Cover Lay Down

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.)

• Beth Orton, Ooh Child (orig. Five Stairsteps)
• Eva Cassidy, Drowning In The Sea Of Love (orig. Joe Simon)
• Keb’ Mo’, Love Train (orig. The O’Jays)
• Billy Bragg, When Will I See You Again (orig. The Three Degrees)

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.

• John Mellencamp, Gambling Bar Room Blues (orig. Jimmie Rodgers)
• John Mellencamp, Farewell Angelina (orig. Bob Dylan)

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.

• Jack Johnson w/ G. Love, Holiday (orig. Madonna)
• Ryan Adams, Like A Virgin (orig. Madonna)
• Lavender Diamond, Like A Prayer (orig. Madonna)

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.

Hope no one minds an early “Sunday” post this week; my brother and his wife are on their way in from Brooklyn for the long weekend, and I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like. I’ll have a short post up for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, if I can; in the meantime, enjoy today’s feature on “American Primitive” folkartist Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings, the tenth post in our popular Covered in Folk series, where we pay tribute to the songwriting talents of a single artist.

I saw Gillian Welch at the Green River Festival a while back, and it was a revelation. From ten rows back, her summer dress blowing in the hot breeze, her twanged voice, the doubled guitars, her narratives of Southern poverty and pain, all conspired to bring the hot scent of jasmine and Southern dust on the breeze even as we lounged on the New England grass. The crowd swelled. The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze.

Though it was her vocal talents in O Brother, Where Art Thou which put her on a mass-marketable par with Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris, it was clear to anyone watching that, as a musical phenomenon, Gillian Welch was a force to be reckoned with in the growing americana folk movement.

More often than not, Gillian Welch is the performing name for two musicians, Welch herself and her ubiquitous partner David Rawlings; when they work with others each gets billing, but in performance as a duo, the pronoun “she” is the standard convention. Welch appears as frontwoman, and can certainly stand her own as a powerful force in a particular subgenre of american folk music, but they share writing credit on many songs, and their harmonies — vocal and guitar — are notable and recognizable.

And what is the Gillian Welch sound? Welch’s voice is well-suited for the raw, backporch paces she puts it through; together, as songwriters and performers, these two musicians build on this vocal base to create an americana sound Welch calls “American Primitive”, something simultanously sparer and more richly nuanced than anything a solo artist could do with guitar or voice. Call it old-timey folk — unproduced and jangly, sparse and stripped down from the more traditional old-timey sound of groups like Old Crow Medicine Show, Welch and Rawlings’ musical compatriots and touring partners.

There are times when Gillian Welch sounds like an old Alan Lomax field recording, something timeless, raw and elegant in its simplicity and honest rough presentation. The lyrics, too, tend towards the trope and narrative themes — rural life, loss and hardship — of early American southern field folk. Given all that, it’s no wonder that over the last decade or so, since even before the release of debut album Revival in 1996, the folk end of the americana movement has begun to pick up her songs and give them the traditional treatment.

Today, some select covers from the increasingly vast spectrum of sound that pays tribute to this weathered, shy, still-young matriarch of the new americana folk set. Interesting, how many retain the original Welch/Rawlings close harmonies, as if the tenor echo were as much a part of the original text to be covered as the powerful words, melody, and chord. Perhaps it is.

• Crooked Still, Orphan Girl
• Emmylou Harris, Orphan Girl
• Dakota Blonde, Orphan Girl

Crooked Still hops with cello, banjo and bass; Emmylou Harris fills out the sound in her inimitable style; newcomers Dakota Blonde mourn a life alone with accordian and guitar and drumthunder. The infinite possibility of nuance and power keeps this oft-covered, well-worn tune fresh, despite its weary lyric.

• Ryan Adams, Revelator
• Glen Phillips, Revelator

Two electrified covers which take this heavy tune to its natural folk rock conclusion. Alt-country rocker Ryan Adams‘ shortened version, off the Destroyer Sessions, is full-on Neil Young, guitars and vocals tangled up in angst. Singer-songwriter and ex-Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips‘ version is darker, more pensive, more beautiful.

• Peter Mulvey, Caleb Meyer
• Red Molly, Caleb Meyer

At first listen, Peter Mulvey‘s classically-fingerpicked version teeters on the overly maudlin, and previously-posted girlgroup Red Molly‘s three-voiced approach seems to cost them emotive potential. But listen again — these grow on you.

• Alison Krauss & Union Station, New Favorite

Fellow Gillian Welch O Brother, Where Are Thou muse Alison Krauss and her star-studded band Union Station make a sweet live bluegrass ballad of an old-timey wallflower’s love song.

• Elizabeth Mitchell, Winter’s Come and Gone

Kidfolk queen Elizabeth Mitchell brings us a light-hearted tale well-suited for the bedtime ears of the next generation of traditional folk fans.

• Elan Mehler Quartet, Elvis Presley Blues

This sultry gospel-jazz take from the Elan Mehler Quartet is sweet with breathy sax and slow-rolling piano. It isn’t folk, but it makes the perfect capstone to any set of Gillian Welch covers.

Don’t forget to click on artist names above to purchase the best of the modern folk world from bluegrass to bluesfolk direct from the source. And, if you don’t already have them, buy Gillian Welch’s four incredible albums direct from her website.

Today’s bonus coversongs hold back a bit, that we might eventually bring you a full post of Gillian Welch covering other artists. But here’s two collaborative efforts that give Rawlings and Welch their own billing, to tide you over until then:

• Gillian Welch and David Rawlings join The Chieftains for traditional song Katie Dear
• Robyn Hitchcock, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings cover Dylan’s Tryin’ To Get To Heaven Before They Close The Door