Category: Lou Reed


(Re)Covered: More folk covers of Britney, Lou Reed, Chris Smither, Amazing Grace

November 9th, 2007 — 10:15 am

In order to maintain quality over quantity, this is our last regular Friday post here at Cover Lay Down; from now on, you’ll still get ten or more carefully vetted songs a week, but with a few notable exceptions (holidays, the occasional Folk Family Friday), posts will appear on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Today, for a “final” Friday post, we recover a few songs that dropped through the cracks just a little too late to make it into the posts where they belonged. Ladies and Gentlemen: our last regular Friday, our first (Re)Covered.

My Halloween post on Britney Spears folk-covers seems to have started a trend: if you haven’t already, head on over to Cover Freak and new blog Cover Me for a whole mess o’ popcovers from across the musical spectrum. Especially recommended for folkfans: Shawn Colvin‘s cover of Gnarls Barkley summersong Crazy, Matt Weddle’s reinterpretation of Outcast hit Hey Ya, the term “Pop Tart” to describe a certain type of female pop singer. Not recommended: Nickel Creek’s cover of Toxic, which I download and delete every few months — it was probably hilariously wonderful in concert, but the recording suffers from some abysmal recording quality.

But the popcover flood isn’t over yet: in addition to sparking a coverblog meme, my own post brought several direct submissions out of the ether. You’ll see a few of these in future posts; in the meantime, here’s a few of the best Britney Spears covers I received in the past few days:

  • Irish folkrocker Glen Hansard of the Frames covers Britney’s Everytime (Thanks, Rose!)
  • Another chilling version of Toxic from Dutch folkgoddess Stevie Ann, this one in-studio and sans sax (Thanks, the_red_shoes!)
  • More from Guuzbourg:
    • a light sweet version of Toxic from the Chapin Sisters
    • a Klezmer-esque Toxic from Global Kryner.

In other news, I also found a great “bonus” for last week’s Lou Reed folk coverpost while flipping through some old entries in retropsychadeliablog Garden of Delights. June Tabor and The Oyster Band’s 1990 version of Velvet Underground classic All Tomorrow’s Parties has strong ties to the traditional Irish/British countrysongs at the core of folk rock as first defined by Pentangle, Donovan, and Steeleye Span in the 1970s.

  • June Tabor and The Oyster Band, All Tomorrow’s Parties

After weeks of scouring local public libraries, I finally found Bonnie Raitt’s absolutely marvelous cover of Chris Smither‘s I Feel The Same and the produced version of his Love Me Like A Man on her 1990 retrospective The Bonnie Raitt Collection. I’ve loved this pair of covers ever since I was a kid; listening to them again brings me right back to the hardwood floor in front of my father’s stereo, carefully sliding records out of their sleeves. I posted a live version of the latter last week, but the produced versions are better.

  • Bonnie Raitt, I Feel The Same
  • Bonnie Raitt, Love Me Like A Man

Had I began researching this week’s post on folksong lullabies earlier, I would have discovered classicalfolk guitarist and composer John T. La Barbera‘s version of Who’s Goin’ To Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot in time to include it in my post on Amazing Grace and the folk/gospel tradition. They’re not the same song, but the music is almost identical; for the first half a minute, La Barbera’s soft, gorgeously lush instrumental could be either.

  • John La Barbera, Who’s Goin’ To Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot (trad.)

Finally, thanks to all who send, tout, and post music — keep those afterpost suggestions coming in, folks! And don’t forget to come back on Sunday for a very special ten-song feature on the folkier side of Beck!


798 comments » | (Re)Covered, Amazing Grace, Bonnie Raitt, Britney Spears, Chapin Systers, Chris Smither, Glen Hansard, Global Kryner, John La Barbera, June Tabor, Lou Reed, Oysterband, Stevie Ann

Covered In Folk: Lou Reed / The Velvet Underground (Of second generation anti-folk and modern indie kids)

October 19th, 2007 — 10:57 am

Alt-folk artist and producer Joe Henry and I are doing double duty today, folks: Henry’s amazing cover of Pale Blue Eyes appears below, but I’ve also guest-posted a write-up of his coverwork over at Disney cover blog Covering The Mouse for this month’s “When You Wish Upon A Star Week”. Thanks to CTM host Kurtis for inviting me over to play, and don’t forget to head on over for the bonus Joe Henry tuneage after you’re finished here!

It’s hard to mistake Lou Reed for a folk artist. As primary songwriter for pre-grunge, early lo-fi champions Velvet Underground, Reed wrote for a sound wailing with feedback and screaming with the heady rush of an early rock and drug culture. And though the simpler streetmajesty of his early solo work, most notably 1972 single Take a Walk on the Wild Side, comes across as not so far off in both voice and production from contemporaries Leonard Cohen (a true folkie) or Springsteen (who has always teetered on the folk-rock edge), his work over the last few decades has tended more towards the odd, the electronic, and the experimental.

But many of today’s singer-songwriters cut their teeth on their parent’s Velvet Underground records long before the colored girls sang “doot doo doot” on classic rock radio. And Reed’s songwriting, its vivid imagery grounded in the muted browns and grays of streetcorners and the seamy underbelly of urban life, still speaks to a generation growing up alienated from place, in part by the very medium that carries these words from me to you. Covers of Lou Reed’s work are everywhere, and more often than not, they sound like folk.

Today in celebration of the singer-songwriter as folk artist, we present a quintet of Lou Reed covers by a set of musicians from the periphery of folk. The cuts below mostly feature young and blog-popular indie musicians, though I’m allowing father figure Joe Henry into the fold because of his work producing such neo-folk musicians as Teddy Thompson and ani difranco. Though few of these folks self-identify as folk artists, their primarily acoustic, rough-voiced, low-production styles ground them in the genre nonetheless, even as these same qualities call to the original tone and temper of Reed’s beautifully brokenvoiced anthems of broken boulevards and counterculture dreams.

  • Martha Berner, Sunday Morning (orig. Reed/Cale)
  • Clem Snide, I’ll Be Your Mirror
  • Cat Power, I Found a Reason
  • Iron and Wine w/ Calexico, All Tomorrow’s Parties
  • Joe Henry, Pale Blue Eyes

If you’re old, like me, you’ve probably got your old Velvet Underground and Lou Reed albums packed away on their original vinyl format; you can upgrade for the digital age here, and get Lou Reed’s newer work via Hi Fidelity.

All other artists listed today sell their disks directly through their web pages or labels; just click on their names to buy and browse: Martha Berner, Clem Snide, Cat Power, Iron and Wine w/ Calexico, Joe Henry.

Today’s bonus coversongs:

302 comments » | Calexico, Cat Power, Clem Snide, Covered in Folk, Dan Zanes, Iron and Wine, Joe Henry, John Cale, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Martha Berner, Velvet Underground