Category: Tom Waits


Covered in Folk: Tom Waits
(Dave Alvin, Kathryn Williams, Shawn Colvin, Sarah Jarosz, Redbird +more!)

December 26th, 2009 — 10:08 pm





I somehow managed to reach full-bore adulthood without hearing a lick of Tom Waits. Which is probably all for the better: as I’ve noted many times, my long-standing preference for melodic voices is only now giving way to a mature appreciation of the unique beauty that springs from powerful truths filtered through broken instruments.

And anyway, the Tom Waits songbook is eminently adult, both in the way it looks at the world through bleary, jaded, ancient eyes and the way it rattles about with themes of alcoholics, lonesome trainwatchers, tired prostitutes, and others past their prime, struggling to capture the last licks of a life that has almost finished passing them by. Indeed, the world that Waits inhabits often seems to burn with unfinished life-energy, the heat haze of a drunkard’s sweaty existence in every growl – sometimes festering, sometimes flickering, sometimes roaring out of control.

But there’s also something about a Tom Waits song that suits the stillness of winter. There’s ice in these bittersweet, boozy ballads: the chill of an outsider’s threadbare coat, the thin layer of frost that forms on a dying relationship, the icicle weight of the guillotine metaphor, an observer’s frozen distance from the ideal. In Waits’ capable hands, as in winter’s quietude, the world aches with wistfullness; time captured in crystal, the pessimistic inevitabilities of future and the hard roads of the past ever present in the hopeful moment.


Tom Waits is well-covered, and he should be. His melodies are simple, his imagery clear. The gaze of his narrators and the desires of his subjects resonate with us. The icewall that he places between the world as it is and the world longed for is a familiar one, for it represents our innermost fears and projections. And as long as they are treated tenderly, there are a multitude of ways to interpret these songs.

But where the songs of Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson are, by definition, folk songs, which lend themselves to a universal opportunity for coverage, Waits writes songs for his own distinctive voice. The coarse, gravelly vocals and slow piano-driven delivery that mark Waits’ beautifully broken performance wring every drop of poignancy from their underclass hearts and streets so exquisitely, it poses a particular challenge for would-be interpreters. And sure enough, as a bevy of mediocre, mixed-bag tribute albums proves, it’s surprisingly hard to cover a Tom Waits song with efficacy – to transform that rawness without shaming it with antiseptic beauty, or overwhelming it with rage and despair.

Too many miss the tenderness Waits feels for his subjects. Too many fall too quiet, focusing on melody to the detriment of the necessary nuance. Balance is key, here, lest the longing turn maudlin and cheap, or the chill turn to heat and anger.

Still, there are many ways to capture winter well. Ice can be fragile or fleeting, jagged or muddied, brittle or echoingly still; it can trap us, or shatter beneath us, or even sustain our careful footsteps across it, if we mind our surroundings. Here’s a few folksingers and singer-songwriters who manage to get it right.



Tom Waits coverfolk previously on Cover Lay Down:

1,110 comments » | Covered in Folk, Tom Waits

Just A Song Before I Go: Catie Curtis covers Death Cab (plus Eilen Jewell, Lucinda Williams @ Green River)

July 16th, 2008 — 05:47 am

That’s us on the treeline, there. See?

What with weather and whatnot, the New England folk festival season only runs from June to September; it’s a pretty compressed time, rich with opportunity, and invariably, there are tough choices to be made. But over the years, the luckiest of us have found found a few sacred places that feel like home, and we wouldn’t miss them for the world.

Which is to say: I’m off tomorrow for the farms and fields of midstate New York, for two glorious weeks of festivaling: bluegrass at Grey Fox this weekend, and folk at Falcon Ridge the following. And there ain’t no blogging from the field.

But don’t worry, folks, I got you covered. A few like-minded and folk-friendly bloggers have graciously agreed to guest-blog here in my absence, so keep coming ’round for some great writing from the rotation. But before I go, here’s a few from the folks and fests I’ll regret missing while I’m away.

I just received my advance copy of Sweet Life, the upcoming release from alt-folkie Catie Curtis, in the mail today, so I can’t honestly say I’ve had a chance to let it sink in. But I’m already in love with her surprisingly poppy, affirming cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s Soul Meets Body, and we’re long overdue for recognition of the enduring work of this wonderful songwriter, champion of the working class, and long-time staple of the Boston folk scene.

Curtis is known for her vivid storytelling, especially in her ability to tease greatness out of ordinary lives, but she has always had a knack for carefully chosen, deliberately interpreted coversongs which she can truly make her own. This great cover is no exception: her guitarwork and the alt-pop production are catchy as hell, and her voice comes off all breathy and beautiful, like Lucinda Williams after a few voice lessons. Happily, the album seems to be more of the same.

Catie’s turn on etown will feature a collaborative cover of Yellow Submarine with Barenaked Ladies, but it doesn’t air until the end of August; Sweet Life won’t drop until September, and I’ll be away for Catie’s tourdates in northeastern New England next week. To tide us over, here’s the Death Cab cover, plus an older cover of minimalist alt-rockers Morphine from Catie’s 2004 album Dreaming in Romance Languages.

  • Catie Curtis, Soul Meets Body (orig. Death Cab for Cutie)
  • Catie Curtis, The Night (orig. Morphine)

Back when we lived up near Greenfield, MA, and before Grey Fox became too much of a temptation, we were regulars at the Green River Festival, a day-only fest (no camping) which has slowly spread to encompass three successive days of music. Previously, I’ve written about seeing Jeffrey Foucault there; the Green River also brought me my first live experiences with a whole host of amazing artists, from Josh Ritter and Gillian Welch to Carrie Rodriguez and Peter Mulvey.

This year’s Green River Fest line-up is worth celebrating, especially for the free concert in town on Thursday night featuring Cover Lay Down favorites Richard Shindell, Caroline Herring, and future feature-post subject Mark Erelli. Mainstage shows the following days will feature Mavis Staples, Los Straightjackets, Jimmie Vaughn, Crooked Still, and the following pair of alt-country/folk femmes, who cover Greg Brown exquisitely. Green River runs July 17-19; if you don’t care much for for hard-core bluegrass, and you’ve got a place to crash in the upper reaches of Western Massachusetts over the coming weekend, you really should be getting on the road right about now.

  • Eilen Jewell, Train that Carried Jimmie Rogers Home (orig. Greg Brown)
  • Eilen Jewell, Walking Down the Line (orig. Bob Dylan)
    (more Eilen)

  • Lucinda Williams, Lately (orig. Greg Brown)
  • Lucinda Williams, Hang Down Your Head (orig. Tom Waits)
    (more Lucinda)

Stay tuned for some great guest bloggers covering subjects from Hank Williams covers to trans-oceanic British folk rock. I’ll be back in the swing of things by the end of July, rejuvenated and steeped in the real deal, with photos of both festivals, at least one interview, and a report on the Beatles and Utah Phillips coversong songswaps just announced for Falcon Ridge.

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

883 comments » | Bob Dylan, Catie Curtis, Dan Fram, Death Cab for Cutie, Eilen Jewell, Greg Brown, Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits

Ruth Ungar Merenda Covers: Tom Waits, Hank Williams, Richard Thompson, Nico & more!

June 7th, 2008 — 09:05 pm


In the early days of Cover Lay Down, I spent some time covering the emergence of artists like Teddy Thompson, Rufus Wainwright, and Sam Amidon, all new voices who walked in the footsteps of folksinger parents; more recently, we heard Neill MacColl, son of Ewan and half-sister of Kirsty, in duet with Kathryn Williams, and Ben Taylor as a tagalong in discussion of the life work of his father James.

This may seem like a high percentage of “folk kids” for a blog that’s only been around since September. But stepping back and looking around, we see that the prevalence of second generation musicians in Cover Lay Down is not so far off from the natural order of things in the world of folk music.

And if the idea of folk music as a family business is not so uncommon, then I suspect much of this has to do with the kind of work that musicmaking is — after all, the artistic muse isn’t one which takes place solely outside of the household, and can be left at the office each evening. As we alluded to in our recent exploration of folk musicians who are also mothers, as an art form and a vocational practice, the work of folk is something which permeates home life.

Some forms of folk, like some forms of music, are more open to family performance, of course. In the contradance and traditional folk music worlds, especially, performance is very often something which happens in households and community halls, with families and children; proportionally, you see more kids on (or near) stages in dance performance than you do in latenight singer-songwriter coffeehouses. Sam Amidon grew up in a household like this, where music took place as a daily and family activity, and performance was more often mid-afternoon than anything else. And the family atmosphere which permeated the McGarrigle/Wainwright household is famous for bringing forth Rufus and sister Martha Wainwright as musicians of confidence in their own right.

Someday soon, I hope to tackle the phenomenon of three-generational folk families which have their roots in the early American folk resurgence of the fifties and sixties, such as that of Woody, Arlo, and Sarah Lee Guthrie, or the performing careers of the Seeger family, including Pete Seeger’s grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, who performed as part of The Mammals with today’s featured artist until the band went on its recent hiatus. But such massive undertakings are for cooler, more comfortable days than today’s high humidity heat wave. Instead, today, we look at another folk performer who grew up in not one but two households of folk musicians, and has since struck out on her own. Ladies and gentlemen: the various folk incarnations of Ruth Ungar Merenda.


For a young folk musician, fiddle and uke player and vocalist Ruth Ungar Merenda has gone through a surprisingly large amount of performing groups and incarnations. Starting off as a childhood sidegirl determined not to follow in the footsteps of her mother, luthier and singer-songwriter Lyn Hardy, and her father Jay Ungar, who with Ruthy’s stepmother Molly Mason is a staple of the New England contradance and fiddlefolk revivals, Ruth headed off to Bard College, and from there to NYC, where she tried to make a go of it as an actress.

But as with so many second generation musicians, it seems the music was in her blood. By her mid-twenties Ruthy had drifted back to the fold, making appearances throughout New England as part of the family bands. In 2002, with the production support of Jay and Molly, Ruthy released Jukebox, a sprawling solo album which tackled a few originals and a bunch of early country and jazz classics with powerful but still slightly immature vocals over a delicate old-timey charm and acoustic swing production. Though the album showed diverse influences, and would have probably done well in the track-by-track promotional model of today’s blogworld, back then it sold no more than a handful of copies.

Luckily, even before she released her solo disk, Ruthy had found a different outlet for her sound, joining up with a few other younger folks, including fellow second-gen songwriter Tao Rodriguez Seeger and singer-songwriter Michael Merenda to become The Mammals. And this time, people started to listen.

The Mammals emerged in the midst of a young person’s newgrass revival, finding fame alongside similarly female-voiced bluegrass and folkgrass acts such as Uncle Earl and Crooked Still. As fiddler and the sole female voice of the Mammals, Ruthy found herself front and center plenty; she also began to play with others backstage at festivals, and occasionally showed up with a few other women from those aforementioned groups in side projects and sidestages, even recording a slightly racy album with her compatriots Aoife O’Donovan (of Crooked Still) and Kristin Andreassen (of Uncle Earl) as the trio Sometymes Why after a successful jam session in a festival parking lot.

I was lucky enough to see the Mammals several times in their few years together as an active performing group, both as a solo act and in tandem with Canadian-based folk group the Duhks (their performance together was billed as Platypus, as in Duhks+Mammals, which is just too cute). I liked the sound an awful lot, and I think their early release Evolver was a masterpiece of modern traditional folk rock. But seeing them in concert in their last year of performance, you could tell there was a hint of something in the air, just a faint unease in the way they clustered in threes and twos, rather than as a full ensemble, as if that there were some differences of opinion about what the “right” sound for the Mammals was supposed to be.

These days, in fact, The Mammals are “hibernating” while their members pursue solo projects; for Ruthy and Michael Merenda, now performing as Mike and Ruthy, these projects included marriage, which came with a very generous wedding present of studio time and production for an album. The result was The Honeymoon Agenda, a complete set of originals and well-chosen cover songs which run the musical gamut from the urgent yet delicate one-guitar duet sound of Tom Waits cover Long Way Home to a surprisingly countrified version of the Velvet Underground’s I’ll Be Your Mirror to a grungy production-laden folkpop that rivals the best work of Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield or Mary Lou Lord and Elliott Smith, or more recently, Signature Sounds indierockers the Winterpills — that latter being unsurprising, since it was the Winterpills’ producer who gave the duo the generous gift.

This newest incarnation of Ruthy’s collaborative work is a far cry from the bouncy, almost renaissance sound of the contradance she grew up with, and it seems to have replaced the acoustic folk-slash-newgrass jam session sound of the Mammals work with a more intimate studio sound. Nor is it truly a return to the country swing-influenced singer-songwriter sound of her earliest solo work. Instead, though the record ultimately still shows an evolving artist in flux, it shows much more potential, in many more directions than before. It is lo-fi, but confident and mature in a way that Ruthy’s first solo work only hinted at. And, as in all Ruthy’s previous work, there is an energy and an honesty here which is well-served by her perpetual sense of whirlwind glee in making music, regardless of the style or subgenre.

But why take my word for it? Here’s a few coversongs from each of these three major phases of Ruth Ungar’s adult career thus far, so you can hear her musical journey for yourself.

The Honeymoon Agenda is available from various artist-friendly sources, including CD Baby; for digital downloads, I highly recommend Amie Street, where the entire album is currently available for download for six bucks, but where, due to their snowballing scale, song prices will continue to rise as others find Mike and Ruthy’s music. (Bonus: when you arrive at Amie Street, sign up for an account, and enter the code “coverlaydown” for a three dollar discount!)

The Sometymes Why album appears to include no covers, but it, too, has some great ragged moments. And all five of the Mammals albums, Ruth Ungar’s single solo album, and hubby Michael Merenda’s solo works are all worth checking out, too.

If you’re up for some live music, and live in the NY/NE area, Mike and Ruthy will also be appearing at several folk festivals in the American Northeast this summer, including the always amazing Clearwater Festival and Revival on June 21 and 22, and New Bedford Summerfest in the first week of July, which I’ve never attended but very much hope to make it to this year; their tour schedule has more. And for those who are willing to make the trip, experimental folk trio Sometymes Why will be at Bonnaroo next week. In full, it’s an exceptionally busy schedule for any performer, let alone one who became a mother on January 28 of this year. Given Ruthy’s own irresistible pull towards the musicworld, I’m confident that we can expect to see little William performing alongside Mama, Daddy, Grandma Lyn, and Grandpa Jay before long.

Today’s bonus coversongs offer a taste of Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s typical contra-slash-swingfolk sound, as a roundabout way of exploring the deeper roots of Ruth Ungar’s musical journey.

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

  • The Mammals (and many others) cover tradfolk tune The House Carpenter

  • 79 comments » | Compay Segundo, Hank Williams, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Mike and Ruthy, Nico, Richard Thompson, Ruth Ungar Merenda, The Mammals, Tom Waits

    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

    Kathryn Williams Covers: Tom Waits, Big Star, Velvet Underground

    May 18th, 2008 — 04:26 pm

    I first heard UK-based singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams a few years ago, when tracks from her 2004 major-label all-covers release Relations began to show up on the cover blogs. Since you, too, are a reader of music and cover blogs, you’ve surely heard her gorgeous, tense version of Nirvana’s All Apologies from that album. And you may remember her dreamy and delicate cover of Spit on a Stranger I posted, alongside the Nickel Creek cover of the same tune a few months back, when we did a feature on Pavement; looking back, it still feels like Williams’ track was the strongest of the entry.

    But while cover songs provide a comfortable entry point for us to discover new artists or revisit older ones, in the best possible world, when considering the work of a performer or songwriter, a cover song is only a doorway to discovery, and not the full house. Like cover songs it contains, Relations provides both an excellent introduction to the work of an incredible artist, and to her sound, but it would be a mistake to let a few tracks from Relations remain the endpoint of an experience with Kathryn Williams.

    For one thing, Relations remains one of only two major-label releases in what is otherwise a catalog of solid singer-songwriter albums produced on Caw Records, Kathryn Williams’ own label. Though the differences of label-vs.-indie influence can be slight in actual performance, in this case, given the less-than-mainstream extremes we hear spilling into the margins of Williams’ penultimate release Leave to Remain — which Kathryn herself describes as “the one where, if it wasn’t my voice, I could probably listen to it’” — it seems safe to assume that Kathryn might consider her indie releases to be more authentic representations of her sound as she herself imagines it.

    And, for another, though her body of work falls squarely within the definition of folk music, within that broad definition Kathryn Williams defies easy categorization. Her tendency towards confessional songwriting, in the style of Dylan or Joni Mitchell, is evident to all; her guitarwork is consistent with that approach, if more delicate. But hiding behind her deceptively unassuming lyrical performance and acoustic guitar style is more than a tinge of grungefolk, like predecessors Mary Lou Lord and Juliana Hatfield. And a preference for unusual instrumentation – strings, woodwinds, drumbeats among them — and a tendency towards the use of these instruments to produce dissonance and drone effects in production, has led to legitimate comparisons with the new freak and psych folk camps.

    Williams’ increasing facility in exploring the potential of such disparate elements comes to a head with Two, her new album with fellow singer-songwriter Neill MacColl. Two is presented as a duo album, but it fits squarely into the Kathryn Williams canon; on the majority of the album, Williams voice is solo, and we hear a more mature, confident expression of what has come before – sweet on the surface, with an undertone of experience (see, for example, the much more radio-friendly yet equally gorgeous sound of Come With Me.)

    And though the songs are predominantly co-written, the primary voice here, too, is still hers: with the exception of a single duet on the album’s sole cover, MacColl seems to be primarily contributing harmony vocals and additional stringwork, while Kathryn’s “barely there” vocals and overall sound are more prominent. Further, although in parts the album comes across as experimental, its sound is still very clearly a continuation of the musical directions in which Kathryn Williams has been moving for much of her career.

    Ironically, nowhere is Kathryn’s dominant hand more evident than in the only true duet on the album, a cover of Tom Waits classic Innocent When You Dream. At first listen, the song sounds weird and unfinished: instead of harmonizing, the two voices pull at each other, fighting for the listener’s attention. But by bringing forward the fragile freak-folk sound through vocal dissonance, instead of hiding it in the undertone or drone or production, the true nature of Kath’s complicated vision is finally realized.

    What finally becomes clear when pursuing the deeper success of Kathryn Williams work is that where most folk invites the listener, this a folk that coaxes and teases, lulling us in with a sense of familiarity, only to challenge us with tension and undertones not usually heard in singer-songwriter folk. If it took a collaboration with Neill MacColl to bring this out, so much the better, and kudos to both. But regardless of whether you think of this newer work as a solo record or a true collaboration, though it may take several listens to fully appreciate it, Two is a tour de force, one which re-establishes Kathryn Williams as a folk artist to keep watching as she continues to mature and explore.

    Here’s a few great but often underplayed covers from Relations to set the stage, followed by that cover of Innocent When You Dream, so you can hear for yourself how one leads to the other. In neither case, though, do one or two songs represent the beauty or breadth of the full albums; I highly recommend seeking out both Relations and Two in their entirety.

    • Kathryn Williams, Thirteen (orig. Big Star)
    • Kathryn Williams, Candy Says (orig. Velvet Underground)

      (from Relations, 2004)

    • Kathryn Williams and Neill MacColl, Innocent When You Dream (orig. Tom Waits)

      (from Two, 2008)

    No bonus tracks today, sadly; all but a small handful of my music remain unaccessible due to previously-mentioned technical difficulties. I’m hoping to have some resolution on the computer front in the next week or so; in the meanwhile, here’s some highly relevant and still-snaggable tracks previously posted on Cover Lay Down:

    277 comments » | Big Star, Kathryn Williams, Neill MacColl, Tom Waits

    Mothers of the Folkworld: Suzanne Vega, Ani DiFranco, Lori McKenna, Kris Delmhorst

    May 10th, 2008 — 09:16 pm

    Katrina, Narissa, and Amelia Nields, Clearwater Folk Festival, 2005

    As a volunteer for performer check-in at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for several years, I had the rare privilege of meeting the children of several notable folk musicians, from Lucy Kaplansky’s adopted daughter to Katrina Nields’ newborn. Seeing my favorite musicians up close and personal was always a treat. But seeing folk musicians in parenting mode always felt like peering behind the curtain of the public persona to something real. And once you see that part of a musician, it flavors the way you hear their songs from that day forward.

    The confessional, personal nature of folk music lends itself well to songs of family and parenthood; as I’ve written about previously, I have a special fondness for music which speaks to that side of life. But it’s got to be especially difficult to be a mother who makes her living out of music. Working mothers have it hard no matter what, but musicianship isn’t like other careers: the late-night shows, the marathon recording sessions, the constant need for one more focused, childless hour crafting song, all stand in tension with the closeness and availability good parenting demands of us.

    Yet the folkworld is full of female musicians who — with or without the help of sensitive, often stay-at-home dads — work their touring schedules around the various and sundry blessings of childrearing, from nursing and naps to school plays and graduations. Previously featured folkmothers include Caroline Herring, Lucy Kaplansky, Rani Arbo, Shawn Colvin, and Cindy Kallet: some of my favorites, and a significant percentage of the women who we’ve featured here on Cover Lay Down.

    I can’t imagine what it must be like to sing a song to your child in front of ten thousand people, or, like Dar Williams did at Falcon Ridge last year, to bring them up on stage, so they can see what you see. And I can’t imagine what it must be like to give birth, or to head out on tour for a week without your child.

    But I trust that the blogworld is surely swimming with songs about mothers this weekend. And in the midst of all that, I thought it was important to remind us all that the reason we’re here, on Mother’s Day and every day, is because a few daring, real people — people with families, with hopes and fears, with love enough to share — have chosen to make their living making the music that fills our world. And, notably, this is a career path where neither family health insurance nor maternity leave policies are the norm.

    Today, as a tribute to working moms everywhere, we bring you some coversongs of and from a few more singer-songwriters with children of their own. As always, if you like what you hear, please support these artists and their families by purchasing their albums, heading out to their shows, and treating them as real people whenever possible.

    Lori McKenna was already a mother of three when she stepped in front of her first open mic audience at the age of 27; since then, she has spent most of her career playing part-time in the local New England folk circuit, staying close to home while slowly making a name for herself with a growing set of well-crafted songs that celebrate the simple pleasures of life as a struggling middle class homemaker.

    Though McKenna recently turned country, resetting her down-to-earth lyrics to a newly countrified sound and touring as an opening act for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, her long tenure in the folkworld and her constant celebration of a vividly real motherhood earns her the lead-off spot on today’s list. We featured McKenna sideman Mark Erelli’s cover of McKenna’s Lonestar earlier this week; here’s a gritty lo-fi take on Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees from The Kitchen Tapes, and a much more polished but no less authentic look back at Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes from out of print American Laundromat compilation High School Reunion.

    For a while there, Suzanne Vega was on the fast track to become the most prolific and popular folk musician to come out of the second-wave Greenwich Village folk scene in the early eighties; she is probably best known for Luka, her late 80s hit about a neighbor’s abused child. But if you haven’t heard much from her in a decade or so, it’s because she decided to curtail her touring and recording significantly in 1994 in order to focus on her family after her daughter Ruby was born. Since then, she has produced only three albums of new material; the songs have gotten even more introspective, but her quality hasn’t suffered one bit.

    Here’s Vega’s take on two delicate songs about children from Grateful Dead tribute album Deadicated, plus some great duet work with John Cale on an old Leonard Cohen standard.

    Urban folk feminist Ani DiFranco is a relatively new mother and ferocious touring machine who has taken a non-traditional path to motherhood even for the musicworld; instead of taking a hiatus to focus on recording and parenting, as so many other musicians have done, Ani brings her daughter with her as she tours. The model seems to be working — Ani and family just made the cover of the most recent issue of Mothering magazine — but other than this concert video of new song Present/Infant from her new DVD Live at Babeville, Ani has not yet recorded any of the new songs about motherhood which she has performed at her recent shows. So here’s a few random covers of Ani DiFranco songs, including a great version of Joyful Girl, a song DiFranco wrote to honor her own mother, performed by jam band Soulive with Dave Matthews.

    A swollen belly and a June due date make Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter and folk producer Kris Delmhorst an impending member of the folk musician mother club, but motherhood is already starting to affect her career; she was showing when I saw her at the Iron Horse a few months ago, and these days, she’s rushing through a few dates in support of her new and absolutely stunning album Shotgun Singer before she goes on family leave. We’ve played cuts from Delmhorst here before, in recognition of her work with Peter Mulvey and father-to-be Jeffrey Foucault as part of folk trio Redbird; today, it’s Kris’ turn to glow with this fine, twangy interpretation of an old spiritual tune, and a sweet collaborative turn on Tom Waits’ Hold On.

    Thanks to folkmusic.about.com for their feature on Folk Music Moms, which served as today’s writing prompt. For more about volunteering at Falcon Ridge this July, check out the festival website. Oh, and if you’re reading this, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

    1,009 comments » | Alana Davis, Allison Crowe, ani difranco, Dave Matthews, Grateful Dead, Kris Delmhorst, Leonard Cohen, Lori McKenna, Peter Gabriel, Radiohead, Soulive, Suzanne Vega, Tom Waits

    New Artists, Old Songs: Arrica Rose covers Tom Waits

    May 3rd, 2008 — 12:58 am

    A short one-shot occasional today, as part of our New Artists, Old Songs series — a feature in which I have the rare privilege of introducing some artists so far under the radar that most of them haven’t even hit the rest of the blogosphere, so new that they haven’t yet recorded more than a single cover or two, and so incredible I just couldn’t wait until their next album to write about them.

    Today’s featured artist: Arrica Rose and the…s

    There’s been plenty of buzz in the blogworld as we near the May 20 release date for the new Tom Waits cover album by Scarlett Johansson (yes, that Scarlett Johansson). Indie coverblog Blowin’ Your Cover seems to like it; Muruch is reserving judgement, though she offers Holly Cole’s cover album Temptation as the gold standard for Tom Waits cover albums.

    I’m curious enough about the full monty here; both genre and premise seem up our alley, though it’s hard to hear Scarlett in the samples I’ve heard. And it’s no secret that I like Tom Waits covers — I posted two covers of I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You recently, and both were worth a second listen. But like Muruch, I have a high standard in mind when it comes to Tom Waits covers. And in my case, the bar was raised that much higher just last week, when the best damn Tom Waits cover I’ve heard in a long, long while — Arrica Rose and the …s cover of I Hope That I Don’t Fall — dropped out of the sky into my mailbox.

    Rose is a relative newcomer whose second album La La Lost is getting decent radioplay but not much blogpress after a mid-April release. Her version of I Hope… is the sole cover on an album which moves fluidly from lo-fi yet popgrungy singer-songwriter tunes that call to Juliana Hatfield or Mary Lou Lord to reasonably powerful indiefolk originals reminiscent of early Ani DiFranco. The sound is good, if a bit too diverse. But the big appeal here is singer-songwriter and indierock pin-up girl Arrica Rose’s beautiful but broken voice: unusually hoarse and strangled, as if on the verge of tears, with a subtle and gentle delivery that gets lost in a bigger sound. And when the production steps back and lets that beautiful, broken instrument come forward, the songs really shine.

    Today’s coversong is one of the most intimate and most successful cuts on the album. Here, the abovementioned elements combine with the lyrical longing of the original to create a breathtaking transformation of what was already an unusually powerful song. Where Waits’ original is as broken as his voice, Rose brings us a narrator who is immeasurably fragile, as if she could break any second. The stakes of the narrative dilemma are raised accordingly. The result is a stunningly beautiful, bittersweet cover which both transcends and revitalizes the original.

    It’s hard to imagine a better Waits cover coming at us this year. But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself, and then pick up La La Lost for the originals:

  • Amanda Rose and the …s, I Hope That I Don’t Fall (orig. Tom Waits)

    For comparison’s sake, here’s the way-too-poppy title track to Scarlett Johansson’s impending release Anywhere I Lay My Head; a much more subtle second track is up at Blowin’ Your Cover. Plus one from Holly Cole, so we can hear what Muruch hears.

  • Scarlett Johansson, Anywhere I Lay My Head (orig. Tom Waits)
  • Holly Cole, I Don’t Wanna Grown Up (ibid.)

    We’ll have at least one full-sized post of Tom Waits coversongs one of these days, never fear. In the meanwhile, come back Sunday for our sixth edition of (Re)Covered, in which we return to some past features, artists and themes to add a few newly discovered, uncovered, and recovered songs into the mix.

  • 815 comments » | Amanda Rose, Holly Cole, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits

    Shawn Colvin, Cover Girl:From Tom Waits to the Talking Heads (and then some)

    October 5th, 2007 — 03:44 pm

    The profitability of cover albums may be indirect for artists, but as a way to raise awareness, it’s a masterstroke. Way back when genres meant something, the internet hadn’t changed our music distribution models, and the Adult Alternative label hadn’t subsumed well-produced folk music, recording a cover album was a sneaky strategy for folk musicians to broaden the listener base and please the fans all at once.

    Shawn Colvin‘s 1989 debut Steady On garnered her a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and deservedly so: the combination of Colvin’s polished, slightly southern-twanged voice and co-writer and producer John Leventhal’s lush sound made for seminal work of modern folk, irresistible to those of us looking for the next Suzanne Vega. But Colvin’s sophomore Fat City was less well received — as with so many musicians who spend decades honing that first pressing, the gems were fewer for the second go-round. How to broaden and recover that fresh-faced folk appeal?

    Enter Cover Girl, a 1994 album which primarily took covers from Colvin’s live recordings (a staple of the on-the-road folksinger) and added a few in-studio layers of bass and atmospheric noise. The end product required little studio time or rehearsal for Colvin; the strategy allowed her to remain in the public eye while she worked up her next album of original material, and it paid off in music and reputation, if not in actual sales.

    Though one or two Cover Girl tracks suffer from overproduction — including, sadly, her cover of The Police’s Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic — the hit-to-miss ratio here is high. Colvin’s simple guitar and little-girl voice breathe new life into a wide swath of material, from bluesman Chris Smither’s Killing the Blues to Band b-side Twilight. Here, we hear her bring backroads innocence to one of two Tom Waits cuts, and her wistful, melodic take on a Talking Heads synthpop classic:

    • Shawn Colvin, This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (orig. Talking Heads)
    • Shawn Colvin, Looking For The Heart of Saturday Night (orig. Tom Waits)

    Colvin appears not to sell her CDs direct from her website, so instead of directing you to buy today’s featured album via the artist, I’ll note that you can, and should, get Cover Girl for $7.69 at CDUniverse.

    Today’s bonus covertracks:

    • Colvin covers Simon and Garfunkel’s The Only Living Boy in New York (live)
    • folkcombo Salamander Crossing try Colvin’s Shotgun Down The Avalanche
    • Alison Krauss makes funky, fast bluegrass of Colvin’s I Don’t Know Why

    1,098 comments » | Alison Krauss, Cover Girl, Salamander Crossing, Shawn Colvin, Simon and Garfunkel, Talking Heads, Tom Waits