Category: Billy Bragg


Gender Gaps: Laura Cantrell covers New Order, Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello, John Prine et. al.

August 6th, 2008 — 12:33 pm

Photo by Ted Barron, stellar photographer and bloghost

Let Us Now Praise Famous Women, countryfolk artist and long-time WFMU radio host Laura Cantrell‘s guest post over at Boogie Woogie Flu decrying the dearth of female artists in the Country Music Hall of Fame, is a masterstroke on many levels: a good read, an earnest critique of gender bias in country world, and a great dissolution of the usual dichotomy between blogger and performer which can only lend further blogcred to the big and well-deserved buzz that Cantrell enjoyed for her most recent release, the digital-only covers EP Trains and Boats and Planes, a fine, well crafted country/folk/pop album with solid nods to a wide variety of songwriting greats, and undertones of Iris Dement, Lucinda Williams, and even a touch of Kathleen Edwards in performance.

In the folkworld, the issue of gender difference is actually much more subtle, and it drifts as generations go on. For example, musician and folk chronicler Scott Alarik, in his seminal exploration of the modern folkworld Deep Community, makes a good case for an anti-male bias in the crossover potential of that particular section of the singer-songwriter folkworld which has long been his focal point; as evidence, he notes how metorically the female Fast Folk artists of the eighties rose to pop prominence, while their male contemporaries, such as John Gorka, Bill Morrissey, Greg Brown, and Cliff Eberhardt, seem to have hit a wooden ceiling that keeps them on coffeehouse and festival stages at the peak of their career.

But it also true that, in order to rise to such prominence, artists from Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega to, more recently, pop-folker Kathleen Edwards and on-the-cusp country star Lori McKenna had to crank up the pop production value — a move that some have decried as leaving the folkworld behind for the trappings of top 40 radio. Alarik’s premise is muddied by the easy target: crossover appeal is no confirmation of core values within a genre.

And what Scott sees in his generation may not be true of all iterations of folk, either. If you ask the average passerby to name ten folk artists, they’ll tend to start with Dylan and Guthrie, but from there, the common fan’s history of sixties folk is full of names of both genders, from Judy Collins to Joni Mitchell. As I mentioned in the comments to Laura’s entry, the rich crop of name-brand women performing on the countryfolk line over the last few decades — Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, even Allison Krauss — gives hope to a new generation even as it decries the easy, central categorization that best provides potential entry to a Hall of Fame. The newest folk movements seem heavy with female singer-songwriters, but it remains to be seen what fame and fortune will bring to their careers. And, of course, folk has no equivalent hall of fame — which means no gatekeepers, and thus a much less easily identifiable pattern of bias.

Laura’s insider report is highly credible as a condemnation of the Country world, though — and it is only lent credence by her early career as a guide to those same hallowed halls where the portraits of Country music’s Hall of Fame line the walls. But it also stands as a more general statement about bias in singer-songwriter forms, inviting us to look more deeply into our own responsibility, as fans and flamekeepers, for the way we frame the relationships between our musical icons, and ourselves. Laura deserves props for reminding us that, as long as the past continues to matter to how we define the present, which portraits hang in the halls of our memory palaces and institutions matters greatly. Here’s the songs of a few artists both living and long-gone which Laura herself has paid tribute to over a decent decade or more of increasingly confident, dynamic, and adept countryfolk.

Laura Cantrell’s new album Trains and Boats and Planes, which includes covers of artists from Burt Bacharach to John Hartford, is available at the usual digital download sources. Head to Laura’s homepage, for some sweet downloads; link from there to the EP, and Laura’s excellent past recordings as well.

You can hear Laura’s radio show The Radio Thrift Shop most Wednesday mornings live on NYC institution WFMU from 6-9; archived streams are available at the link above. And, if you’re in or around the Big Apple –a surprisingly significant hotbed for countryfolk these days — Laura will also be presenting a special “Let Us Now Praise Famous Women” revue at The Spiegeltent in NYC on Tuesday, August 19, featuring guest artists Jenny Scheinman, Megan Hickey (Last Town Chorus), Fiona McBain (Ollabelle), Theresa Andersson and a special performance by Rodney Crowell. Let me know, if you go.

Today’s bonus coversongs have major street cred:

  • Billy Bragg and Wilco arranged When The Roses Bloom Again for their first Mermaid Avenue album, thinking it was a Guthrie original

  • Iron and Wine’s treatment of New Order’s Love Vigilantes is thick and full of atmosphere, but we’d expect nothing less
  • (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding songwriter Nick Lowe covers Elvis Costello’s Indoor Fireworks

    Thanks to Boogie Woogie Flu for soliciting Laura’s thought-provoking piece, and Setting the Woods on Fire for calling it to my attention. Head on over to the former for choice cuts from some classic undersung female country artists, and the latter for a few great originals from Cantrell herself.

  • 752 comments » | Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello, Iron and Wine, John Prine, Laura Cantrell, Lucinda Williams, Nick Lowe

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

    April 14th, 2008 — 01:52 am


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    866 comments » | ani difranco, ben lee, Billy Bragg, Chantal Kreviazuk, Eliza Gilkyson, Gray Sky Girls, John Hiatt, Kidfolk, Livingston Taylor, Loudon Wainwright III, Lucy Kaplansky, Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow

    Rock ‘n Roll is Here To Stay: Mellencamp, Madonna, and the Philly Soul of Gamble and Huff

    March 8th, 2008 — 02:26 am

    A small but select group of big names in the music world will be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this Monday. I’ve got a Single Song Sunday feature on oft-covered fellow inductee Leonard Cohen scheduled for Sunday, and I couldn’t find any folk covers of the theme to Hawaii 5-0, but to whet your appetite a bit, here’s a few choice covers of and from three other artists who will be strutting their way across the stage to get their due.

    As songwriters and producers, Philadelphia soul pioneers Gamble and Huff had their fingers in the pies of thousands of songs; separately and together they’ve made 170 gold and platinum records, and you know a bunch of them, including the theme to Soul Train. They’re also one of the few major players known for celebrating the use of their music for remixes and as hip-hop beats. Here’s a few choice covercuts from their stable of songs. (Winehouse song removed, as it was not a cover after all.)

    The roots rock of John (Cougar) Mellencamp transformed my childhood when a family friend who wrote music reviews for a national weekly gave me a copy of Scarecrow; up until that point, other than a few pop 45s, the only records I owned were Thriller and a used copy of the Bee Gees greatest hits. Today, every time I post a song, I’m paying it forward. Here’s two surprisingly well-done Mellencamp tributes to his folk predecessors.

    The wholesale reinvention which typifies Madonna, both as a musician and a cultural icon, is essentially anathema to the whole authenticity thing that practically defines the folkworld; as such, it’s especially hard to find earnest acoustic covers of Madonna songs. Neither of the two male coverartists below can keep from laughing at the sheer audacity of trying to take their live covers seriously. All three versions are lighthearted romps worth hearing nonetheless.

    We’ll be back Sunday with a short but solid set of covers of my second favorite Leonard Cohen song. Hint: it’s not Hallelujah.

    1,033 comments » | Beth Orton, Billy Bragg, Eva Cassidy, Gamble and Huff, Jack Johnson, John Mellencamp, Keb' Mo', Lavender Diamond, Madonna, Ryan Adams

    (Re)Covered III: More Coverfolk From…Moxy Fruvous, Billy Bragg, Brooks Williams, Zydeco

    January 9th, 2008 — 03:01 am

    Songsources are ever pouring forth new and unearthed sounds: the forgotten track, the new release, your own wonderful recommendations via email or post comments. Sometimes the perfect folksong pops onto the radar (or hits the blogosphere) and demands to be shared, no matter how after-the-fact.

    Today, our third installment of (Re)Covered, a regular feature in which we recover a few songs that dropped through the cracks just a little too late to make it into the posts where they belonged. Better late than never, I say. Thanks to all who share music, that we might revisit, and rejoice.

    Ever wake up in the middle of the night feeling like you missed something? These Moxy Fruvous kidsongs truly belonged at the core of last month’s post on silly songs and dancearounds for cool moms and dads. Canadian eco-political folk rockers Moxy Fruvous used to rock the house at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival each year, but they could also play a college student center lounge like nobody’s business; their take on the Talking Heads isn’t technically kids music, but it seemed right for the occasion. Their “cover” of seminal kidlit text Green Eggs and Ham is not just hilarious, it’s quite possibly the best folk rap song you’ll ever hear.

    Researching those kidfolk posts has brought me new appreciation for the kids CD rack at our local library; here’s a fun little Marley cover I found on Putumayo’s Carribean Playground that would have been perfect for our Subgenre Coverfolk feature on Zydeco music. The first few bars suffer from some cheesy electronic keyboards, but they get swallowed by the great Zydeco sound quick enough. Also included: Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys with a houserockin’ version of traditional proto-Cajun tune La Danse De Mardi Gras. Coming eventually: a full post on folk covers of Bob Marley songs.

    A few bonus Brooks Williams coversongs got stuck in my head after our feature on this incredible singer-songwriting guitar wizard. You probably know Angie as a Simon and Garfunkel tune off Sounds of Silence, though folk-rocker Davey Graham gave it first voice; Brooks Williams and Jim Henry’s deceptively simple instrumental version is crisp and reinvigorating. Their gleeful cover of Stefane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt string-jazz tune Minor Swing was too tempting to leave out.

    • Brooks Williams + Jim Henry, Angie (orig. Davey Graham)
    • Brooks Williams + Jim Henry, Minor Swing (orig. Grappelli/Reinhardt)

    Finally, I’m still kicking myself for not including kidsong I Was Born in last week’s post on Billy Bragg, cover artist. Like his other work with Wilco and Natalie Merchant, the song is a half-cover — lyrics by Guthrie, music by Bragg — but it captures the Guthrie sensibility so well, you’d think they were channeling the old folkie. His Dylan and Tim Hardin covers are similarly authentic; you probably know the latter as a Rod Stewart piece, but this is a thousand times more real.

    Don’t forget to come back on Friday, when I’ll be doing double duty: a few choice folk covers of songs by 80s alternative rock band The Smiths here at Cover Lay Down, and a guest post on the Pop Punk movement over at Fong Songs.

    710 comments » | (Re)Covered, Billy Bragg, Brooks Williams, Moxy Fruvous, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Zydeco

    Billy Bragg Covers: The Beatles, The Smiths, Seeger, Guthrie, etc.

    January 4th, 2008 — 07:40 pm


    The coversongs of Brit-folker Billy Bragg have been hovering on the edge of my consciousness for decades. His lovely, raw cover of She’s Leaving Home was the earworm on 1988’s alternative UK-band coveralbum Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father. His folk-pop work interpreting the lost works of Woody Guthrie in the late nineties reminded me of the genius of both Bragg and genre-defining alt-country musician Jeff Tweedy even as the albums brought the musicians themselves from fringe fandom to full-blown mass market appeal.

    Then today, as I crested the mountain in the frigid New England winter air, our local early-morning folkshow played Bragg’s now-seminal, pained 2002 version of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Tracks of My Tears. And I knew it was time to pay tribute to the collected covers of a man who’s made the journey from punk to folk, and come out smiling, without losing his radical political heart.

    Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Bragg: folksinger, cover artist, and man of the people.


    Billy Bragg’s bio describes his early work as that of a one-man Clash, an electrified punker with singer-songwriter style. More generally, he is often categorized as anti-folk, though his early work is punk folk, an umbrella that includes such smashingly loud, mosh-pit bands as Flogging Molly and The Pogues. His politically charged lyrics and angry street-broken voice are known for how they speak to the plight of the working class, while making explicit reference to a political arena which is both resonant with and alien to the American ear.

    Perhaps because of this tendency to ground himself in the styles and politics of the United Kingdom, for most of his career, Bragg’s work didn’t show much on this side of the Atlantic. I first heard that Beatles cover, for example, on imported vinyl brought into our home by my younger brother, who was primarily in it for the much weirder stuff.

    But while it’s true that Bragg still shares an anarchist’s sensibility with his fellow folk punk luminaries, in his later years, like fellow countryman Elvis Costello, Bragg has mellowed out musically, joining forces with Wilco to pay tribute to one of the seminal authors of the great American songbook, and turning his voice, already torn from the anger of his early punkfolk days, to an almost Americana sensibility.

    The combination of new sound and old credibility, of socially aware soul and mellow mature interpreter, fits perfectly into the modern post-folk world of Grammy recognition and blog cred. It says what it needs to that when no less an authority than Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora was looking for someone to write music for two albums worth of unset Woody Guthrie lyrics, she considered Bragg enough of an inheritor of the Guthrie voice-of-the-people, politically and musically, to ask him to do it.

    This is Bragg’s quieter work, to be sure, though I’ve planted some of Bragg’s harder stuff in the bonus section below. The lush fiddle and plainsong treatment of Pete Seeger is more churchmusic than mosh pit; his version of When the Roses Bloom Again falls towards the country ballad side of alt-country. But listen for the yearning, the core of that politicized soul, and you just can’t miss it. Today’s set even begins with that Beatles cover, a harbinger of the softer artist to come: beautiful, broken-voiced, and unequivocally Bragg.

    Most of Billy Bragg’s work has been rereleased since his turn-of-the-century Grammy nominations; his back catalog is an incredible journey, if you’re up for the boxset collections and compilations. But no matter whether you choose his old work or his new, buy Billy Bragg’s work direct from the source, not the megastores. It just wouldn’t be cricket, otherwise.

    Today’s bonus coversongs:

    • Kirsty MacColl covers Bragg’s folkpunk anthem A New England popstyle
    • Jonah Matranga and Frank Turner’s indiefolk approach to A New England.
    • Billy Bragg in full-on folk punk mode…
      • Covers psych-folkers Love’s Seven and Seven Is in style
      • Does an electrified version of The Smiths’ Jeane, live from The Peel Sessions

    Previously on Cover Lay Down:
    Billy Bragg and Wilco, My Flying Saucer (orig. Guthrie)

    185 comments » | Billy Bragg, Kristy MacColl, Pete Seeger, The Smiths, Wilco, Woody Guthrie

    Covered in Kidfolk, Part 2: Loudsongs and Dancearounds for Cool Moms and Dads

    December 27th, 2007 — 12:02 am


    School’s been out for days, and I’m already exhausted. But after a whirlwind tour of relatives and sled runs, Sturbridge Village sleigh rides and Santa stocking mornings, the kids are sugared up, full of pep and peppermint. What to do with a case of the sillies? What better time for another round of Covered in Kidfolk?

    Last time on Covered in Kidfolk we brought you a sweet set of lullabies and softsongs; songs in that post are still live, just in case today’s songs tire you out. If you joined Cover Lay Down in the past two months, or if you’re just in the mood for something a bit quieter, head over there for a mellow dozen-or-so from the likes of Alison Krauss, Jack Johnson, The Be Good Tanyas, and Shawn Colvin, and a good overview of our Covered in Kidfolk series, and why it’s meant to serve your ears, too.

    But the point here is to jangle out some energy. So today, we bring you a broad set of genre-pushing folk and folk-related artists hanging out on the fast, upbeat end of the musical kidfolk spectrum. Some are traditional kids songs, sped up as far and stretched out as hard as acoustic instruments can go. Some have their origins in our own childhood favorites, from Sesame Street to Raffi. Some, like Prince’s Starfish and Coffee, will be familiar as songs from your own collections, only repackaged for a kid-friendly audience. All give your kids a chance to rock out without you or they resorting to violence.

    Whether you’ve got kids visiting for the holidays, or are just a kid at heart, I think you’ll enjoy these raucous folkcovers of familiar and traditional songs for kids. Take a few minutes with your legs up on the couch and watch the kids burn off the sugar — or, if you’ve got it in you, use this opportunity to dance around a bit. Just be careful running around the coffee table. Remember, it’s all fun and games until someone barks a shin.


    Remember, kids: whether you prefer popfolk or sleepsongs, buying local and direct from artists is the best way to ensure that the musical ecosystem remains diverse, rich, and authentic for generations to come. As always here at Cover Lay Down, artist and album links herein go directly to artists’ and labels’ preferred source for purchase wherever possible. Buy if you can, for the sake of your kids and theirs.

    794 comments » | Asylum Street Spankers, Barenaked Ladies, Billy Bragg, Dan Zanes, Kidfolk, Maria Muldaur, Matt Nathanson, Rhonda Vincent, Taj Mahal, Trout Fishing in America, Victor Johnson, Wilco