey & John Doyle: Sailing Off to the Yankee Land (trad.)
• Arlo Guthrie: City of New Orleans (orig. Steve Goodman)
  (from the Mountain Stage archives, 2012)

• Joshua Radin / DUGAS: Bring It On Home To Me (orig. Sam Cooke)
• Mary Chapin Carpenter / Shawn Colvin: That’s The Way Love Goes (orig. Lefty Frizzell)
• Shawn Colvin / Mary Chapin Carpenter: The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down (orig. The Band)
  (from the eTown archives, 2012)

I’m not a huge fan of mega-festivals, preferring intimate workshop stages and medium-scale outdoor events with a decent chance at seeing the performer’s faces from the crowd. But in an age of digital distribution, not being able to attend doesn’t mean missing out completely. This year’s Newport Folk Festival live sessions, for example, are generally quite well recorded, and while they’re not as comprehensive as one might wish, the sets which currently remain live in the NPR archives are worth the link. And covers abound, if you know where to look: Wilco’s set, for example, begins with a folk rock take on Woody Guthrie’s Christ for President, and includes a couple of the Guthrie-penned songs which helped them make their mark on the music world, while First Aid Kit’s take on Joan Baez classic Diamonds and Rust is a shining star in a sweet but short set. Similarly, Sara Watkins’ cover of John Hartford’s Long Hot Summer Day is a sing-along delight, and her take on Dylan’s Tomorrow is a Long Time is poignant indeed.

• Wilco live at Newport Folk Festival 2012
• First Aid Kit live at Newport Folk Festival 2012
• Sara Watkins live at Newport Folk Festival 2012

*Generally, we prefer to include downloads here, but stripping these songs from their sets has proved a stumbling block; since all posted sets include set lists, we’re confident that our readers can use the links below to stream via NPR archives, skipping as needed to coversongs.

Finally, I can’t help but take the opportunity to tout and thank Molly Venter and Eben Pariser, aka Good Night Moon Shine, for last weekend’s house concert, held at our very own venue in rural Monson, Massachusetts. Both artists have been featured here for their work with their respective bandmates – Molly is the newest member of folkgrass girl trio Red Molly, who we speak of fondly and frequently here on Cover Lay Down; Eben is a founding member of the Brooklyn-based acoustic Americana band Roosevelt Dime, whose plunky, plucky banjo-driven cover of Radiohead’s High and Dry graced these pages upon its debut release in 2009 – but they sound easily as sweet in duo form; we’re honored to have hosted their debut as Good Night Moon Shine, and look forward to their future endeavors.

I should note, before you listen, that these recordings are the exception that proves the rule for today’s feature – in the case of Molly and Eben’s performance, the artists’ preference for echo in the mix was exacerbated by an audience-based recording setting, the use of a lo-fi recording device, and the resonance of the space itself, resulting in tracks that my wife aptly describes as sounding “live”. But as with Shawn Colvin’s Only Living Boy In New York – the gold standard here for live recordings – the historical relevance of the sessions, coupled by the lack of audience noise, tips the scales towards listenability. And since no other recordings of Good Night Moon Shine exist as yet, I cannot help but share them, in the hopes that it will help serve our primary mission: to support artists, especially those who deserve our support as they embark upon new paths to well-deserved glory.

I’ve also posted a somewhat crisper cover from Mark Erelli, who played our concert series in April to mark the 10th anniversary of his live album The Memorial Hall Sessions, which he originally recorded live just down the street in our Civil War era granite edifice of the same name. And please note: those within driving distance of mid-Massachusetts are always welcome at our twice-a-season concerts; our next show, on October 6, will feature another new duo, The Sea The Sea, featuring Chuck E Costa, whose coverage from a 2010 solo show in the same delightful carriage house setting has been featured here before, but which bears repeating ad infinitum.

• Good Night Moon Shine: Angel From Montgomery (orig. John Prine)
• Good Night Moon Shine: Annabelle (orig. Gillian Welch)

• Mark Erelli: Ophelia (orig. The Band)
• Mark Erelli: Summer Night (orig. Bill Morrissey)

• Chuck E Costa: No Love Today (orig. Chris Smither)

*For those that prefer visual images to go with their downloads, all videos from these sessions, and several others, are available at my personal YouTube channel.

PS: Looking for a more regular coverfolk fix? Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features twice weekly…but we also share streams, videos, and other random finds throughout the week at the Cover Lay Down facebook page. Head on over for more, including two more eTown covers – a sweet bluegrass bonus featuring The Infamous Stringdusters covering Tom Petty, and Keller Williams and Marc Broussard turning Wild Horses into a funky acoustic reggae number – and a preview of an upcoming feature on local-girl-made-good Emily Elbert…and while you’re there, hit “like” to help spread the word about the artists we love!

A repost, from last year. Because sometimes, you get it right the first time.

I was a media specialist the morning the towers began to fall: sole captain of a prep school video collection, and proprietor of the largest viewing space on campus. And so it was that the students came to me, one by one and together, by class and by cluster, as the word spread from teacher to teacher; so it was, indeed, that I ended up presiding over a grand experiment in media literacy, as the hour passed, and the cycle of not-news – that long hour of uncertain newscaster conjectures that accompanied the static, repetitive footage on every channel – took over the broadcast universe on that fated day.

As I noted last year, though we would not know until much later, we lost one of our own that morning: Chris Carstanjen, a sweet, geeky compatriot from the IT department, an almost-friend whose first drinking date we had scheduled for the following weekend, before he boarded that flight for California and never made it past downtown NYC. But what I remember most was the stunned silence of a hundred students or more, who in that moment, that sacred hour, were being born as the Terror Generation, though they would not know the deep societal scars which they would carry for a long, long time, if indeed they are still thoughtful enough to know now.

I remember, too, the Dean of Students and I deciding, finally, to turn off the screen, in the face of those somber and endless images and faces; to make a short and surely unmemorable speech about how the absence of news was not news, and commandeer the offices of librarians as impromptu counseling spaces for those who were scared, especially those who had parents and relatives in NYC and in the towers themselves, especially those who came from Muslim cultures and Muslim families, and seemed to understand, however vaguely, that they had suddenly become targets for other students’ confusion.

I remember feeling pride, for a moment, that I had managed to remember my calling in the face of disaster. And then I remember a long flash of shame, that I had somehow managed to make the day about me, thus cheapening the true scope of the disaster.

After that, I don’t remember anything at all. In my memory, it is as if turning off the television turned off the universe, too.

And ever since then, the world has been different. And I will always harbor a secret guilt, just like yours, that the world we rebuilt in the months and years that followed was not the same, even though we know, of course, that it could not have been.


Flash forward a decade, and here we are: one among a million paying tribute to the day the towers slowly fell. The world is faster, now, and more divided – two trends which spin into each other like two sides of a gyroscope, pulling at our psyches. I commute 40 minutes every morning to work with students for whom disaster is always personal and everpresent: homelessness, street violence, unemployment, the looming promise of dead-end futures. Some days it seems the only thing they own is their image, and who can fault them, then, for being so brash and sassy, peacocks with razor talons, angry at the world and taking it out on themselves without even realizing it.

I don’t know where to look for the the scars in this new generation, and I’m not sure I’d see them if I did. But their hardened hearts sadden me, sometimes.

There will be a moment of silence, come Monday’s morning announcements. And my students will speak into the air, loud against the voice of authority, unlistening and disconnected to their culture and each other, even as I am silent, and thinking of Chris, and of the moment I turned on the TV on the movie theater screen, and the smoking hole of culture flashed itself into my brain.

I can hear it, even now.


It’s been seven years, now, since I left the prep school; seven years since we lived side by side with the kids in the dormitories, and shared the pain and joys, the proms and punishments of night and day with the smart and well-bred, the resourced and the right-raised. But I often think of that day when I’m in my inner city classroom, working with the children of the downtrodden, the recent immigrants who don’t speak english, the hopeless – all categories of children whose pain is everpresent and real, and who would never have sat in silence, or even identified with the children of the towers.

Teachable moments are the lifeblood of the vocation, and I’m proud, I suppose, that we turned the TV off that day. But there is nothing so powerful as silence shared, as stunned communion. Nothing so powerful as a generation who grows up to see airport patdowns as normative rather than violation. Nothing so powerful, indeed, as the nexuses themselves, about which we try to say too much, and never truly find the words to speak of.

And so today we mourn the losses: of Chris, yes, and his airborne compatriots; of the parents and families of those who passed in fire and fall, impact and explosion – but also of the innocence of once-students now dispersed to the winds, some of them already struggling to raise children of their own. On one hand, they are and ever will be the children of privilege. On the other, they will always be the first generation, the youngest to truly understand what the world has become, without another, older sense of what it replaced.

To them, this new world is normal, for it is all they ever had.

Whether that makes them blessed or cursed is a matter for debate. And some days, I wish I knew, for it seems like it should matter very much indeed.

I miss them, those kids. I wonder about them, too. If I knew how to define okay in this instance, I’d ask them if they were, and if they remembered.

But I’m not sure I’d believe them, no matter what they said.

• Shawn Colvin: Only Living Boy In New York (orig. Simon and Garfunkel)
  (live from August, 2011)

• David Wilcox: Missing You (orig. John Waite)
  (from Big Horizon, 1994)

• Solas: I Will Remember You (orig. Sarah McLachlan)
  (from The Hour Before Dawn, 2010)

• Lucy Kaplansky: Forget Me Not (orig. Jack Hardy)
  (from the Fast Folk Jack Hardy Tribute, due 2012)

• Mary McCaslin: My World Is Empty Without You (orig. The Supremes)
  (from Things We Said Today, 1992)

• Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: No Place To Fall (orig. Townes Van Zandt)
  (from Hawk, 2010)

• The Mercurials: Time Has Told Me (orig. Nick Drake)
  (from The Mercurials [out of print], 2005)

• Dawn Landes: I Won’t Back Down (orig. Tom Petty)
  (from Fireproof [hidden track], 2008)

• Joy Kills Sorrow: I Still Miss Someone (orig. Johnny Cash)
  (from Joy Kills Sorrow, 2006)

• William Fitzsimmons: You Can Close Your Eyes (orig. James Taylor)
  (from Before The Goldrush, 2008)

• Red Horse: Sanctuary (orig. Eliza Gilkyson)
  (from Red Horse, 2011)

It’s hard not to love the idea of a bluegrass festival with its own IPA, brewed and provided by Greenfield, MA locavore haven The People’s Pint. Nor is it possible to ignore the appeal of hanging out among the grand exhibits and well-curated artspaces of MASS MoCA, one of my favorite museums, which has long held my deep respect for its role in revitalizing the mid-Massachusetts contemporary arts scene, and has recently become well known among the hipster set for hosting envelope-pushing performing arts of all types, including newly-localized band Wilco, lush lo-fi hipster heroes Handsome Family, British indie-folkster Laura Marling (coming on October 26th), and others on the cutting edge of modern folk and roots music.

But the second annual FreshGrass Festival has more to offer than great beer and a quirky arts-oriented 19th century factory campus setting. Some of our favorite newgrass bands pepper the roster, with young high-energy faces and rising stars sharing the stages with some of the very founders of the genre, from Alison Brown, David Grisman and Tony Rice to Joy Kills Sorrow, Trampled By Turtles, Spirit Family Reunion, the Carolina Chocolate Drops with Haitian-American cellist Leyla McCalla, the Infamous Stringdusters, Cahalen Morrison and Eli West, the Berklee Roots Roadshow, and more. Expect a perfect mix of new and old-time music, with strings and hollers galore, and a zest for life that typifies the broad genre-span that is post-millennial bluegrass.

Multiple stages, workshops and films, pop-up performances inside and out, and innovative exhibits and food vendors selling everything from the usual hearty organic festival fare to moonshine slushies combine to deliver an experience aptly described by its organizers as a “bluegrass amusement park”, where authenticity and exploration are the name of the game. So join me on the third weekend in September in North Adams, MA, just a hop, skip and a jump from the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley. And save some time for an indoor/outdoor meander as well: festival and day passes include gallery access, allowing for a few hours out of the weather with a beautiful, grass-driven soundtrack – a stunning, envelope-pushing, multi-sensory experience not to be missed.

Here’s some coverage to whet your whistle, with previously-posted treats nestled snug among the newest performances from Bill Evans, Trampled By Turtles, Spirit Family Reunion, and more. From takes on Arcade Fire, The Police, Elvis Costello, John Martyn, The Pixies, and Dylan to old bluegrass and country standards done up with neo-traditional flair, the playlist – like the festival itself – is sure to offer something for everyone.

• Spirit Family Reunion: Green Rocky Road (trad.) [via]

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Political World (orig. Bob Dylan) [via]

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Hit ‘em Up Style (orig. Blu Cantrell) [via]

• Bill Evans: Mother Nature’s Son (orig. The Beatles)
• Bill Evans w/ The Infamous Stringdusters: Walk To The Water (orig. John Martyn) [via]

• Infamous Stringdusters: Walking On The Moon (orig. The Police) [via]

• Joy Kills Sorrow: I Still Miss Someone (orig. Johnny Cash) [via]

• Cahalen Morrison and Eli West: I’ll Not Be A Stranger (trad.) [via]

• David Grisman, Tony Rice, and Jerry Garcia: Amazing Grace (trad.)
• David Grisman, Tony Rice, and Jerry Garcia: Long Black Veil (orig. Lefty Frizzell) [via]

• Alison Brown w/ Sam Bush: Everyday I Write The Book (orig. Elvis Costello) [via]

• Alison Brown w/ Mary Chapin Carpenter: Prayer Wheel (orig. Eddi Reader) [via]

• Trampled By Turtles: Where Is My Mind (orig. The Pixies) [via]

• Trampled By Turtles: Rebellion (Lies) (orig. Arcade Fire) [via]

Yup, we’re back! Stay tuned for more features later this month, including a dip into the bulging mailbag for some great live folk recordings and more…a post which, barring technical disaster, will featuring exclusive footage from our upcoming house concert with Brooklyn duo Molly Venter of Red Molly and Eben Pariser of Roosevelt Dime. And don’t forget to check out the Cover Lay Down Facebook page for bonus streams and videos throughout the week!