Category: solas


Festival Coverfolk: ICONS Irish Music and Arts Canton, MA, Sept. 12-14

September 9th, 2008 — 09:28 pm

My memories of an early nineties family outing to the Irish Connections festival is a bit hazed by Harp and hot sun, but a quick check with my mother confirms it: though I do remember a few snatches of some relatively decent irish pub music at a small outdoor stage near the beer garden, it’s clear that, back then, the music was clearly not the centerpiece of what was otherwise a decent cultural festival on a small college campus.

But good festivals evolve, and even a cursory glance at their festival lineup and schedule will tell you that the Irish festival now called ICONS Irish Music and Arts Festival, which takes place this weekend at the Irish Cultural Center in Canton, MA, has undergone a true transformation. In the decade since I first attended ICONS, it has found its own site, and grown from a small-scale series of exhibitions and craftsmerchant boothbuildings to a several day undertaking of immense proportions. In the process, what was once a crafts and culture festival with a few casual workshop-scale performances of traditional irish music and dance throughout the day has become a full-bore multi-stage music and arts festival of increasingly impressive scope and scale.

In an era where other folk festivals often seem to be recycling the same cadre of artists year after year, ICONS is a breath of fresh air. The breadth of talent at this year’s ICONS fest is impressive, ranging from irish-influenced bluegrass banjoists and solo acoustic singer-songwriters of Irish descent to a seemingly infinite collection of traditional reelplayers, country jigbands, and contemporary Celtic Folk favorites that, like the rest of the arts and cultural activities, “reflect the new cultural directions of Ireland and its Diaspora”. And you just gotta love a festival that features an entire stage devoted to harp orchestras, demos, and dance, and names it Harpapalooza.

Most of the biggest-name acts this year will play ICONS both Saturday and Sunday, so you shouldn’t have to miss a trick, and you’ll have plenty of time to roam the grounds, see dance, sports, and other cultural forms in performance, and browse the numerous static exhibitry and merchants. Old timey neograss folkfavorites Crooked Still will be there, and I suspect I won’t be able to resist seeing them for a twentieth time. I’m excited for old-school folksman Liam Clancy of The Clancy Brothers, young scenesters Lunasa and Beoga, and Irish siren Cara Dillon, too, though I’m determined to save Dillon’s haunted pianofolk cover of The Beatles classic Wait for an upcoming return to the songs of the Beatles here at Cover Lay Down. To tempt you even further, here’s a few solid covers from a few more great artists I’m eager to see for the first time this weekend at ICONS.

Early in his career, to distinguish himself from his famous brother Christy Moore, Irish folkie Kevin Moore renamed himself Luka Bloom after a popular Suzanne Vega song and the hero of a James Joyce novel. Twenty years and over fourteen albums later, the name remains an apt reflection of Bloom’s signature sound, which combines American-style folk songwriting with an Irish approach to performance. The result is sometimes rocking, sometimes mellow, occasionally ragged, but always effective.

Luka’s distinctive, jangly guitarplay and a typically plaintive, leggato approach to lyrics provide a solid platform for some excellent singer-songwriter folk. His originals trend towards reverence and celebration, as befits his style; in cover song, as in his excellent covers album Keeper of the Flame, his approach tends to sweeten the tone of the works of others, providing a surprising depth to such melancholy rarities as Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going, Radiohead’s No Surprises, and — a repost — Bloom’s cover of LL Cool J’s I Need Love. Bloom’s newest, Eleven Songs, hits stores any minute now, but you can preorder now.

Solas is one of the premiere contemporary celtic folk bands around today, and — as befits a band whose name translates to “light” in Gaelic — they’ve been at the forefront of an American celtic revival since they first burst onto the scene over here just twelve years ago. As Muruch noted in her recent review of For Love and Laughter, their newest album, they’ve gone through some lead-singer lineup changes over the years, but since the power of Solas as a performing group is predominantly in their arrangements and full celtic sound, as led by award-winning multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan, there’s more consistency here than change, and that’s a wonderful thing.

We’ve previously featured ex-lead singer Karan Casey here at Cover Lay Down, and I’ve dropped a few fave Solas covers here and there since we got things started late last year, but good music bears repeating: here’s linkbacks to their version of tradsong Rain and Snow and a cover of Sarah McLachlan ballad I Will Remember You; here’s a few more of my favorite folksingers’ coversongs from Solas. And here’s hoping that they’ll let their new lead singer Mairead Phelan shine on some new ones at ICONS, too.

The Tannahill Weavers come from the old school of traditional Scottish folk music; they made their name bringing a slightly folkrock sensibility to the traditional celtfolk of their native land, and they’ve been around longer than most of us. Their natural, heartfelt work on this old Stan Rogers tune may be an anomaly among the ballads, reels and caeli, but it’s also a seamless resetting of a timeless tune, one which which shows just how closely related the traditional music of Halifax is to those older, ancestral folkforms from across the great pond. Meanwhile, despite its origins, in the hands of the Weavers, an original reel wrapped around a Gordon Lightfoot tune becomes a driving folk rock event verging on Celtic Punk. Classic stuff, all of it.

Banjo virtuoso and jazzgrass composer Alison Brown may be better known in the industry as the founder of Compass Records, but over the years, she’s also released a number of wonderful albums which explore the intersections of bluegrass and jazz and folk music. Each is a clean mix of crisp-yet-flowing banjo-driven ensemble instrumentals not unlike the more acoustic work of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and, with the help of a series of stellar guest vocalists and session players, more typical bluegrass and folk settings of originals and covers both.

We’ve previously posted Alison’s work with the Indigo Girls on Simon & Garfunkel classic Homeward Bound and with Beth Nielsen Chapman on a sweet cover of Hendrix’ Angel; here’s a few more newgrassy takes on a pair of familiar radio hits with male vocalists you might recognize from the bluegrass world.

Cover Lay Down posts original writing about covered content and folkculture every Sunday and Wednesday.

212 comments » | Alison Brown, Festival Coverfolk, Luka Bloom, solas, Tannahill Weavers

Pond Crossings: Transatlantic Coverfolk with today’s guest host: Darius

July 27th, 2008 — 11:24 am

Let me open with a warm thank you to Boyhowdy for inviting me to do this, and for helping to bring it to life.

My name is Darius. I have been an eager reader of and listener to this blog for some time now. One day, I followed a link from here and found myself at Star Maker Machine, where I am now an occasional poster. That’s where Boyhowdy found me. Life is indeed a circle.

Many great folk songs found in this country were born in the British Isles, and in some cases, went through wild transformations, both in getting to these shores, and in continuing to change once they were here. This reflects differences in the two cultures, as well as the personalities of the people who performed the songs.

In Britain, traditional songs often serve as mnemonics to teach children bits of folk wisdom. Consider the song “The Cuckoo”. In researching this post, I was unable to find a single “original” version of the song. Instead, there seem to be variations on the set of lyrics below:

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird
She sings as she flies
She brings us glad tidings
And tells us no lies.

She sucks all sweet flowers
To make her voice clear
She never sings cuckoo
Till summer is near

She flies the hills over
She flies the world about
She flies back to the mountain
She mourns for her love

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird
She sings as she flies
She brings us glad tidings
And tells us no lies

I found one variant given as a nursery rhyme, where the bird is male, and sucks eggs to improve his voice. The rhyme is apparently older than the music, which would be why there a several different musical settings for the words. The important piece of lore here is that the cuckoo’s song warns of the coming of summer, which marks the end of the planting season. So the song teaches children how to tell when they are running out of time to plant crops.

Nowadays, we have other ways to know when to plant. So modern performers of “The Cuckoo” have added different elements to the song, and it is all but impossible to find a British version with just the lyrics above. Here is John Renbourn’s version.

  • John Renbourn, The Cuckoo
    (from Faro Annie)

    So already “The Cuckoo” is going through changes. But watch what happens when the song comes to America! It is brought to the South by early settlers, and vanishes into the mountains. It passes down through generations of people who have a different climate and planting season, and “till summer is near” somehow becomes “til the fourth day of July”. Characters named Willie and Jack of Diamonds appear out of nowhere.

    In 1961, towards the end of the folk revival, a banjo player and singer named Clarence Ashley was rediscovered. He had been a minstrel show performer and string band player in the thirties and early forties, and then disappeared. His story is quite interesting, and would be worth a post of its own. For now, suffice it to say that he recorded “The Cuckoo” with Doc Watson in 1961. The lyrics he used are the American version. Whereas, in Britain everyone who records the song to this day feels free to change the words as they please, in America the words have become fixed. Here they are, in a beautiful version by Townes Van Zant:

  • Townes Van Zandt, The Coo Coo
    (from Roadsongs)

    Meanwhile, Donovan is originally from England, but has lived in the US for many years. His take on “The Cuckoo” is the American version. Confused?

  • Donovan, The Cuckoo
    (from Beat Cafe)

    Returning to the British Isles, we find many traditional songs which tell stories. That Richard Thompson knows many of these is clear from the number of them he recorded with Fairport Convention. Some of these story-songs contain magical elements, and are survivals of prechristian beliefs.

    Although “Crazy Man Michael” is an original song by Thompson, its characterization of the raven is a good example of this.

    Thompson set the lyrics of “Crazy Man Michael” to a traditional melody. (I have not been able to find what song this was. If anyone knows, please leave a comment.) When Thompson brought the lyrics to his band mates in Fairport, David Swarbrick objected that the words did not fit the melody. So Thompson challenged Swarbrick to write a better melody, and he did. So a traditional song got first new words and then new music, and Fairport’s version is not so much a cover as a smother.
    Fairport Convention, Crazy Man Michael
    (live in Oxfordshire (UK), August 2007)

    When “Crazy Man Michael” came to America, it received a warm welcome from Nathalie Merchant. She changed the arrangement to suit her style, but she left the words and melody intact.

  • Natalie Merchant, Crazy Man Michael
    (from The House Carpenter’s Daughter)

    The tabloid newspaper is a creation of the industrial revolution. To make economic sense, you have to have enough people in one place to buy your newspaper. But people in pre industrial Britain still had an appetite for sensationalized versions of the news. What are now traditional songs originally filled that need. So in 1845, when Lord John Franklin and his crew vanished while seeking the Northwest Passage, a song was written to tell the tale.

  • Pentangle, Lord Franklin
    (from Cruel Sister)

    Over in America, David Wilcox obviously knew the song. “Jamie’s Secret” combines the melody with an entirely new set of lyrics. Wilcox’ tale of a woman’s disappearance gains additional resonance if you know the source of the melody. A “partial cover”, if you will.

  • David Wilcox, Jamie’s Secret
    (from How Did You Find me Here)

    Finally, just for fun, I wanted to present a pond crossing that goes in the other direction. “Pastures of Plenty” is an American song, Woody Guthrie’s evocation of the dust bowl years. In Odetta’s hands, everything becomes a spiritual, which works just fine here.

  • Odetta, Pastures of Plenty
    (from The Greatest Songs of Woody Guthrie)

    However, the song gets to Ireland, which has certainly had its share of agricultural disasters. And it rocks!

  • Solas, Pastures of Plenty
    (from The Words That Remain)

    Today’s Bonus and Sundry Coverfolk

    Boyhowdy already did a great post on the traditional British ballad House Carpenter. Here’s two jaw dropping American versions that got missed the first time.

  • Kelly Joe Phelps, House Carpenter
    (from Shine Eyed Mister Zen)

  • Rosalie Sorrels, House Carpenter
    (from Folk Songs of Utah and Idaho)

    Folk fan Darius is a regular guest contributor at blog collaborative Star Maker Machine. He has excellent taste in both blogs and music.

  • 5 comments » | David Wilcox, Donovan, Fairport Convention, Guest Posts, John Renbourne, Kelly Joe Phelps, Natalie Merchant, Odetta, Pentangle, Rosalie Sorrell, solas, Townes van Zandt

    New Artists, Old Songs: Celtic Folk Edition (Heidi Talbot, Grada, and Karan Casey)

    June 4th, 2008 — 08:48 am

    I’ve fallen far behind on my new music listening; the stack of great music out there grows faster than I can get to them, sadly. While I winnow down the pile, I’ve spent most of the week listening to some wonderful, relatively new folk releases from Compass Records, and let me tell you, I’m impressed.

    The folks at indie roots label Compass, who became sales-parent to Celtic folk-oriented label Green Linnet just two years ago, are caretakers for a surprisingly large stable of true and traditional-leaning folk artists, but there’s little chaff in this wheatfield; when they play to their strengths, their hit-to-miss ratio is far better than the industry average. And the combination of Green Linnet’s artist roster and Compass Records artist-oriented approach to distribution seems to be a winner for all of us.

    Today, we feature the coversongs of three Irish artists who have emerged from this fruitful collaboration to release authentic, predominantly acoustic records in partnership with Compass/Green Linnet in the last year.

    If Heidi Talbot sounds familiar, it may be because you heard her as lead singer of long-standing Irish-American supergroup Cherish The Ladies, and it may be because, like the folks who commented when Muruch posted about Talbot’s newest album way back in January, you were lucky enough to hear her on your local folk radio show, and made it a point to follow up.

    It certainly isn’t because you’ve heard that many other artists with voices as confidently and carefully understated as Talbot’s. I Love + Light is Talbot’s second solo outing, and this sophomore album shows a singer and songwriter on the verge of going singer-songwriter. The tracks range broadly from intimately performed Celtic music to a delicate acoustic folk that would sound welcome in any coffeehouse; overall, they make for a perfectly balanced post-americana album, a return to the broad roots of the folk tree which gains everything from Talbot’s eclectic experience as a musician on both sides of the Atlantic.

    I Love + Light won an Indie Acoustic award for best album just a month ago; supposedly, Talbot will also appear on an upcoming album by Radiohead’s drummer, and we all know how popular Radiohead is on the blogworld. For some reason, though, blog searches reveal few hits. Clearly, Heidi Talbot is still working on building up her name recognition, and I’m happy to help by adding my recommendation. Buy I Love + Light, start listening now, and one day, you can say you knew her when.

  • Heidi Talbot, Time (orig. Tom Waits)
  • Heidi Talbot, Music Tree (orig. Tim O’Brien/Darrell Scott)

    My wife isn’t an audiophile; rather, she’s the kind of music listener who really only likes a few very particular CDs, one for each mood. So when she kept returning Cloudy Day Navigation in the CD changer, I knew it was worth a second listen myself. Sure enough, this third release from Grada is modern ensemble celtic folk music at its best and most authentic: earnest instrument-play, a flowing sound, lilting melodies, and a wonderful female lead singer who effortlessly displays that indescribable something that all great irish chantesuses have. The production is just light enough to keep things intimate, and when the song calls for such delicate delivery, they really shine.

    Overall, Grada is an irish-american band to watch; even without its bonus live performance DVD, Cloudy Day Navigation would be eminently worth owning. Their cover of Suzanne Vega’s The Queen and the Soldier — one of my favorite from this american singer-songwriter — recasts it so perfectly in the storysong tradition of the Emerald Isle, it’s as if it always belonged there. And Susan McKeown’s River is perfect Sunday afternoon putty in their hands, all light harmonies, softly plucked strings, and flute and fiddle. The rest, from traditional reels to sweet celtic folk, is much the same.

  • Grada, The Queen and the Soldier (orig. Suzanne Vega)
  • Grada, River (orig. Susan McKeown)

    Karan Casey was the original vocalist for fave celtic folk band Solas; these days, as a solo artist, her sound falls somewhere between the irish folkpop of Mary Black or Sinead O’Connor and a slightly sparser version of the dark side of Irish ballad music, where Enya and Loreena McKennitt live: more production, more drone, mostly ballads, and overlaid with languid atmospheric effects on string and pipe. But though my wife listens to the latter pair of aforementioned sirens, she wasn’t as taken with Karan Casey as she was with Grada, and I think I know why: though the surface medium here is irish siren, Karan’s music is more folk than new age.

    Casey’s drawn-out delivery succeeds best when she veers closer to the kind of irish/appalachian pop sound that wins Sting and Alison Krauss their Grammy awards, such as with this Joni Mitchell cover, and her version of traditional song Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair, both from her new release Ships in the Forest, which is technically self-released but licensed through Compass in the US. The approach may not be my wife’s favorite, but it’s my cup of tea for sure; in my book, any music which focuses on this particular singer, coupled with an entirely plausible yet predominantly acoustic atmospheric production, makes Karan Casey worth a second listen.

  • Karan Casey, The Fiddle and the Drum (orig. Joni Mitchell)
  • Karan Casey, Black is the Color (trad.)

    Previously on Cover Lay Down:

  • Solas covers Sarah McLachlan, Richard Shindell, Rain and Snow

    Calling all folk musicians, singer-songwriters, labels and promoters: Have you or someone you know/represent/love recently released an album which includes at least one coversong? Think your music might fit the folk trend here on Cover Lay Down? Drop me a line! (No living room recordings, please.)

  • 1,183 comments » | Grada, Heidi Talbot, Joni Mitchell, Karan Casey, solas, Susan McKeown, Suzanne Vega, Tom Waits

    WIN Sarah McLachlan’s Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff, Volume 2

    May 22nd, 2008 — 02:19 pm


    Being a coverfan means spending an awful lot of time scouring the universe for obscurities. Cover songs are often found outside of an artist’s core output: tribute albums, radio or web exclusives, and live recordings are all rich sources for the sort of music any cover blogger counts as bread and butter. And notably, much of this material comes from labels, radio stations, and fans, rather than from the artists themselves.

    So unless you’re a madcap collector like myself, you’ve got a right to be suspicious of any artist who mines past product for pay or promotion. Greatest Hits compilations too often sacrifice hidden gems and broader sound to focus on the radioplay sameness which brought a band to power; self-tribute albums tend to come across as sappy. Rarities and B-Sides albums can go either way; though my recent feature on Cake over at Fong Songs celebrated their own release in this vein, in some cases, at least, and for many artists, there’s plenty of good reasons why these songs were buried to begin with. And, as the poor recording quality of last-gasp posthumous releases from Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and Eva Cassidy can attest to, the very possibility of a second such album of such rarities practically screams “bottom of the barrel”.

    But it’s been twelve years since Canadian pianopop songstress Sarah McLachlan released her first Rarities, B-Sides, and Other Stuff, and she’s done some fine, increasingly mature work since then, both on her own albums and in collaboration with numerous label compilations and other artists. And as a collector of the arcane and obscure, as well as a Sarah McLachlan fan since early adulthood, I’ve been gathering these songs in as I find them for over a decade.

    As such, I already know most of the songs on Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff, Volume 2, which hit stores just a few weeks ago. And I am pleased to report that like McLachlan’s first Rarities compilation, Rarities v. 2 contains very little scrap metal, and plenty of perfectly-tuned songs from the border of folk and pop, most of which lean towards the delicate sound of, say, her sweet take on the Randy Newman-penned When Somebody Loved Me from the Toy Story 2 soundtrack, rather than the pounding remixed radiopop of so many of her produced original albums. There’s some great collaborative work here, with the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Emmylou Harris. And some wonderful covers, too — of the Beatles’ Blackbird, The Rainbow Connection, Joni Mitchell’s River, and more — most of which fall to the delicate, folkier side of her sonic spectrum.

    Which is why I am especially excited to announce that today, in partnership with the fine folks at Filter and Artista, we are offering one lucky winner a prize package consisting of the following:

    • One CD copy of Sarah McLachlan’s Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff, Volume 2

    • An autographed 11×14 high stock matte print featuring the album cover as depicted below


    To be fair, though I am a long-time fan of Sarah McLachlan’s work, I almost chose not to participate in today’s contest offering. Sarah McLachlan prefers heavy, swirling, pulsing pop production in much of her performance; if this is folk, it is a form better suited to the Adult Alternative radio station and the large arena than the folk festival stage or coffeehouse where we spend the vast majority of our time here at Cover Lay Down.

    But folk is a big umbrella, and in today’s world, production alone does not make or break a folk designation. To deny Sarah even partial acceptance would require similar rejection of the produced popfolk sound of other female singer-songwriters, from Dar Williams and Shawn Colvin to Joan Osborne and Aimee Mann. And under all that production, this music is, at heart, built from the ground up, just one woman and a piano: listen to the delicate swing of Ice Cream, or the first few measures of her XTC cover Dear God, and you can hear the singer-songwriter heart coming through.

    The point, of course, is moot. More than anything, genre designation is a tacit agreement between listener and artist, and I know more than enough folkfans who enjoy Sarah McLachlan’s sweet alto range and soaring, powerful vocals to believe that ours is the right context for offering such an opportunity. So prove me right, folks: leave a comment below to enter the contest — just a shout out and an email address is all it takes to qualify to win a great CD, and that special edition autographed poster.

    I’d post an album teaser, but though by definition many of them have already been released elsewhere, the label has asked that we refrain from posting tracks which will be on Rarities, B-Sides, & Other Stuff Vol. II. Instead, here’s a few well-tuned takes on songs from the folkworld from Sarah’s “other” and earlier releases, plus a few bonus tracks to get you in the mood.

    Contest will run for one week, so enter today to ensure your place in the proverbial hat full of scrap paper. Only one winner, folks, though if you act fast, you can double your bets by entering to win the album (no poster, though) over at Muruch. Of course you can also purchase the album now via Sarah’s preferred source; if you win, you’ll have an extra copy of the disk to pass along to a friend. And while you’re there, I highly recommend picking up Sarah McLachlan’s first Rarities and B-Sides album, as well.

    Looking for a few rarities even the true fans may not have found? Today’s bonus tracks are truly folk: a golden set of harmonies from the first Lilith Fair tour, and one of my favorite Canadian folkgroups with a cover of one of Sarah McLachlan’s best known originals.

    Remember, folks: to enter the contest, merely comment below with a shout-out and an email address. All entries received by midnight (EST) next Friday will be counted. Good luck to all!

    1,038 comments » | CONTESTS, Indigo Girls, Jewel, Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLachlan, solas, Tom Waits, XTC

    Single Song Sunday: Rain and Snow (On Traditional Folksongs as Tabula Rosa) Plus 3 bonus Grateful Dead rainsongs

    December 16th, 2007 — 03:01 am


    Whether stripped-down so as not to overwhelm the authenticity of the song and singer, or jazzed up to resonate with modern musical sensibilities, it is the passage of familiar song, motif, and situation between audience and performer which makes the “folk” in folk music. Songs about trains are ultimately songs about longing; songs about the road resonate with those who wander and those who long for a change, though in different ways. Such songs play broadly to universal themes, the better to leave room for such connection. In collapsing the participant/observer gap, the songs have connected folk artists and folk audiences for a century or more.

    We might say, then, that traditional songs like Rain and Snow (also called Cold Rain and Snow in some collections) are both heart and origin of folk music. Problematically, however, these same qualities which make tradfolk accessible can make writing about traditional songs an exercise in futility.

    Many tradfolk songs have loose lyrics, thin and incomplete, which drift from interpretation to interpretation, and thus invite the sort of minute lyrical analysis only a music historian could love. Today’s featured song is perhaps an extreme example of the problem of interpretation. It contains only twelve lines, four of which are merely repetitions of the previous line, and its lyrics are vague, naming lifelong trouble between narrator and spouse without ascribing cause.

    Similarly, since the origins of traditional american folk songs like Rain and Snow are murky at best, historical analysis is no better an approach to understanding. Even the best write-ups can end up an exercise in cover geneology, offering little more than a litany of who-sang-and-when, ad infinitum. And this is the anathema of blogging, I suppose, which seems to me most specifically a medium of anecdotal small-scale sharing and interpretation, not mere enumeration.

    But this is not to say that there is nothing we can say. The best approach to traditional song interpretation, I think, begins with a simple acknowledgement of what a song is. It is the parameters of possibility which make traditional folk song unique and interesting.

    Rain and Snow, for example, is a beautiful, simple, melancholy song of spousal dissatisfaction which can be interpreted as many ways as humans can express such emotion. The way the doubled-lyrics degrade from storylyric to simple image to repeated, strung-out phrase at each verse’s end requires singers to howl their emotional choices open-voweled. The song’s last line leaves open the possibility that the song’s narrator has been the cause of his own resolution, without necessarily calling it either way.

    When combined, these traits make for powerful potential in the hands of the coverartist. The unresolved narrative, coupled with the simple lyrical and chord patterns, leaves ample room for true interpretation. Indeed, it is the tonality and approach of a given coverartist which will ultimately determine whether we take these lyrics as melancholy or resigned, the narrative as sinister or merely regretful.

    Rain and Snow is generally considered a traditional fiddle-and-folk appalachian folksong, though old folkies likely know it best from the works of Pentagle and the Grateful Dead; it is so much a part of the Deadhead canon, in fact, that it was included on jazz/folk/world music label Shanachie‘s “The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead”. Rather than rehash those old familiars, here’s a set of six stellar post-millenial versions, from folk to roots to celtic to true blue bluegrass, just to prove that there’s always more life to be had in tradsongs, the lifeblood of folk.


    As always, wherever possible, artist and album links on Cover Lay Down go directly to each artist’s preferred sources for purchase — the best way to support musicians without giving money to unecessary middlemen. Order now, and put some tradition under the tree.

    Today’s bonus rainsongs have all been performed by members of the Grateful Dead at one time or another, according to the Grateful Dead Lyric and Songfinder:

    • New Riders of the Purple Sage founder Dave Nelson covers the Grateful Dead’s Box of Rain (live)
    • Folk supergroup Redbird do a jangly version of Dylan’s Buckets of Rain
    • Neo-folkgrassers Crooked Still cover softly tradsong Wind and Rain

    Previously on Cover Lay Down: Folk covers of songs of snow and winter

    192 comments » | Be Good Tanyas, Blue Mountain, Crooked Still, Dave Nelson, Del McCoury, Grateful Dead, Peter Mulvey, Redbird, Single Song Sunday, solas, The Chieftains

    All Folked Up, Part 1: Richard Shindell’s South of Delia

    September 30th, 2007 — 07:15 pm

    Welcome to Cover Lay Down, folks! Hope you found us okay. For a short letter of introduction/explanation covering why the world needs another cover blog, and why this just might be it, click here.

    Our inaugural cover set below trumpets Richard Shindell’s recent South of Delia, a full album of covers released earlier this year. In presenting it, I’m trying to establish a posting template of sorts, wherein posts will include (wherever possible) both a featured cover and one or more bonus covers which are related to the feature in some way. Enjoy the music!

    Richard Shindell is no stranger to cover songs. Many of the new generation discovered him through Cry Cry Cry, a one-shot folk supergroup which brought Richard, Dar Williams, and Lucy Kaplansky together for an covers album and a short tour a few years back before tension between the two women in the group brought the collaboration to an end. And his cover of Dar’s Calling the Moon gives me shivers.

    But it says what it needs to, I think, that though Dar was surely the most widely known of the three, Cry Cry Cry only included one song by one of their own members on that single, seminal album — Shindell’s Ballad of Mary Magdalen.

    Shindell is a singer-songwriter’s singer-songwriter, a member of the same second-gen folk movement that brought forth Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and John Gorka, and a man who is just as happy to play guitar along with them as he is to share his own well-written songs. He is known among his peers as a slightly shy, somewhat reclusive genius who hides deep insight in a plethora of storysongs ranging in subject and imagery from catholicism to the refugee’s plight. Ask any folksinger of a certain age to list the ten best lyrics they’ve ever heard, and you can bet Shindell’s work will be up near the top.

    So many of us were left scratching our heads when we heard that his next release would be a full set of covers. And wondered, as well, what was up with the lack of press, and the release on the living-room label “Richard Shindell Recordings”. Was this merely a labor of love?

    Naysayers fear not: South of Delia is a rich tribute indeed. Shindell manages to reassess and reimagine a broad set of tunes, bringing a new poignancy to deepcuts from the familiar (Dylan’s Tales of Yankee Power, Peter Gabriel’s Mercy Street, The Band’s Acadian Driftwood) to the neofolk (the Josh Ritter and Jeffrey Foucault covers are especially well done, and let me say here: it takes both guts and grace to cover the younger generation, and to do it well.) His choices of song well fit his own songwriter’s bent, telling tales of the downtrodden, the refugee, the lovelorn, the lost — an especially masterful tactic in the case of songs which were, in their original form, produced to emphasize music and mood more than lyrics.

    But don’t take my word for it. Here, take a listen to the deep yearning for place and racial acceptance Shindell brings to Born in the USA, which many folks consider Bruce Springsteen’s least meaningful song. I promise you’ll never hear it the same way again.

    South of Delia is Shindell’s first album on the “Richard Shindell Recordings” label. You can get it in the usual places, but I prefer purchase through the artist websites whenever possible, so buy Richard Shindell’s South of Delia here.

    Today’s bonus coversongs:

    862 comments » | all folked up, Bruce Springsteen, cry cry cry, Dar Williams, Jeffrey Foucault, R.E.M., richard shindell, solas