Category: John Gorka


John Gorka Covers: Townes Van Zandt, Kate Wolf, Pete Seeger, Stan Rogers

March 23rd, 2008 — 02:51 am


I’ve strayed from the folkfold a bit over the past weeks, testing the limits of folk subgenres and hybridization, trying to feel out just how far one can throw the modern conceit in which everything is a slash-folk hyphenate. I make no apologies for this — folk is a big tent, with many murky corners worthy of exploration. It is also, by definition, tied to the listening culture in intimate, cyclical ways which make it natural for folk to be in a state of constant interaction and integration with…well, everything. Including other forms of music.

But he who would claim to run a folk music blog cannot spend all his time at the periphery of the genre. It’s time to get back to the core of modern folk music, where the artists who made their name performing intimate acoustic songs to tiny bohemian audiences still lug their backseat guitars from city to city on the coffeehouse circuit. And I can think of no more worthy subject for such a triumphant return to the core of modern American folk music than John Gorka.


I’ve seen John Gorka perform live more than any other musician, and I haven’t had to work too hard at it. Since his early days in the Fast Folk songwriter/performer cooperative, Gorka has been one of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the folk business, an anchor for folk festival lineups and a crowd-pleaser at struggling coffeehouses. One year I saw him six times — twice indoors, four times outdoors — and by the end of the season, we were nodding recognition to each other as we passed among the folk fest food vendors.

John Gorka came up through the ranks the hard way, opening for Bill Morrisey and Nanci Griffith before taking first place at the 1984 Kerrville Folk Festival at the age of 26. Three years later, upon the release his first album I Know, Rolling Stone named him “the voice of ‘new folk’”. Since then, he has released ten albums, five of which I listened all the way through this evening, trying to put words to Gorka’s greatness.

And let me tell you, I’ve had a hell of a time trying to pin down what it is about John Gorka that makes his work so powerful.

It’s not his humor, though Gorka can write light, wry, self-effacing and funny better than most. It is not his elder-statesman status among the post-Fast Folk generation, though it’s always good to listen to those folks who the folks you love are listening to. It is not anything especially adept about his technique, though that rich, clear baritone and gentle way with a guitar comprise a powerful instrument. And it is not his infamous kindness, though I have never seen a performer take more genuine grateful pleasure, more sincere and untainted glee, in being given the gift of sharing his songs…and though there is nothing more folk than the way Gorka grins that infectious crooked grin, like Dennis Quaid without the mischief, in the face of applause.

For many listeners and critics, the above is more than anough to secure Gorka’s place in the pantheon of folk gods. But for once, I’m not going to try to speak to what makes Gorka good in any objective sense. Because, to me, what makes Gorka the epitome of folk is that he has the ability to truly speak to a part of me that, once realized through his music, turns out to be exactly what I have always felt.

Gorka is the only songwriter I know that, so often and so well, speaks for the secret, sensitive part of me that rails against the trappings of what our overcommericalized, testosterone-laden culture says a man should be. His ability to capture and express deep love and commitment as brave, honorable, and bittersweet, through deceptively simple guitarwork and an unusually rich, pure voice, is both uncanny and perfectly expressed.

And Gorka does this better, and more often, than any musician I know. He gives voice to a particularly sincere, masculine ownership of self as fragile and human which I have heard in other artists, and he applies this sensibility to more aspects of who I am – father, son, lover, laborer, wanderer – than any other musician I have heard.

Perhaps this subjectivity is not so subjective. Perhaps, though it is our commonality of white male experience which makes this work on one level, it is also true that, like with Joni’s longing for Canada or Josh Ritter’s unfinished adolescence, anyone can find their own emotional story in Gorka’s tales of blue collar labor, parenthood, and love. If so, then this is the kind of folk artist that makes you feel things you didn’t know you felt, in ways that are clearer than you knew possible.

The intimate connection I feel with Gorka’s music may affect my ability to judge the path of his career more objectively. Though all his albums have topped the folk charts — his 2006 release Writing in the Margins won numerous “best of” awards in the folkworld — in my opinion, some of Gorka’s recent work has been a bit erratic. His newer political songs are weaker; tracks on his recent albums suffer from overproduction which drags them out past their power. Though his later work speaks brilliantly to the bittersweetness of fatherhood, his cover of Marc Cohn’s Things We’ve Handed Down on a recent kidfolk compilation is an unfortunate trainwreck, pitched far too high for his voice. And though Gorka brings life to Stan Rogers’ poignant The Lockkeeper on Writing in the Margins, his older live version is far better.

But even on an objective level, this is minor quibbling; Gorka’s output has been so strong for decades, it is easy to excuse an occasional lapse in concentration. In live performance, and in recent tracks like Townes Van Zandt’s Snow Don’t Fall, Gorka can still call up an absolutely stunning power. And happily for cover fans, over three decades of performing and recording at the center of the folkworld, Gorka has contributed songs to many folk cover compilations and tribute albums, where, invariably, his song choices and his performance stand out from the crowd.

Today, a select few songs Gorka has chosen to make his own over the years.* All are good, and many are great; take them with my blessing, and be prepared to be spoken to. I cannot claim that you will feel what I feel, but by all accounts, this is what folk is supposed to be.


Everyone who reads this blog should have at least one John Gorka album in their collection. There are many, including Pure John Gorka, a “best of” compilation of the five albums Gorka released on the Windham Hill label between 1990 and 1996, but if you’re just starting your collection, I absolutely recommend Gorka’s second, his major label debut Land of the Bottom Line. From there, pick up his debut, and his last four CDs, at Red House Records, which celebrates 25 years in the folk business this year. Even better, pick up Gorka’s in-print albums directly through John Gorka’s website, where autographs come with every CD at no additional charge.

Today’s bonus coversongs include two Gorka originals covered with care and beauty; David Wilcox, especially, captures the best of Gorka’s emotive power in a song originally cobbled from an old prayer written by a soldier in wartime. Plus a fun, familiar song with Gorka on backup, just to show off that voice a little more:

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

  • John Gorka covers Girl of the North Country
  • John Gorka covers one of many Christmas Songs Written By Jews

    *I am also desperately seeking a recording of John Gorka covering Dylan’s Love Minus Zero/No Limit, which appeared on the out of print A Tribute to Bob Dylan, Vol. II (Sister Ruby Records: 1994).

  • 745 comments » | David Wilcox, John Gorka, Kate Wolf, Maura O'Connell, Phil Ochs, Stan Rogers, Townes van Zandt

    Single Song Sunday: Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country

    February 3rd, 2008 — 03:08 pm

    I’ve been holding off on Bob Dylan here at Cover Lay Down, unsure that I had anything to add to the existing cacaphony in the blogworld. But now that the fervor for the I’m Not There soundtrack been replaced by a reckless affection for the Moldy Peaches, it’s time, I think. We begin our journey through the works of Dylan with one of his sweetest confessional ballads, Girl from the North Country.

    I’ve never been a fan of Dylan the performer — something about that broken, almost tuneless wail never really touched my soul. But years of listening to coversongs make it impossible to ignore the power and poetry of Bob Dylan, songwriter. It says something that practically every folksinger I’ve ever heard plays at least one Dylan song regularly in concert. It says something more that I’m actually willing to listen to Dylan himself if it’s the only way to hear those songs.

    Happily, a cover collector has plenty of Dylan songs at his disposal. There are hundreds of covers of Girl from the North Country alone; even before the Covers Project over at My Old Kentucky Blog did a feature on it a couple of summers ago, I owned a decent earful of them. Even Dylan covered this one: originally released on 1963 record The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, it was subsequently rerecorded (with Johnny Cash) for 1969′s Nashville Skyline, and then featured again on Dylan’s 1984 live album.

    If the number of times Dylan recorded this song is any indication, Dylan loved this song as much as the rest of us. And it’s not hard to see why. With its timeless rural references, its simple melody, and a trope that rises and falls like wind rippling through wheat, Girl from the North Country sounds more like a traditional folksong than a work of early genius from the guy who electrified American folk music.

    To be fair, the song is based on Scarborough Fair, one of the most popular of those traditional folksongs, thanks to Simon and Garfunkel. But the majority of those who cover it recognize it for what it is: something wholly Dylan, textually sweet and musically elegant, and tailormade for the sparse, yearning, softly regretful touch most artists choose to adopt when covering it.

    Here’s nine such tributes, each one a folk gem of a different tone and timbre, each one no less stunning than the song itself. They range from eerie lo-fi guitar-and-pianofolk (Mohave 3, Yo La Tengo) to warm, rich coffehouse folk (John Gorka, Leo Kottke), from syrupy folkpop (Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell) to a heavy concentration of weary-voiced alt-country indiefolksters (Eels w/ strings and piano, Eels w/ strings and squeezebox, a plugged-in, drunken-sounding M. Ward and friends). But it’s Jimmy LaFave’s slow, wailing Texas folk cover that really brings the song to life for me. No wonder some folks call LaFave the best living interpreter of Dylan songs.

  • John Gorka, Girl from the North Country
    (from A Nod to Bob: An Artist’s Tribute To Bob Dylan)

  • Jimmy LaFave, Girl from the North Country
    (live from Kerry’s Farm, 1993; more Jimmy LaFave here)
  • Eels, Girl from the North Country
    (live from KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, 2005)
  • Eels, Girl from the North Country
    (from Eels With Strings: Live At Town Hall)
  • Leo Kottke, Girl from the North Country
    (live at No Exit Coffeehouse, 1968; used for the film North Country)
  • Mojave 3, Girl from the North Country
    (from Return to Sender)
  • Yo La Tengo, Girl from the North Country
    (live on WFMU, 2006; more Yo La Tengo here)
  • Johnny Cash w/ Joni Mitchell, Girl from the North Country
    (live, 1970; alt. version on The Best Of The Johnny Cash TV Show)
  • M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Jim James, Girl from the North Country
    (live; more Ward, Oberst, and James)

    As always, wherever possible, all album and artist links above take you towards wonderful, local, artist-centric places to buy albums, and as far away from faceless major-market megastores as possible. I think Dylan would appreciate the authenticity of it all, don’t you?

    One of these days I’ll have to do a whole post on the Dylan covers of Jimmy LaFave. In the meantime, pick up the original Girl from the North Country, plus a heck of a lot more covers, at My Old Kentucky Blog. It’s not all folk over there, but a lot of it’s worth hearing, especially Sam Bush, The Waterboys, and Dear Nora.

    Single Song Sunday collections previously on Cover Lay Down:

  • 645 comments » | Bob Dylan, Eels, Jim James, Jimmy LaFave, John Gorka, Johnny Cash, Leo Kottke, M. Ward, Mojave 3, Single Song Sunday, Yo La Tengo

    The Twelve Jews of Christmas: Folk Covers of Holiday Classics by Jewish Songwriters

    December 13th, 2007 — 06:56 pm

    I was planning on posting this entry for the Sabbath, but the snow’s getting deep outside, and in my rural area, that often means long-term network outages. Hope no one minds getting this “Friday” post a bit early…

    Today we celebrate the holiday coversongs of Jewish-American songwriters, most notably the prolific Johnny Marks, who is best known for penning a holy host of non-canonical Christmas songs, and lesser known for being the head of ASCAP from 1957 to 1961.

    Familiar carols written by Marks include Holly Jolly Christmas, which most of us imagine in the voice of Burl Ives, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is based on the story by Marks’ brother-in-law, and I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day, which Marks adapted from a Longfellow poem. He also wrote Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree; I was hoping to share some folkcovers of that song, too, but for some reason, I can’t find any. Wonder why?

  • Pedro the Lion, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Johnny Marks)
  • John Gorka, Christmas Bells (ibid.)
  • Martin Sexton, Holly Jolly Christmas (ibid.)
  • Jack Johnson, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (ibid.)

    In fact, a significant percentage of “traditional” Christmas tunes turn out to have been written or co-written by “verifiably Jewish artists”. Here’s a few more, mostly from the country and alt-pop ends of the folk spectrum, though the list runs the gamut from urban folk to indiefolk:

  • Raul Malo, White Christmas (Irving Berlin)
  • The Roches, Sleigh Ride (Anderson/Parish)
  • Mindy Smith, I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram)
  • A Fine Frenzy, Let It Snow (Cahn/Styne)
  • Steve Goodman, Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
  • Liz Phair, Winter Wonderland (ibid.)
  • Aimee Mann, The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)
  • Suzy Bogguss w/ Delbert McClinton, Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

    No purchase links today, kids: many of these songs are in the public domain, and even those that aren’t are hard to avoid this time of year. (Plus, how the heck do you link to a songwriter?) Just keep on buying your Christmas music from artists and labels directly, and we’ll call it square, okay?

  • 5 comments » | A Fine Frenzy, Aimee Mann, Holiday Coverfolk, Jack Johnson, John Gorka, Liz Phair, Martin Sexton, Mindy Smith, Pedro The Lion, Steve Goodman, Suzy Bogguss, The Roches