Cover Lay Down

It’s finally Spring, though the warm winter shuffled our sense of season a bit this year. And just as the turning of the calendar has brought an early bloom of daffodils and crocuses to the garden, so has it revealed a growing set of cover collections and tribute albums, each featuring a beautiful bouquet of songs of and from artists we love. Today, we gather in these new and newly-found releases, providing news of the good stuff, a coverlovers delight. Enjoy!


Boston-based folk foursome Pesky J. Nixon‘s long-awaited covers album Red Ducks has been on our watchlist for ages, and now that it’s finally here, we’re proud to proclaim it a stunning success, an all-acoustic covers collection that delivers all we hoped for and more. Warm and raucous in turns, yet infectiously fun throughout, the album comes across like a gentler take on the Old Crow Medicine Show and others of the neo-organic americana camps, laden with campfire harmonies, fluid accordion, rhythmic guitar, and bright mandolin riffs, with takes on familiar folk, rock, and pop classics from Tom Waits, Cyndi Lauper, Dylan and more recorded in an intimate setting that is nonetheless perfectly evocative of their energetic live shows.

Regular readers may recall note of Pesky J. Nixon in and around our Falcon Ridge Folk Festival coverage last summer, but this album is a true tour de force for the team, who move in one fell swoop from ragged up-and-coming folksmen to serious contenders in the New England mainstage circuit with this delightfully focused, well-produced set – and sure enough, their Spring tour schedule has them traveling up and down the East Coast from now until summer, making it easy to catch these fine gentlemen as they promote both the album and their upcoming appearance at Falcon Ridge as hands-down winners of the 2011 Emerging Artist competition. Red Ducks drops officially on March 30, but you can and should purchase it in digital form over at Bandcamp if you’re too eager to wait for the physical disc; check it out, revel in its delights, and then hit up their CD release show on the 30th at The Lizard Lounge if you can.

I have no idea how I missed Dig Cave Dig, a Melbourne indie artists’ Nick Cave tribute from local label Beautiful Eskimo Records, when it was first released in Spring of 2011 – perhaps the combination of my lifelong distaste for Cave’s low, gravelly, atonal growl, a lack of international press, and my utter unfamiliarity with the musicians involved kept the damn thing hidden. And to be fair, the album is an unusual mix, bringing an almost even mix of gritty indie grunge rock and gentle folk treatments to the dark and sinister songbook of this long-time Australian underground critic’s darling.

But when the album quite literally fell into my lap earlier this week, I was thrilled to find that about half of the tribute consist of incredibly potent acoustic takes on Cave’s work. And even the louder, more violent tracks are a potent reminder of the power a true craftsman’s songs, making for an overall tribute which sheds new light on the hidden aches and tenderness that lurks under Cave’s often over-the-top performance. Stream it all on Soundcloud, skip around to find the folk if that’s your preference, and then support the fledgling label involved by purchasing the whole thing on iTunes here.


Luke Legs: Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow (orig. Nick Cave)



Little Wolf & Casey Hartnett: Where The Wild Roses Grow (orig. Nick Cave w/ Kylie Minogue)



Van Walker & Liz Stringer: Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For (orig. Nick Cave)

We first found Josie Little in our Couch By Couchwest coverage last weekend; the Kitty Wells song she recorded for the virtual festival was solid and spare, bringing new quiet energy to a classic cut better known for its original country twang. But digging deeper is always worth it, and here we have ample evidence: though I can’t find the video cover of I’m On Fire she supposedly performed in that virtual space in 2011, a quick google search revealed a soundcloud page chock full of tenderness and torn emotion, and coverage galore. Her take on Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe is startlingly quiet and pure – a deep, poisoned well of slowcore folk, perfectly imperfect. Her Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams covers are equally delicate and equally stunning; so is her take on Neil Young’s Powderfinger, stripping away all but the raw emotion, leaving only the 3 a.m. epiphany. I’ve posted a trio, including an utterly gorgeous Kathleen Edwards cover with overdubbed harmonies and quiet strums that leave me aching, but do yourself a favor, and head over to Soundcloud to hear more right away.

Josie Little: Sweet Little Duck (orig. Kathleen Edwards)

Josie Little: It Ain’t Me Babe (orig. Bob Dylan)

Josie Little: Only To Lose (orig. Whiskeytown)

According to its own webpage header, Onder Invloed (Under the Influence) is a video project by Dutch journalist and filmmaker Matthijs van der Ven, who films international musicians performing covers of their favorite bands and songs in live shows and private sessions; I found the set through Sandy, who shared a recent three-fer from Kim Janssen over at Slowcoustic last week, exposing a quiet acoustic session of covers from Iron & Wine, Damien Jurado, and Pedro the Lion that left me wanting more.

Happily, there’s a rich panoply of song coverage to be found here. A quick browse of the dozens of sessions and live sets van der Ven has produced and captured in the last several years revealed gems aplenty, from locals and musicians passing through The Netherlands on tour, the vast majority of them turning in performances which are intimate and tender, though other genres are certainly represented; the page also includes links to a streaming-only 14-track soundtrack that is only otherwise available as a companion to the Onder Invloed book, which was released in January and appears to be entirely in Dutch. I’ve embedded a few favorites below to whet your whistle, but truly, the website is where the action is.

Anne Soldat: I Think It’s Going To Rain Today (orig. Randy Newman)

Kim Janssen: Passing Afternoon (orig. Iron & Wine)

Doghouse Roses: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (trad.)

Finally: we had plenty to say about Peter Mulvey’s newest release The Good Stuff in our full-length feature on the singer-songwriter back in February, so I won’t repeat it here, except to note that we’re huge fans of both Mulvey and this great new album, and for excellent reasons. But the album itself, which now comes with Chaser, a companion EP of even more coverage, has finally hit the market, and since we were asked to hold back on posting songs until the moment arrived, we’re itching to share. Here’s two favorites from the mix; don’t forget to hit up the archives for much more Mulvey coverage, and Signature Sounds to purchase the CD/EP set, for more of the good stuff, including what may well be the best damn cover of Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows ever performed.

• Peter Mulvey: Old Fashioned Morphine (orig. Jolie Holland)
• Peter Mulvey: Mood Indigo (orig. Duke Ellington)
  (from The Good Stuff, 2012)

Peter Mulvey was one of the very first artists we wrote about here at Cover Lay Down, way back in October of 2007; at the time, we claimed that Mulvey has the versatility of the true cover artist, and the knack of bringing new meaning to a wide breadth of song, citing both his 2002 covers album Ten Thousand Mornings, recorded live in the Davis Square subway station just outside of Boston, and his collaborative work with lo-fi coverfolk supergroup Redbird as ample evidence.

Since then, we’ve come back to Mulvey’s work multiple times, both as a solo artist and a collaborator. His whimsical, ragged takes on songs originally written and performed by Dar Williams, Paul Simon, U2, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman and others have helped illuminate the works of these songwriters, and lent a sense of whimsy to features on Oceanfolk, Winterfolk, Show Tunes covers, and more. And, in 2009, in order to acknowledge the impending release of Letters From a Flying Machine, we revisited our original post, adding the lone cover from that album – a delightful take on Ira and George Gershwin’s Our Love Is Here To Stay – as justification for our continued celebration.

As we noted in our first look at the artist, Mulvey’s voice falls towards the Tom Waits and Dylan camps, full of feeling but hardly pure; fans tend to cite his songwriting and his guitarplay, which range from spoken word and acoustic swingjazz to contemporary folk and Americana, rather than his strained, whispery, sandpapery voice, when explaining their affection for the Milwaukee-based, Boston-and-Dublin bred singer-songwriter who has produced 16 albums in his career, and toured the country five times by bike. And certainly, Mulvey and Goodrich celebrate their collaborative fretwork, with the powerful all-instrumental album Nine Days Wonder, released last year, standing as an apt culmination of their partnership.

But there’s something to be said for the power of song wrung from a broken instrument, and as a vocalist, Mulvey is a master of making the most of every note. As a member of Redbird, which also includes Mulvey’s constant sideman and collaborator David “Goody” Goodrich and coffeehouse folkstars (and eventual married couple) Kris Delmhorst and Jeffrey Foucault, he lends a rough edge to harmonies, expanding the sonic experience, grounding the work in emotional grit. And, as a solo cover artist, whether in his earliest live recordings as a more traditional singer-songwriter or his most recent roots and jazz transformations, the spare voice recasts lyrics powerfully.

At the end of March, Mulvey’s third major covers-oriented project will come to fruition with the release of The Good Stuff, recorded last summer at the Signature Sounds studio just a few miles down the road from where our own blog is based. The plan was to make a rustic yet living album of standards, with rootsy instrumentation courtesy of Goodrich and others, and a long list of possible songs to winnow down to a single album, based primarily on the songs’ ability to come across as both timeless and lasting.

And although we’ve promised not to offer or stream any of the new tracks until early March, having just received our preview copy of the album this week, we’re thrilled to announce that the project succeeds in spades, due to a potent combination of acoustic genre play, nuanced craftsmanship, and that healthy double-dollop of whimsy and respect which have become the hallmark of Mulvey’s work.

As in Ten Thousand Mornings, Mulvey’s definition of “standards” ranges wide indeed, taking us from Duke Ellington to Tom Waits to Jolie Holland in the span of a single album. But where in that earlier project it was the environment which made for a vibrant, unified experience, with the echoes in the brick and tile underground and the screech and shuss of trains and passersby lending an air of realism, here, even as they mutate and transform to match the sense and sensibility of the set, it is the voice and guitar alone which create cohesion, with each carefully chosen setting providing new insight into a well-chosen classic song.

The result is practically miraculous: a diverse set, simultaneously ancient and utterly new, which calls us to a myriad of authentic folk and jazz forms, with the music as adept a carrier of the century as the songbook. His Mood Indigo and High Noon combine bouncy fiddlefolk with a minor key swing, coating a deceptively gentle delivery in dramatic tension; his Thelonious Monk instrumental is just ragged enough; his take on Willie Nelson’s Are You Sure? is a gleeful acoustic country duet, gentle and wry; his take on Tom Waits’ Green Grass is low and hollow, a death’s dirge that rises into the night; his cover of Holland’s Old Fashioned Morphine is a bluesy Waits-esque interpretation, a drink and drug-addled hallucination; his Everybody Knows is a deep, funky samba that wails into electric smoke. If, as Mulvey notes, these are the songs “that will be firmly ensconced in the firmament when half a century blows all the rest of the chaff away”, then there’s a good chance that his will be the versions which we hear in our heads.

As noted above, we’ve been asked not to spill the beans on the newest coverage from Mulvey. But here’s a build-up of older coverage from the man himself, both with and without friends – to reinforce your appreciation for a fine artist and interpreter, and to whet your whistle for the March 28th release of The Good Stuff.

• Peter Mulvey & David Goodrich: Down By The Riverside (trad.)
  (from Nine Days Wonder, 2011)

• Peter Mulvey w/ Redbird: Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me (orig. Mississippi John Hurt)
  (Redbird Live at the Cafe Carpe, 2010)

• Peter Mulvey: Our Love Is Here To Stay (orig. from The Goldwyn Follies)
  (from Letters From A Flying Machine, 2009)

• Peter Mulvey: The Fly (orig. U2)
  (from The Knuckleball Suite, 2008)

• Peter Mulvey: Airbag (orig. Radiohead)
  (from five-thirty a.m., 2004)

• Peter Mulvey: Stranded In A Limousine (orig. Paul Simon)
  (live on Nashville Public Radio, 2003)

• Peter Mulvey: Oliver’s Army (orig. Elvis Costello)
• Peter Mulvey: Running Up The Stairs (orig. Leo Kottke)
  (from Ten Thousand Mornings, 2002)

• Peter Mulvey: River (orig. Joni Mitchell)
  (from Wonderland: A Winter Solstice Celebration, 2002)

• Peter Mulvey: You Meet The Nicest People In Your Dreams (pop. Fats Waller)
  (from The Trouble With Poets, 2000)

• Peter Mulvey: Hard Time Come Again No More (pub. Stephen Foster)
  
  (from Glencree, 1999)

• Peter Mulvey: Every Mother’s Son (orig. Chris Smither)
  (from Deep Blue, 1997)

• Peter Mulvey: The Whole Of The Moon (orig. The Waterboys)
  (from Rapture, 1995)

• Peter Mulvey: Tecumseh Valley (orig. Townes Van Zandt)
• Peter Mulvey: St. James Infirmary (trad.)
  (unknown live sources)

Previously on Cover Lay Down: Hayward Williams covers Tom Waits’ Long Way Home w/ Peter Mulvey and Brianna Lane on guitar and harmony vocals

The January release holds a special place in the ebb and flow of artistry; though it runs the real risk of being forgotten by the time it comes to make our year’s end lists, it also finds the market just gearing up again after a spate of holiday absence and Christmas releases. Thanks to tip-offs and promos from the usual sources, our fresh eyes have spotted three albums – each one due to drop this month, all well worth watching for – plus a few bonuses on the event horizon. As always, read and click for the good stuff.

Five albums in, John Statz is still a relative newcomer to the field, and we seemed to have missed his most recent full-band disc, a rockin’ alt-country collection from 2010 aptly titled Ghost Town. But his newest album Old Fashioned represents a shift in sensibility for the itinerant singer-songwriter, from his earlier, grittier solo work to a richly produced dustbowl Americana, one that comes with all the right recommendations, from production house to distributor to studio session musicians. And if we’re eager to spread the word, it’s because this album is the best thing we’ve heard so far this year: thick with the ringing tones of the American heartland, graceful in execution and delivery, and perfectly, exquisitely folk, in the same vein as generations of wandering troubadours before him.

The Frightened Rabbit cover below is a Cover Lay Down exclusive, the title cut and sole non-original from this upcoming Yer Bird release, which starts accepting preorders tomorrow; though we’ve been asked to stick to streaming only, like the album itself, the song is such great and yearningly heartfelt singer-songwriter Americana, we just couldn’t resist sharing it the moment permissions came through the wires. Bonus points to John for the successful Kickstarter campaign which funded the recording and mixing, for the warm, gorgeously layered production provided by session sideman extraordinaire Bo Ramsey, whose previous projects with Lucinda Williams and Greg and Pieta Brown have already captured our hearts, and for Pieta’s harmonies throughout the record. (NB: Pieta’s new release Mercury, which hit in the waning hours of 2011, makes a great companion to Old Fashioned.)

• John Statz: Old Old Fashioned (orig. Frightened Rabbit)

  (from Old Fashioned, 2012)

• John Statz: Chelsea Hotel #2 (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from An Evening With John Statz, 2008)

• John Statz: Can The Circle Be Unbroken (orig. Carter Family)
  (from Our Love Was Made For Canada, 2007)

I loved Charlie Parr’s piece on last year’s Vic Chesnutt tribute, and found plenty to like about Eastmont Syrup, an EP-sized collaboration with The Black Twig Pickers released with little fanfare and less recognition in the midst of 2011. And so I am thrilled to discover Keep Your Hands On The Plow, his impending album of traditional gospel classics, recorded at home with wife Emily, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low, and Four Mile Portage, a Duluth-based string trio.

Despite the relatively large list of sidemen, the songs here are sparse and heartfelt, with the right balance of ragged gospel blues harmonies and well-crafted hill-and-holler fiddle and fingerpicking bound to tempt those who find their heart in the modern neo-trad work of Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Low Anthem while still touching a nerve in lovers of the Louvin Brothers, Dave Van Ronk, Leo Kottke, and more. And though it ranges from haunting to bouncy and upbeat – East Virginia Blues, especially, is awash in eerie layers that compliment Parr’s torn voice; Blessed Be Thy Name opens with perfectly gentle two-part bluegrass harmony, catching my heart full-bore – the album as a whole is consistent and strong, sure to go a long way towards continuing to bring the acoustic singer-songwriter and song interpreter the recognition he deserves after a decade on the circuit.

• Charlie Parr: When First Unto This Country (trad.)
• Charlie Parr: All The Good Times Are Past And Gone (trad.)
  (from Keep Your Hands On The Plow, 2012)

• Charlie Parr: Rabbit Box (orig. Vic Chesnutt)
  (from Minnesota Remembers Vic Chesnutt, 2011)

• Charlie Parr: Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down (trad.)
  (from When The Devil Goes Blind, 2010)

• Charlie Parr: God Moves On The Water (trad.)
  (from Roustabout, 2008)

• Charlie Parr & The Black Twig Pickers: Jesus On The Mainline (trad.)
  (unknown source)

Aching to hear Miley Cyrus take on You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go? How about aging rockstar Bryan Ferry tackling Bob Dylan’s Dream?

Yeah, me neither.

New Dylan tribute album Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International is as unwieldy as its name: too big to work as a set, too broad to appeal to any single listener. Trust me, there is no reason why anyone should want to hear sleazy popstar Ke$ha cover Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, especially when she refers to her performance as “a suicide note to the love of my life and to my former life”; putting her version right up against the same song from the Kronos Quartet as a two-part finale to disc three of the 80-song compendium is mere sonic trickery, suggesting that this album is more about trying to market to everyone than it is about trying to create a listenable package.

But living in a digital world means never having to lift the needle. And of the 4 CDs involved here, there’s at least an album’s worth of great newly-recorded folk-and-then-some tracks, from Taj Mahal to Thea Gilmore, from Joan Baez to The Gaslight Anthem, from Jackson Browne’s take on Love Minus Zero to the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ amazing cover of relative obscurity Political World. Brett Dennen’s high tenor rasp seems perfect for You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, and the first and last discs, especially, show some promise, with strong coverage from Dierks Bentley, Michael Franti, Mark Knopfler, Billy Bragg, Zee Avi, We Are Augustine, and Lucinda Williams in the mix. Here’s hoping the producers allow single-song download via the usual sources when the whole thing drops in digital and physical form on January 24th; if not, the $25 price is almost worth it even if you’re going to be throwing away half the tracks. In the meanwhile, here’s three favorites that appear in slightly different form in the collection.

• Thea Gilmore: I’ll Remember You (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (web subscription release, May 2011)

• Adele: Make You Feel My Love (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from 19, 2008)

• Dierks Bentley: Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Up On The Ridge, 2010)

Still to come in January: A new five-song Martin Sexton EP, also due on the 24th, will contain a bouncy jamfolk cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth; the cover isn’t available yet, though the amazon snippet is tantalizing, but you can see & hear the title track on YouTube, and it’s decidedly a contemporary folk piece, with just enough twang to suit. Why an EP, you ask? “These songs are relevant today and I didn’t want to wait to release a full-length album,” Sexton explains in his press release. “And in a down economy, we’re getting new music to people for the price of a soy latte.”

And due on the 31st, at least according to Direct Current’s always-comprehensive release calendar: a delicate, jazz-ballad-y, sparsely done pianopop album of Steely Dan covers from two Swedish singers recorded six years ago but finally getting the US rerelease it deserves. Seriously. Called Fire In The Hole: Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist Sing Steely Dan, the collection – originally self-released in 2006, now coming out through Zip Records – is a bit syrupy in spots, but sure to please fans of Tori Amos, Sara Barielles, Norah Jones, and other mistresses of the form. This relatively ancient video take on Rose Darling from an ’06 TV appearance is delightful pianofolk, speaking well of the whole shebang; the mp3s are from the album.

• Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist: Rose Darling (orig. Steely Dan)
• Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist: Barrytown (orig. Steely Dan)
  (from Fire In The Hole: Sing Steely Dan, 2012 [rerelease])

It’s coming on 2012, and all around us, bloggers tout their 2011 taste, jostling to be the best and first match for your own preferences, inviting debate over position in the ranks. And so, as we do every year as the calendar comes to a close, we struggle with the conceit of The Year In Review, surveying a year’s worth of posts, writing a never-ending series of half-hearted drafts, flinching every time we approach the task, yet feeling guilt every time we put it down.

My reluctance to pass judgement isn’t a cop-out. I’m a relatively fickle listener – my bias against live recordings, and their accompanying recording quality, is a constant thread here – but I’m also the sort of collector who takes more delight in discovery than digs. Our focus on the breadth of music often leans harder towards artist evolution than the next big thing because that’s the honest expression of how I think and hear. There’s no true hierarchy of artistic output in my disheveled aural infrastructure, just a spectrum of successes and partial successes. And how does one compare the sublime to the sentimental? The transformation to the faithful revisioning? The sparse to the layered? Coverage comes in as many flavors and subtypes, and each one can be done well.

And so, as a general policy, I avow the critical lens; our mandate, as we see it, is to tout and expose. While others rank and score, we celebrate and share that which we love as we find it, believing that if it weren’t among the best things you’d hear all year, it wasn’t worth posting in the first place. In that sense, the entirety of our year’s blogging is itself our recommendations list. To winnow it down feels, on the one hand, like a dismissal of that joy we found in any of it when we found it.


And yet there is method in the madness of the recovery of the recent in the name of hierarchical organization. Just considering a Best Of post provides a useful and productive opportunity to revisit the archives. And as I noted in November in a casual roundup of the year’s Tributes and Cover Compilations, a generous and precious handful of coverfolk EPs and covers albums have emerged this year; to come back to them before they fade from the memory has its uses, too.

More significantly, while I abhor the very idea of ranking songs, album-length collections seem easier to rate. Hitting the mark singly, in three minutes or so of song, is itself a hard standard; providing a rich, nuanced journey through multiple tracks without stumbling is nigh impossible. Self-selection becomes the primary criteria, then: in those very rare cases where an entire album of covers comes to us as a success, the end result is well worth repeating at year’s end. And here, the successes are so few and far between, we can count on our fingers the albums which deserve not just our respect, but our awe and appreciation, and our last dollars.

So before we get to the year’s best one-off covers playlist later in the week, here’s a quick rundown of some favorite all-covers albums and EPs from 2011, arranged into categories much like those which we would use were we in the habit of ranking. Those looking for folk music through coverage should stay on the line, as we’ll follow it with a compendium of “best” single-shot tracks from the year; those looking for gift-giving recommendations for coverlovers, however, are heavily encouraged to consider this a shopping list with its own soundtrack.

The Year’s Best Tribute Album (multiple artists): Fast Folk Jack Hardy Tribute

Though we celebrate those cross-genre releases which contain folk and acoustic interpretations in the mix throughout the year, as a folkblog, we celebrate most those tributes which are quintessentially folk, and nothing else. As such, many amazing tributes, from Herohill’s Gordon Lightfoot spectacular to Sufjan Stevens indie tribute Seven Swans Revisited, and from this month’s American Laundromat Smiths tribute and last month’s Minnesota artists’ tribute to Vic Chesnutt to this Spring’s Alt-Country tribute to the Rolling Stones, are unfortunately ineligible for our official recognition, despite strong folk tracks aplenty, and high recommendations for broad-minded coverlovers.

Of these, Seven Swans and the Smiths tribute, surprisingly enough, are perhaps the folkiest, and the most consistent; we’ll have tunes from their majesty in our midweek “Best Coverfolk Songs of 2011″ entry, to be sure. I still have high hopes for two-disc Guy Clark tribute This One’s For Him, which may or may not have actually dropped at this point; it’s was supposedly coming in November, but it’s already out of print at Amazon, and I can’t find a digital version anywhere; please let me know if you’ve found a copy.

But if we had to pick just one – a desert island disc – from this year’s crop, and if we have to stick to folk alone, we’d select an album that technically hasn’t even been released yet: the Jack Hardy two-disc tribute, recorded for ultimate release through the Smithsonian’s Fast Folk catalog but leaked by its producer and engineer Mark Dann on a limited basis as a way to get the music out to those fans who truly appreciated the songwriting genius and often-cranky leadership of Hardy, who led folk sessions in his NYC apartment for decades, and founded Fast Folk itself, sparking the Greenwich Village revival of the eighties which so defines today’s greying folkscene. Where other albums pitch and wane against a measure of interpretive grace, here, any imperfections are part and parcel of the album’s success, in fitting tribute to a folksinger who measured songcraft almost exclusively by its authenticity and storyline, not its sound.

Second place honors go to Rounder Records’ Nod to Bob 2, which has an overwhelming number of especially strong tracks alongside some also-rans, and which I kept on rotation in the car for a record-breaking three months running, thanks in no small part to the stunning live take on What Good Am I from The Pines which kicks off the album.

• Richard Shindell: Little Dove (orig. Jack Hardy)
• Lucy Kaplansky: Forget Me Not (orig. Jack Hardy)
  (from unnamed Jack Hardy Tribute, 2011)

• Meg Hutchinson: Born In Time (orig. Bob Dylan)
• The Pines: What Good Am I (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from A Nod To Bob 2, 2011)

The Year’s Best Tribute Album (single artist): Thea Gilmore, John Wesley Harding

Kris Delmhorst’s Cars tribute, Thea Gilmore’s Dylan tribute, Laura Cantrell’s swinging countryfolk tribute to Kitty Wells – as I’ve said before, it was a great year for artists playing full-length tribute to their favorite artist or album, a sub-category which is often so challenging to take on that most years produce but one or two albums of its ilk, good or bad. But though Delmhorst’s softer, more poignant cuts have remained in my ears, and Cantrell’s own tribute, while excellent, runs too close to country for my tastes, for full-album merit, nothing beats Gilmore’s Dylan: the set runs broad, but consistent and sweet even in its hardest folkrock moments.

• Thea Gilmore: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from John Wesley Harding, 2011)

• Kris Delmhorst: Magic (orig. The Cars)
  (from Cars, 2011)

The Year’s Best Tribute EP: Eef Barzelay, Black Tin Rocket / Clem Snide’s Journey (tie)

Eef Barzelay’s Black Tin Rocket was barely a blip on the radar when it first came out – there’s almost nothing about it on the blogs, and it’s not like the Transmissionary Six, whose songs the Clem Snide founder takes on in this 6-song EP, are a household name. But the longer I listen to this album, the more I find myself drowning in the lyrics and ragged, heartfelt solo interpretations. And in the end, the power of coverage is laid bare twofold through this small release, with just voice and guitar digging deep into the psyche, providing an entry into the work of the obscure duo. And so Barzelay ties with himself, urging a two-fer purchase alongside his Journey covers album. Most notable runner-up in this category: Ralph McTell’s Dylan tribute EP, which is a perfect meld of the quintessential McTell circa Streets of London and six well-chosen cuts from, you know, the best-known songbook in all of folkdom.

• Eef Barzelay: Black Tin Rocket (orig. Transmissionary Six)
  (from Black Tin Rocket, 2011)

• Eef Barzelay: Anyway You Want It (orig. Journey)
  (from Clem Snide’s Journey, 2011)

• Ralph McTell: Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, 2011)

The Year’s Best Covers Album: Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, One

Plenty of contenders in this category this year. But as noted last month, top honors here go to Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, whose otherwise unnoted and unreviewed January 2011 digital-only release One hits the covers album trifecta: perfectly raw and delicate interpretations, stunningly successful selection of pop originals, and a heartwrenchingly poignant backstory.

Close seconds go to Marissa Nadler’s aching dreampop-slash-britfolk Covers II, Sara Lov’s I Already Love You, which we’ve come back to several times recently for its Smiths covers, the folkpop debut from 16 year old indie sensation Birdy (who gets major bonus points for releasing a self-titled covers album as a debut), and Reid Jamieson’s wonderful, gentle tribute to the songs of 1969, recorded and released in March in honor of his wife’s birthday. Other runners up include Duncan Sheik’s Covers album, which ran poppy but contains some real gems, June Tabor and Oysterband’s mostly-traditional second collaboration Ragged Kingdom, which hit late and off the radar but deserves our awe and support, and Eef Barzelay’s Fan Chosen Covers album, generated as a side-effect of his 2011 Journey covers kickstarter project (and now up to 20 tracks).

• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: Wonderwall (orig. Oasis)
• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: This Perfect World (orig. Freedy Johnston)
  (from One, 2011)

• Marissa Nadler: The River (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
• Marissa Nadler: Winter Lady (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from Covers II, 2011)

• June Tabor & Oysterband: Love Will Tear Us Apart (orig. Joy Division)
  (from Ragged Kingdom, 2011)

• Birdy: Skinny Love (orig. Bon Iver)
  (from Birdy, 2011)

The Year’s Best Covers EP: Chamberlin, Cabin Covers

I had a handful of favorites here, including Chris Smither’s late-year rock ‘n roll tribute, and the Watson Twins’ Night Covers. But Chamberlin’s Cabin Covers EP, a surprise contender from Cover Me’s well-curated Best of 2011 lists, has caught my heart for a last-minute win. The album, which runs ragged and indie and beautifully reflective of its isolated, flood-torn rural recording session setting, totally passed me by before now, but it’s out of the gate like a racehorse, a hipster’s folk album with warm yet delicate covers of Vampire Weekend, Foster The People’s Pumped Up Kicks, and more, and all proceeds go to support VT communities affected by Hurricane Irene. We almost had a late entry with the brand-new Okkervil River covers EP, too; ultimately, it went too alt-country to be truly eligible, but it’s still well worth mention.

• Chamberlin: Lost In The World (orig. Kanye West ft. Bon Iver)
  (from Cabin Covers EP, 2011)

• Watson Twins: You Showed Me (orig. The Turtles)
  (from Night Covers EP, 2011)

The Year’s Best Covers Rerelease/Reissue: Various Artists, They Will Have Their Way: The Songs of Tim and Neil Finn

A new category, as covers albums don’t generally get reissued (and digital distribution makes moot the conceit of issuance as incidence, anyway). But I just can’t resist the two-CD set They Will Have Their Way, which combines two previously-released single-gender Tim and Neil Finn tribute albums into one double-length set in honor of this year’s mixed-bag downunder tribute tour. The all-female and all-male Australian singer-songwriter tributes, originally from 2005 and 2010, remain available separately, but the combined power of these two albums is more than doubled, cementing the strong songwriting legacy of the Brothers Finn, who made their name in Split Enz and Crowded House.

• Lior and Emma Louise: It’s Only Natural (orig. Crowded House)
• Paul Kelly & Angus Stone: Four Seasons In One Day (orig. Crowded House)
• Kasey Chambers: Better Be Home Soon (orig. Crowded House)
  (from They Will Have Their Way, 2011)

The Year’s Best Kidfolk Covers Album: Laura Viers, Tumble Bee

In a year where the kindie movement has continued to turn towards both original compositions and a harder edge, Laura Viers’ tradfolk kindie record Tumble Bee is a hands-down winner here, mostly because the other choices yaw past the line between folk and other genres. Of those, the Tom T. Hall tribute remains worth your time if your kids and family like a good sunny acoustic country set.

• Laura Viers: Soldier’s Joy
  (from Tumble Bee, 2011)

The Year’s Best Kidfolk Covers EP: Maiden Radio, Lullabies

Kids EPs are rare, indeed. But we’d create a new category just for Julia Purcell, Cheyenne Marie Mize, and Joan Shelley, the Louisville ladies of Maiden Radio, a harmonizing folk trio whose 2011 8-track Lullabies is gentle and sweet enough for kids in dreamland and for moms and dads after bedtime, too. Recorded for the young daughter of one of their own, released on Daniel Martin Moore’s new label Ol Kentuck, its traditional folk songs snuggle up against the timelessness of tracks like Gillian Welch’s Dear Someone, each one a tiny two-minute gem. Not bad for a sophomore effort.

• Maiden Radio: Sail Away Ladies (trad.)
  (from Maiden Radio, 2011)

The Year’s Best Tradfolk Album: Chris Thile and Michael Daves, Sleep With One Eye Open

Laura Viers almost won this category, too – after all, as Grammy sweeps tell us, there’s nothing restricting a cross-over album from taking first honors in any and all of the arenas it covers. But Sleep With One Eye Open, the amazing bluegrass standards album from Michael Daves and Chris Thile, which we blogged about after Daves mentioned it early in the game at the Joe Val festival in February, edges it out by a nose. Second place goes to Daniel Martin Moore’s dreamfolk In The Cool Of The Day, which covers the gospel spiritual canon in lullaby mode, and exquisitely so. And if it’s older, unsourced tradfolk you prefer, then there’s the dark horse candidate: the organic, delightfully homespun duo album from Thomas Fox, which we featured back in summer – an album recorded as soundtrack for a local theater production of Our Town, and named after the Thornton Wilder play itself. Gentle, endearingly ragged americana, gritty and mild.

• Michael Daves and Chris Thile: My Little Girl In Tennessee (orig. Flatt & Scruggs)
  (from Sleep With One Eye Open, 2011)

• Thomas Fox: Single Girl, Married Girl (trad.)
  (from Our Town, 2011)

The Year’s Best Mostly-Covers Album: Red Molly / Pharis and Jason Romero / Nell Robinson (3-way tie)

A number of artists released albums this year which feature coverage heavily, yet sprinkle originals liberally in the mix. Red Molly’s newest, for example, runs roughly 50% each way; Molly Vintner original tearjerker Hold It All is easily the most potent song in the set, but overall, their covers of Gillian Welch, Dolly Parton, Buddy and Julie Miller, Mark Erelli, and a few traditional appalachian tunes are the album’s centerpiece and strength. A Passing Glimpse, the debut album from married banjomakers and tradfolk duo Pharis and Jason Romero, may include a number of originals, but they sound just as ancient – and come across just as stunningly sparse and tender – as the tradfolk and gospel covers which give the album its potency, and the players their credibility. Similarly, Nell Robinson’s On The Brooklyn Road paints the past and present in perfect sepia tones, though it has less coverage still. We’ll call this one a three way tie, with runner-up honors to Spuyten Duyvil’s rootsy crowd-driven New Amsterdam, and save Nell’s best track for our upcoming “Best Songs” feature.

• Red Molly: By The Mark (trad.)
• Red Molly: Your Long Journey (trad.)
  (from Light In The Sky, 2011)

• Jason & Pharis Romero: I’m Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail (orig. Everly Brothers)
  (from A Passing Glimpse, 2011)

• Spuyten Duyvil: Shady Grove (trad.)
  (from New Amsterdam, 2011)

Want a GREAT set of music from 2011? Download our entire set as a zip file:

And stay tuned later this week for Part 2 of our series, in which we compile a host of the year’s best singletons and b-sides from the worlds of YouTube, Soundcloud, album cuts, and more!

Thanks, folks. May your days be merry and bright.

Flashback, 1987: I’m a freshman in high school, just finding my way into the dark underbelly of underground music thanks to the burgeoning alternative college radio scene in and around the Boston area and a younger brother whose musical tastes blossomed early. I hadn’t really noticed UK band The Smiths during middle school, but when Girlfriend in a Coma hit the airwaves, it touched me deeply, and I purchased the album from which it came, hardly aware that it would be their last, that the band was already disintegrating from the stress between an exhausted and increasingly alcoholic Marr and a series of agressive acts from the dismissive, inflexible Morrissey. And then, as I noted in a single-song set and analysis posted elseblog way back in 2007, I played the song incessantly for weeks on end, finding it a perfect outlet for my own adolescent relationship angst.

Though they only released 4 full-length studio albums in a startlingly short six year career, British alt-rockers The Smiths are rightly recognized today as seminal, groundbreaking players in the evolution of both the independent music scene and modern music writ large, thanks to the sensitive post-punk sensibility of songwriting team Morrissey and Johnny Marr, and an unprecedented number of non-album singles, b-sides, and compilations. Their ability to channel the tensions of the age, and the trapped feelings of loneliness in a culture on the brink, spoke clearly and deeply to a generation; long after their break-up, their songs continued to do so on radio, and on my turntable.

Over the last decade or so, in recognition of their influence and their brooding way with the emotional core of the darkest side of the soul, the works of The Smiths, and of Morrissey’s solo career, have found their way into the hands of a number of luminaries, from Joshua Radin and Billy Bragg to Colin Meloy of the Decemberists. And now, with the 25th anniversaries of their most influential albums Strangeaways, Here We Come (1986) and The Queen is Dead (1987) looming large, their influence has been recognized with not one, but two separate tribute albums. The first of these, The Queen is 25, a free-to-download mixed Greek artist tribute from fellow coverblog The Cover Lovers, is a mixed bag: mostly electro/indie stuff, and not really my style. But the second, Please, Please, Please: A Tribute to The Smiths, is a two-CD set from American Laundromat Records, who have a strong reputation for great indiefolk coverage – and having just received my pre-release in the mail this morning, I’m thrilled to announce that it’s stunningly successful, a genuine miracle.


As a handful of previously-released Smiths-as-folk covers has already aptly demonstrated, transforming those mournful, angst-ridden vocals and the urgency of those synthbeats and bass into folkier, sparser, and/or acoustic numbers is less difficult than their placement in the canon would imply. At heart, Morrissey was a crooner and cultural critic, a predecessor of the dark emo camps, whose personal struggles with the world found life in deeply personal narrative performance. As such, though it focuses its attention on alienation, the Smiths songbook is chock full of open imagery, and couched in eminently singable melodies that are eminently open to flexible interpretation.

And here, on the newest collection, we find magic indeed: tiny, sweet, hushed takes on Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want and Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me from William Fitzsimmons and Canadian girl duo Dala, respectively; a soaringly slow alt-country ballad interpretation of There Is Light That Never Goes Out from Trespassers William; beautifully hollow, haunting piano balladry from Greg Laswell, Joy Zipper, and Sixpence None The Richer; gypsy folkpop coverage from the aptly-named Girl in a Coma; light grunge from Tanya Donelly and Dylan at the Movies, and much, much more. As with previous covers collections and tributes to the Neil Young, The Cure, lullabies, and more, American Laundromat has solicited a powerhouse set of artists from the indie and indiefolk worlds and given them license to find their own hearts in the music of their influences – and the resulting record is a tight diamond of consistency that elevates both performers and songwriters, a gem absolutely worth your time and patronage, whether you, too, were an early fan, a latecomer like me, or simply a culturally-aware radio listener who recognizes the majority of the songs from the low end of the dial.

So here’s an exclusive track from Sara Lov off the newest tribute to cross the desk – a wonderfully melodic, contemporary folk production posted with permission from the kind folks at American Laundromat – and a full set of Smiths covers from the last decade or so to match it. Like Please, Please, Please: A Tribute to The Smiths, our own collection ranges from angered to tender, revealing the broad range of the original songs, and of the universal emotion they express so adeptly. But taken as a set, they speak to the recesses of the soul in ways which remind us that, while bands come and go, we are privileged to live in an age where we can own the recording and reintepretation of song, the better to channel our emotion, and share the human condition – a folk conceit, to be sure, and one which keeps us coming back week after week. The Queen may be dead, but with tributes like these, the legacy of the Smiths is stronger than ever.

• Sara Lov: Well I Wonder
  
  (from Please, Please, Please: A Tribute To The Smiths, 2011)

• Joshua Radin: Girlfriend in a Coma
  (from First Between 3rd And 4th, 2004)

• Scott Matthews: The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
  (from Osef, 2002)

• Billy Bragg: Jeane
  (from cassette single Greetings To The New Brunette, 1986)
• Sandi Shaw: Jeane
  (from vinyl single Hand In Glove, 1984)

• Mom’s Favorite Vase: London
  (from The Demo Tapes, circa 1995)

• Shannon Wright: Asleep
  (from Honeybee Girls, 2009)
• Stars: Asleep
  (from Sing Me To Sleep, 2010)

• Sharon Van Etten: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
  (demo recording via soundcloud, 2010)
• Eddi Reader, Clive Gregson & Bo Hewerdine: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
  (from Wonderful Lie, 1993)

• Kings of Convenience: Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
  (live from Rome, 2009)

• Josh Rouse: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
  (live; unknown source)
• Liam Bailey: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
  (via soundcloud, 2010)
• Tom Baxter: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
  (unknown source; great folk artist)
• Slow Moving Millie: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
  (from MySpace, 2011)

• Angie Hart: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
  (from Eat My Shadow, 2009)
• Dan Mangan: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
  (unknown source; amazing Canadian singer-songwriter)
• Joseph Arthur: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
  (from Sweetheart 2005: Love Songs [Starbucks compilation; out of print])
• Sara Lov: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
  (from I Already Love You, 2011)

One of the reasons I am so busy these days is that as a baritone, I am in high demand for local choirs and stage productions. It’s not just that I’m loud: As a trained vocalist, a stage actor, and a teacher, I pride myself in my control of tone and pitch and projected volume – all the subtle ways I have learned to shape sound to maximum effect in a variety of venues.

It’s part of my identity: a nurtured talent, grown and trusted. When it is tired, I can feel it; when it is under siege, from nasal drip and overuse, I feel depressed and impotent.

And if it ever went away, I’d feel the loss profoundly.

I have nightmares in which I lose my voice forever, and these fears are not unfounded: it happens. Feist, for example, lost her voice on the cusp of fame the first time around, belting it out as a member of a punk band in the early nineties before taking several years off due to vocal damage. Though she’s since turned the remaining fragile, burned-out whisper into an asset – admirably, instead of sinking into despair, she was able to find another sort of beauty in the torn remnants of what was once clear and sweet – the damage could not be undone.

I’m not so sure I could do what she has done. It takes a measure of humility which I do not possess, and cannot truly understand, to remake the voice like that.

And there’s no guarantee that I’d have the chance, either.

Sadly, though some singers, like Feist, have managed to turn vocal disaster into an asset, and others, like Adele, find that the damage they have done through an early career of belt and bellow vocal style is treatable and restorable, for many singers, such a middle ground is not possible. Despite recent reports of vocal restoration, there’s a difference between damage – which can often be fixed with care, and subsequently avoided through retraining – and the more extreme cases. When disease is the diagnosis, for many, it’s permanent.

And losing the voice permanently, or even semi-permanently, is like a little death, or a death sentence, for musicians. It’s not as uncommon as you think, and it can be caused by any one of a set of medical issues, from the lungs to throat to vocal chord: Mary Lou Lord, for example, a contemporary of the Boston grunge and busker scenes who trends towards punk folk in her better moments, lost hers to spasmodic dysphonia, and though she is currently recording a new covers album, putting her back on our radar, she still struggles with the disease, which has kept her off the scene for quite some time; the same disease also kept folk musician Linda Thompson from recording and touring in the early eighties, since which she has produced just two albums.

Joni Mitchell lost as much as two octaves, and her vocal purity, to years of smoking. Julie Andrews lost her singing voice permanently to surgery after developing nodules on her vocal chords through overuse in 1997 – a surprisingly common phenomenon in older singers of both genders. And Bridget Matros, who got a promising start in college with a debut recording alongside fellow students Josh Ritter and Guy Mendilow at Oberlin college in the late nineties, lost hers to acid reflux on the cusp of a promising career; though she did release a four track of abstract, layered vocal garageband experiments this year, they are more art than artifact.


And then there’s contemporary folk singer-songwriter Holly O’Reilly (formerly known as Holly Figueroa), who lost her voice on stage at the Northwest Folklife Festival in 2009, twelve years, two Grammy nominations, and several major label offers into a blossoming and determinedly indie career. A visit to a specialist resulted in a diagnosis of both rheumatiod arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, a pair of inflamatory diseases which ultimately affected both her voice and her hands, keeping her from singing and playing the guitar for a year – a great loss for O’Reilly, and for the folk community.

Sadly, though drugs ultimately soothed and restored that voice for a while, O’Reilly’s clock is ticking; according to her own bio and facebook feed, the massive doses of steroids she’s been ingesting were doing as much damage to her body as the disease itself. And so O’Reilly made the impossible choice: to give up her voice in order to live without pain, for her family’s sake and for her own. As Holly herself put it at the end of last year,

I am prepared to go off of prednisone completely and to lose my singing voice again. But I wanted to make some records before I did that. I made a live record in May 2010, am finishing up a covers record, and will start an originals record in the fall. And then, I’m probably done, unless my voice comes back spontaneously. (I waited for that for a long time. Not counting on it.)

In One, the covers record in question, O’Reilly is singing on borrowed time, and it shows: her voice changes subtly from track to track. But the songs are sweet nonetheless, and stunning, and poignant with her craft and talent as much as with her history. O’Reilly is strong, though she is clearly affected by her struggle and the ticking clock; all of this and more pours through even the most torn of tracks. And the song choices are inspired: every performance, from covers of REM, U2, Slipknot, Oasis, Paul Westerberg, Springsteen, Tom Petty and Joe Henry, speaks to a wellstorm of emotion, spoken clearly and eloquently, in an act of true song ownership.

Her cover of One Headlight, alone, dark and dirty with dobro, perfectly pitched in every tone, makes this quite possibly the best cover album of the year, a dark horse contender from all the way back in January. Her cover of Freedy Johnston’s This Perfect World is haunting. Her take on Wonderwall breathes a sort of broken life into the song, its slow build into broken hope a triumph of transformative song. Put them against her 2007 cover of Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows, recorded before she began her long journey through illness and loss, and – like every other song on this perfect collection – they grow all the more stark, all the more poignant, all the more potent, for the difference.

That these songs represent, in other words, the second act in a final play, the last farewell to a life lived in voice, is not where their strength lies. It is, instead, in the power of the musician, working with a tenacious instrument, and other people’s songs, to maximum effect.

Beauty and pain, and some bonus tracks from O’Reilly’s fellow sufferers, follow below. It’s how they wear their scars that make them beautiful.

• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: One Headlight (orig. The Wallflowers)
• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: This Perfect World (orig. Freedy Johnston)
• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: One Step Up (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
  (from One, 2011)

• Holly Figueroa O’Reilly: Everybody Knows (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from Gifts and Burdens, 2007)

• Mary Lou Lord: Hard Road (orig. Lucinda Williams)
  (from Mary Lou Lord and Sean Na Nah [split EP, out of print], 2000)

• Mary Lou Lord: Thirteen (orig. Big Star)
  (from Live City Sounds, 2001)

• Mary Lou Lord: Jump (orig. Van Halen)
  (from Everybody Wants Some, 1997)

• Feist: Inside + Out (orig. The Bee Gees)
  (live from the BBC; released on Open Season (Remixes and Collaborations), 2005)

• Feist & Ben Gibbard: Train Song (orig. Vashti Bunyan)
  (from Dark Was The Night, 2009)

• Bridget Matros: Sweet Lorraine (orig. Patty Griffin)
• Bridget Matros & Josh Ritter: Angel From Montgomery (orig. John Prine)
  (from Voices From The Attic [out of print], 1999)

• Linda Thompson: Day After Tomorrow (orig. Tom Waits)
  (from Versatile Heart, 2007)

• Linda & Teddy Thompson: Evona Darling (orig. Lal Waterson)
  (from Fashionably Late, 2002)

It’s been a solid year for full-album coverage from single artists. Kris Delmhorst’s summery Cars tribute and Thea Gilmore’s transformative Dylan tribute alone held the line for excellence in the singer-songwriter categories. Eef Barzelay’s Journey project, which transformed my childhood poprock into poignant, soulful solo pieces, turned out to be a great success; so did Ralph McTell’s Dylan EP, duo Thomas Fox’ tradfolk release, Sara Lov’s full-album cover set, and Reid Jamieson’s birthday tribute to his wife through the songs of 1969, an unexpected March project which we presented as a free exclusive. And April brought a slew of strong contenders, enough to justify a four part Tribute and Cover Compilations Week: from Laura Cantrell’s countrified tribute to Kitty Wells to the bluegrass of Michael Daves and Chris Thile to the aforementioned disc from UK Gilmore, who is fast becoming a favorite voice among the multitudes.

And it’s shaping up to be a great year for multi-artist tribute albums, too. We’ve covered several of these, from Paint It Black, Jim Sampas’ well-curated alt-country tribute to the Rolling Stones, to last week’s amazing Vic Chesnutt tribute, Red House Records’ second Nod To Bob singer-songwriter tribute, which still lives in my car CD player months after its midsummer release, and the indiefolk Sufjan Stevens tribute project Seven Swans Reimagined. And we’ve mentioned more in passing: Herohill’s extended paean to Gordon Lightfoot, for example, never made it to these virtual pages, but I still have high hopes for a feature on the Canadian folksinger’s work in the near future built around those tracks and more.

There’s a few worthy but harder-edged discs receding into the near horizon, too: that indie Muppets thing, which featured an english-language version of the Andrew Bird’s take on Being Green, featured in our late-summer kidfolk tribute to the songs of Sesame Street, and Q Magazine’s new Achtung Baby tribute, which is pretty much all rock and high-energy alt-indie, save for this hauntingly delicate, soaring cover of One by Damien Rice which easily makes the shortlist for best coverage of the year.

But the year’s not over yet. This One’s For Him, a two-disc Guy Clark tribute, was apparently released this Thursday in CD form only (no digital) via the Icehouse Music website; we haven’t heard it yet, but the artist roster is quite impressive indeed, and we have high hopes for tracks from Shawn Colvin, Hayes Carll, Robert Earl Keene, Patty Griffin, Lyle Lovett and more among the rest of the multi-generational country-and-then-some balladry we’ve been promised. American Laundromat Records, whose kindie comp so tickled our fancy last year, will release Please Please Please, their long-awaited Smith’s tribute, on December 13, and here, too, the artist roster is quite promising, with many CLD faves – Dala, Elk City, William Fitzsimmons, Sara Lov and more – heading the bill. On the not-folk front, Sampas ends the year with a bang and an altrock/indie Nirvana tribute; the combination promises loud and squaly, but given the producer’s reputation, it should be great all the same.

And then there’s these tiny, precious darlings – two new EPs, a kindie record, and a collection of old blues standards which dropped into my lap just yesterday.

Chris Smither‘s new EP What I Learned In School was recorded plugged-in and in-studio on a lark during breaks from his next album, and I’m proud to be one of the first to mention it on the web: Smither, who first made his name via coverage and support from the likes of Bonnie Raitt in the seventies, is an amazing performer and a deeply empathic bluesman whose output continues to mature as he ages – his 2006 take on Dylan’s Visions of Johanna is one of the truly great covers of the last decade – and we’ve long admired his work here, ever since we first featured him back in 2007. The EP, which features six classic early Rock and Roll tracks from the likes of Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams recast in Smithers’ inimitable high-tension vocals and folkblues fingerstyle, is only available at shows and direct from the label in simultaneous CD-and-digital form; I recommend the live show if you can find one, and the album either way.

• Chris Smither: Love’s Made A Fool Of You (orig. Buddy Holly)
  (from What I Learned In School, 2011)

On the other end of the folk spectrum, contemporary folkrock popstar and Paste magazine darling Lissie‘s newest EP Covered Up With Flowers is slight, at five tracks, and only partially new: her Lady Gaga and Kid Cuddy covers have been around for a year or more, though the latter is represented here with a fine new live recording which sweats and sways terrifically, and her Bad Romance certainly bears repeating. But the new tracks on the EP, which cover Metallica, Nick Cave, and Joe South, are equally unexpected, equally well-suited for the bright, shimmering urgency of Lissie’s voice, and worth the purchase price; I’ve chosen the slowest to feature, but definitely check out the full set for the full range of energy, and echoes of influence from Jefferson Airplane to June Tabor. As a bonus, the prolific up-and-comer has also just released a solid live CD/DVD recorded last year around the holidays; this unreleased encore from the concert in question, stripped from YouTube, says everything it needs to about that voice, that channeled emotion, that rise to fame.

• Lissie: Nothing Else Matters (orig. Metallica)
  (from Covered Up With Flowers, 2011)

• Lissie: 2000 Miles (orig. The Pretenders)
  (live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Dec. 2010)

Don’t let the haunting echo of the production on this first track below fool you: though she’s more popularly known for a decade of well-produced and well-crafted contemporary singer-songwriter work, Laura Viers knows her tradition, and her new kindie record Tumble Bee: Laura Veirs Sings Folk Songs for Children, released this week on her own private label and already topping the Children’s charts at iTunes and Amazon, joins classics like Guthrie’s Songs To Grow On For Mother and Child, Pete Seeger’s Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Fishes Little & Big: Animal Folk Songs, and Garcia and Grisman’s Not For Kids Only as a strong addition to the canon of joyous traditional kidfolk records bound to be beloved by generations to come. The sweet cowboy lilt of Prairie Lullaby and the sheer glee of the fiddle and jew’s harp accompaniment on Soldier’s Joy, a duet with Colin Meloy, provide ample evidence; the rest of the album yaws between the two extremes fluidly, offering nary a hiccup on its way to kid-friendly, adult-accessible tradfolk greatness.

• Laura Views: Prairie Lullaby (trad.)
• Laura Viers w/ Colin Meloy: Soldier’s Joy (trad.)
  (from Tumble Bee, 2011)

Released last year but only now picking up steam thanks to new promotional outreach from Hearth Music, Lay Down My Burden, the newest release from Seattle-based grandmaster 5-finger harmonica player Grant Dermody, is heavy with the blues, and no wonder: Dermody, who learned at the feet of acoustic blues greats from John Cephus to Honeyboy Edwards, and tours extensively with acoustic bluesfolk powerhouse Eric Bibb, lost his wife, both parents, and his friend and mentor John Cephus during the production of this excellent album. As a consequence, every song rings of an intimate knowledge of both the emotional intensity and the vast diversity found in blues music.

Lay Down My Burden isn’t technically all covers – it features four well-placed originals neatly tucked among the old blues standards and early americana – and the collection of old favorites isn’t perfect (Dermody’s voice, which features prominently in several cuts, is the weakest instrument in the mix). But the songs are crafted with care and authenticity, the diversity of guest artists and friends from Cephas to Bibb is applied quite effectively, and even as it covers a broad ground, the strong, mostly acoustic track list is powerful, indeed, whether it’s the sparse, field-recording feel Dermody brings to traditional and classic cuts such as Hard Time Killing Floor Blues and Twelve Gates To The City, the funkier, grittier barroom blues sound of Lay My Burden Down and acoustic swing number Evening Train, the squeezebox and fiddle of old-time tune David’s Cow, or the haunting mountain holler evoked by banjo, harmonica, and voice in the Dirk Powell cover below.

• Grant Dermody: Waterbound (orig. Dirk Powell)
• Grant Dermody ft. Louisiana Red: Where Is My Friends (orig. Louisiana Red)
  (from Lay Down My Burden, 2011)

And a bonus: it’s early to be thinking of Christmas, but there’s compilations being mixed out there as we speak. I’m especially keeping an eye on the 826NYC A Holiday Benefit MySpace site (which we mentioned in our subfeature on Bess Rogers) in the hopes of another great volume this year; here’s an especially irreverent track from that series from an artist we discovered just this year, and a tender trio of favorite tracks from Vol. 1 of For Folk’s Sake It’s Christmas, a fledgling series-to-be that’s promised a sequel for the coming season.

• Amber Rubarth: Christmas Carol (orig. Tom Lehrer)
  (from A Holiday Benefit, Vol. 3, 2009)

• Emily and the Woods: O Little Town Of Bethlehem (trad.)
• Dear Winesburg: Cherry Tree Carol (trad.)
• Sam Airey: In The Bleak Midwinter / Lonely This Christmas (trad. / orig. Mud)
  (from For Folk’s Sake It’s Christmas, Vol. 1, 2010)

Cover Lay Down is back on track, with new features and coverage twice a week as the holiday season approaches.

Brooklyn-born (and now Boston-based) singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Kris Delmhorst first discovered The Cars in the summer of ’84; in both generational outlook and effect, the musical epiphany that followed seems to parallel my own entry into the wonders of music that speaks to heart and body. And though these days, Delmhorst is known for gentler, more literate songwriting and performance in the modern confessional vein, her new release, Cars – now available for “immediate digital delivery” pre-order at Signature Sounds – finds the forty year old new mother and celebrated singer-songwriter looking back to those heady days of her youth, making for an album which provides a strong bridge between the gleeful, heady emotions which first drew us to those songs and the deliberate craftsmanship which has long marked Delmhorst as a patient, careful artist well worth our ongoing celebration.

Taking on the Ric Ocasek canon is a lark, to be sure – and there’s plenty of play afoot here, as you’ll hear from the get-go. But Delmhorst does so with aplomb, offering a fluid mix of deconstructed deep cuts and relatively faithful (and danceable) interpretations of fan favorites. At its best, as with all great folk tributes, the album comes across as a loving offering to the world through exploration of the self in the familiar, a deeply personal project which exposes deeper truths in songs better known for their rhythm and hooks.


As the four tracks currently streaming at Delmhorst’s store indicate, Cars isn’t a perfect album. The songs with the richest genre hybridization can seem anomalous and oddly balanced – listen for how the synth bleeps, the plastic horns, the pennywhistle, and the punk banjo pull back for the verse couplets on Hello Again, as if to compensate for the conflict between layers – and though the production brings it forward, Delmhorst’s breathy, notably delicate alto is still slightly lost against the harder, poppier, almost country drumbeat edge and sharp bluegrassy fiddles of You Might Think, even as the song stands out as an inevitable single.

But that voice serves the vast majority of her song settings well, and the softer, gentler, more transformative tracks exceptionally. Magic, especially, with its subtle mandolins, soft arrangement, and sweet girl harmonies, is both a harbinger and revelation, a mark of what Kris can do at her best. And overall, Cars is a wonderful conceit, a love note to our secret pop hearts, an apt tribute to a generation’s shared adolescence, a summer folkpop masterpiece. You can practically hear Delmhorst’s wide smile throughout.

Make your summer complete. Get Cars here.

• Kris Delmhorst: Magic (orig. The Cars)
• Kris Delmhorst: You Might Think (orig. The Cars)
  (from Cars, 2011)

Bonus track: Kris Delmhorst and Session Americana cover The Cars’ Drive in a 2006 session.

Our week-long coverage of this Spring’s fine crop of tribute albums and cover compilations comes to a close today with a trio of albums that fall square on the line between country and folk music. Enjoy!


Sleep With One Eye Open, the collaboration with ex-Nickel Creek founder Chris Thile which Brooklyn-based bluegrass musician Michael Daves alluded to back in February during his appearance at the Joe Val Bluegrass Fest, hits the ground running May 10, and I haven’t been this excited for a bluegrass album in a long, long while.

Daves is one of the best guitarists and vocalists in the business, a constant tour companion with banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka and Roseanne Cash who channels the high tenor tones of his forebears with exquisite deliberation; mandolinist Thile has had no small success bringing bluegrass to a younger, more indie-minded audience, first with Nickel Creek, more recently with his newgrass band Punch Brothers. Unsurprisingly, the combination is gleefully potent, making this a project sure to please fans of multiple generations. And, says Michael, though the male voice mando-guitar duet form is a staple of the bluegrass sound, it was important for us…to get that brother duet thing, but with this Lower East Side punk energy. One of the most enjoyable things about this experience was to underline the slightly delinquent side of bluegrass.

The set, which is comprised entirely of “traditional” oldtimey tunes and bluegrass standards made popular by Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, The Louvin Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs and other bluegrass legends was recorded in Jack White’s Third Man Studios, and will drop on Nonesuch Records on May 10; a single with two more songs – Man In The Mirror and Blue Night – will follow on the 24th. preorder the autographed CD here, or merely pass on your email address at their website, and you’ll be entered to win a Martin guitar…but to be fair, as the promo two-fer below makes clear, the chance to hear these two virtuosos at the top of their game should be more than enough incentive to buy the album.

• Michael Daves and Chris Thile: My Little Girl In Tennnessee (orig. Flatt & Scruggs)
  (from Sleep With One Eye Open, 2011; live video available here)

• Chris Thile & Michael Daves: You’re Running Wild (pop. The Louvin Brothers)
  
  

Laura Cantrell has long been a darling of the countryfolk set, with fans from NYC, where her Saturday-afternoon country show The Radio Thrift Shop became an institution, to Nashville, where she is known among the Grand Ol’ Opry crowd for both her deep, deceptively delicate songwriting and her refined ability to resurrect hidden gems from the early days of acoustic country, and transform more modern pieces from the popular canon in her inimitable singer-songwriter style. And the critics agree, with kudos from Paste to Rolling Stone; no less than UK tastemaker John Peel called her debut, Not The Tremblin’ Kind, his “favourite album of the last 10 years – and possibly my life”.

Her new tribute to country legend Kitty Wells is Cantrell’s most country album yet, with a vividly colorful cover shot reminiscent of the gingham-and-whiskey era which she is here to revive, and instrumentation that suits a modern interpretation of the canon of a long-gone, almost forgotten queen of early country. But folk fans with a penchant for the country side will still find much to love here, most especially in Cantrell’s voice, which remains as sweet as ever, in the gentle, classic slide-and-harmony driven country balladry which pours forth from the speakers, and in the love she brings to what is clearly a project for the ages.

Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music is already out in the UK, while Cantrell tours the country in the wake of the wedding of the century; it will go global on May 17, and can be pre-ordered at her website. The title-track single, a tribute to Kitty herself, is the sole original on the album, making it tough to justify inclusion here, but you can download it for an address at her website; I’ve included her take on Kitty Wells’ 1952 chart hit It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, and a few older, almost-as-countrified covers here, but encourage all to check out the album, and our 2008 feature on Laura Cantrell’s coverage, to see what makes this one worth pursuit.

• Laura Cantrell: It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels (orig. Kitty Wells)
  (from Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, 2011)

Bonus Tracks:

• Laura Cantrell: When The Roses Bloom Again (orig. A.P. Carter; arr. Wilco)
  (from When The Roses Bloom Again, 2002)

• Laura Cantrell: High On A Hilltop (pop. Buck Owens/Merle Haggard)
  (studio outtake from When The Roses Bloom Again, 2002)

• Laura Cantrell: Not The Tremblin’ Kind (orig. The Decoys; pop. Blue Rodeo)
  (from Not The Tremblin’ Kind, 2000)

• Laura Cantrell: Hong Kong Blues (orig. Hoagy Carmichael)
  (live from BBC radio, 2002)

Singer-songwriter Tom T. Hall’s children’s album Songs of Fox Hollow was released in 1974, just a year after I was, and to be honest, I’m surprised that I had never heard of it, having grown up in a home full of kidfolk. But that’s the whole point of I Love: Songs of Fox Hollow, an album tribute which aims to introduce a new generation to a gentle, playful kids’ album which was, apparently, born of Hall’s attempt to explain the working of his Kentucky farm to his two young nephews after a memorable summer spent together among the chicken coops, goat herds, and hayfields.

The songs, which speak of conservation and care, fit as neatly into the modern movement towards agro- and eco-sensitivity as they surely did in the seventies, and their reimagining here in the hands of Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Bobby Bare, Elizabeth Cook and others is sweet and gentle. The result is an album as accessible as it is unabashedly country-slash-Americana, simple and direct in language and rhyme, a perfect album for kids of all ages. It drops May 25, but can and should be streamed in its entirety at the project’s website.

• Patty Griffin: I Love (orig. Tom T. Hall)
  (from I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, 2011)

Previously on Tributes and Cover Compilations Week:

• Covered in Alt-Country: Paint It Black
  …with TWO exclusive tracks from the impending Stones tribute

• Thea Gilmore Covers Dylan
  …plus more coverage from the heir apparent of British folk

• Tributes and Cover Compilations Week, Vol. 3:
  …The Watson Twins, Mundy, Sufjan’s Seven Swans, Madonna & more!

It’s shaping up to be a strong Spring in the world of tributes and cover albums, and good thing, too – though the single-shot covers continue to pour in daily, other than Reid Jamieson’s recent tribute to 1969, the Cowboy Junkies’ too-heavy-to-be-folk tribute to Vic Chesnutt, and a mid-February Sara Lov popfolk covers compilation, it’s been pretty dry at the album-length intersection of folk and coverage.

Today, we return to the shortform approach with a look at four more albums and EPs of folk, indiefolk, and folkpop coverage which have hit the ground running in the wake of a long, spare Winter.


Despite selling far fewer copies than the artist’s tributes to the states of Michigan and Illinois which came before and after it, Sufjan Stevens’ powerful, deeply Christian 2004 album Seven Swans served as such a powerful introduction to the one-time rising star for so many of his peers in the Indie world, it has taken only seven years for the album to be covered in full. But although it seems potentially risky to pay such thorough tribute to a single album so early in its history, there’s something quite deep about Seven Swans Reimagined, a focused indie tribute to the album which dropped at the end of March, the proceeds of which go to benefit for Komen for the Cure.

The roster features a veritable who’s who of the modern Indie movement, with many artists known for their appearance on other compilations, and though the album yaws through a fuller spectrum of the indie canon, with experimental arrangements which echo the originals, much of it is legitimately folk, thanks to generally acoustic, often hushed tones. In all cases, though, from the bouncy bells and flute of Half Handed Cloud’s gentle, pulsing neofolk to the frozen majesty of Unwed Sailor’s Sister to the plodding, echoey, psychedelic soundscape that transforms We Won’t Need Legs To Stand in the hands of Elin K. Smith, the songs maintain their humility and their spiritual edge effectively, even as their tones shift in new hands and mouths.

A few familiar faces, among them Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Joshua James, and Denison Witmer, will be a special delight those of an indiefolk bent; so will less well-known contributors, such as Shannon Stephens and Gregory Paul, whose harmonies make a gentle, almost Joni-esque acoustic slide ballad of Waste Of What Your Kids Won’t Have. And though it’s a bit more pop than folk, Wakey! Wakey! bring a delightfully rough, intimate edge to their majestic piano ballad take on A Size Too Small, taking what is perhaps my favorite song from the original album and turning it on its ear with aplomb. Stream, sample, and buy at Bandcamp – but first, here’s two streams to get you started.

• Joshua James: To Be Alone With You (orig. Sufjan Stevens)
  
  (from Seven Swans Reimagined, 2011)

• Shannon Stephens and Gregory Paul: Waste Of What Your Kids Won’t Have (orig. Sufjan Stevens)
  
  (from Seven Swans Reimagined, 2011)

Blogwatchers already know about The Watson Twins‘ new Night Covers EP, which has been out since mid-April; cover fans may recognize their name from their take on Neil Young’s Powderfinger which appeared on Cinnamon Girl, the all-female, all-indie American Laundromat Records double album which we called “the tribute album Neil Young has deserved for most of his long and prolific career” when it emerged in February of 2008.

But though those who have followed the indie tastemakers in the past few years know the pair for their sweet sister harmonies, and for their collaboration with Jenny Lewis on the well-received Rabbit Fur Coat, which took the critical world by storm in 2005, should know by now: The Watson Twins are much more than a pair of backup singers made good. And, with one EP and two full-length albums already under their belts, identical twins Chandra and Leigh have produced a fine addition to our Spring roundup.

The Night Covers has but six tracks, most of which teeter on the alt-slash-popfolk line, as so much of their work has before; the disk is a bit pricey, but it seems worth the dough, if only because of how effectively the twins pay upbeat, driving tribute to a well-selected collection of pop and soul-turned-indiefolk songs from The Eurythmics to Bill Withers to Sade, with a rock turn by way of the Black Keys and PJ Harvey. Cover Me has a review of more substance, and an interview; their take on Turtles hit You Showed Me, the single, is typical of the album’s sound and sensibility.

• The Watson Twins: You Showed Me (orig. The Turtles)
  (from Night Covers, 2011)

Bonus tracks:

• The Watson Twins: Powderfinger (orig. Neil Young)
  (from Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists’ Tribute to Neil Young, 2008)

• The Watson Twins: Just Like Heaven (orig. The Cure)
  (from Fire Songs, 2008)

• The Watson Twins: I Summon You (orig. Spoon)
  (live on KCRW, 2007)

I wasn’t sure if I should include this next album on our list. After all, like the members of their indie roster, most of Toronto-based Paper Bag Records’ Madonna album tribute True Blue isn’t folk, ranging instead from the glitchy, fuzzed-out, almost Clash-esque rock Born Ruffians bring to Madonna b-side Jimmy Jimmy, to the wailing full-press post-punk of PS I Love You’s Where’s The Party, to the surprisingly well-translated throwback pop-tronica of Woodhands (Papa Don’t Preach), Winter Gloves (True Blue), and You Say Party (Love Makes The World Go Around) which anchor the album.

But the collection is free, making it an easy path to entry for the strong indie stable which Paper Bag Records represents. And two standout tracks are decidedly folk music: Laura Barrett’s gently disjointed La Isla Bonita, and The Rural Alberta Advantage’s “We’re Scared Version” of Live To Tell, which applies gentle guitar, synth, and tambourine to create a delicate, sunny, decidedly retrofolk version of Madonna’s sappy 80′s hit.

• Laura Barrett: La Isla Bonita (orig. Madonna)
• The Rural Alberta Advantage: Live To Tell (orig. Madonna)
  (from True Blue, 2011)

Finally, on the horizon: 2 U I Bestow brings us news of an impending covers album from cheerful Emerald Isle singer-songwriter Mundy, whose song of the same name not only serves as namesake for the Irish-only folkblog, it also brought the artist a bit of fame back in 1996, when it was included on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet. The aptly titled Shuffle drops May 13 in US and UK markets; thanks to Mundy’s reps, I’ve had a chance to hear the whole thing, and found it warm, familiar, and quite worth the time – recommended, especially, for those who prefer their folk without the indie edge.

The set, a tribute to the Mundy’s favorite American “folk” influences – a list which includes alt-country, country, rock, and folk singer-songwriters, from Bob Dylan, John Prine, Paul Simon, and Warren Zevon to Parsons/Hillman, Emmylou Harris, and both Lucinda and Hank Williams – doesn’t dig terribly deep into the catalogs of the artists it honors, and the tracks tend to hew relatively close to their original genre. But the performances here are sincere and solid, transformative and truly listenable, fully fleshed out with contemporary radio-ready folk-rock production values and instrumentation: an apt introduction to a strong, well-produced performer sadly underrepresented and underappreciated on this side of the pond. Here’s the pre-release single – in stream-only form, as requested – and two older covers for reference.

• Mundy: It’s A Wonderful Lie (orig. Paul Westerberg)
  
  (from Shuffle, 2011)

Bonus tracks:

• Mundy: Wherever, Whenever (orig. Shakira)
  (from Even Better Than The Real Thing, 2001)

• Mundy w/ Shannon Shannon: Galway Girl (orig. Steve Earle)
  (from That’s Proper Folk, 1999)

Stay tuned, loyal readers! Cover Lay Down brings Tributes and Cover Compilations Week to a triumphant close this weekend with new tributes of and from Tom T. Hall, Laura Cantrell, and Chris Thile and Michael Daves!