Category: Laura Cortese


More Tributes and Cover Compilations:
Shannon Whitworth and Barrett Smith, Reid Jamieson, The Big Bright & more!

November 10th, 2012 — 02:57 pm

Seems like only weeks since our four-part series on the coverlover’s bread and butter, the full tribute or covers album. But even before the usual spate of Xmas Coverfolk begins to tickle our fancy, the end of the year often brings delight in this category, and 2012 has been no exception, sending along a host of tight sets and sessions sure to warm the chilled heart of even the most jaded folkfan. Enjoy…

The most potent and poignant version of Paul Simon’s Duncan ever recorded; warm and well-crafted contemporary folk reconstructions of Leonard Cohen’s Bird On A Wire, James Taylor’s You Can Close Your Eyes, and Paul Seibel’s Louise; a distinctively dark and moody You Are My Sunshine – new collaborators Shannon Whitworth and Barrett Smith, who have toured together but recorded as solo artists up until now, are at the top of their games. And though overall their brand new all-covers album Bring it on Home runs a diverse gamut from true contemporary folk to indie electro-acoustic soul (album-opener Sam Cooke’s Bring It On Home To Me; Van Morrison’s I’ll Be Your Lover, Too) and soft-as-smoke blues club balladry (Tom Waits’ Green Grass; Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Corcovado; old standard Moonglow), its heart is made of stunning folk gems, making it an easy competitor for the year’s best coverfolk album and causing several major upheavals in my ongoing list of favorite song covers.

Masterful production and arrangement here provide us with the perfect combination of comfort and revelation, making for a perfect late-night long drive soundtrack; it’s easy to believe that the album found inspiration in “a late-night tour drive across what seemed like all of Canada”. Gentle trumpet, uke, fiddle, banjo and saxophone flourishes lend just the right layers to the songs, showcasing strong and deliberate vocals, crisp guitars and pianos, and arrangements without disrupting the smooth track-to-track flow. And the combination of voices here is heavenly, with Strong and Whitworth’s equally intimate, equally weary voices trading lead and harmony in true duo form.

Bring It On Home drops November 20, but as a lucky recipient of an advance copy, I’ve had it stuck on repeat in the car for over a month – even my ten year old, whose tastes run towards pre-teen pop, finds the lush harmonies and rich instrumentation worth asking for over and over. Our highest recommendation, then: check out two tracks here, and stay tuned for a Single Song Sunday coming up in the next few weeks featuring a third.



We’re huge fans of Vancouver singer-songwriter Reid Jamieson here at Cover Lay Down, and I’d like to think the feeling is mutual: thanks to direct outreach from the recipient in question, we were the first to feature Songs of 69, his 2011 all-covers birthday tribute to his wife and muse, and we’ve also found great joy in his 2012 renditions of both Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On and the Canadian National Anthem, both of which were directly forwarded to us for sharing.

As we’ve heard in all those recent projects, Jamieson’s smilingly bright, sweet and gentle tenor and light touch on both instrumentation and arrangement lend themselves especially well to lighter fare – which is to say that although his back catalog includes more high-energy electricity than much of his recent output (his 2007 tribute to the songs of Elvis Presley, for example, is a true-blue honky-tonk romp), much of Reido’s recent output has been tonally consistent, both beautiful and smooth, with layered harmonies that teeter on the edge of sentimentality without tipping into cloy.

But when this self-proclaimed crooner gets serious, the results are even more powerful. And so we’re especially pleased to report that on Songs For A Winter’s Night, a brand new selection of winter-themed songs released November 9, heartwarming renditions of Gordon Lightfoot’s title track, Gene MacLellan’s Snowbird, Willie Nelson’s Pretty Paper, 1984 Band Aid project Do They Know It’s Christmas?, and a trio of sweetly optimistic originals, among others, stand alongside a choice of several darker songs – most especially Tori Amos’ Winter, Steve Miller’s Winter Time, Bruce Cockburn’s The Coldest Night Of The Year, and Nick Lowe’s Freezing.

This combination of song choice and project premise makes Songs For A Winter’s Night an exceptional album from a long-time favorite: transformational, diverse, and consistent all at once. Reid’s prolific and generous heart rings through every track, making the album perfect romantic fare for the coming cold. Stream the whole thing on SoundCloud, and then head over to Reid’s site to buy physical or digital product and download an ever-growing compendium of beautiful coverage for the heart’s every season.

  • Reid Jamieson: Winter (orig. Tori Amos)



I’m generally wary about blogging and/or bragging about tracks and projects which are unavailable to you, the reader – after all, the whole point of our ongoing exploration is to share the work to support artists and their art. But here’s a pitch for artist support: back in 2011, as part of a Kickstarter crowdfunding effort to make her most recent album, Laura Cortese offered a collection of to-be-recorded covers to anyone willing to give at the $50 level; last week, Cortese finally finished the EP-length coverset in question and sent it along to the small, exclusive group of us who lent our support, and although technically it’s not designed to be available for public consumption, she granted me permission to share a song at a time, with the caveat that she probably won’t be recording any more covers for a while.

In order to balance the exclusivity of the reward with the opportunity to share, we’ll be eking these out over the next year or so; you’ll have to wait for Cortese’s haunting fiddletake on Emmylou Harris’ Boulder To Birmingham, an amazing version of The Beatles’ And Your Bird Can Sing recorded live with Session Americana, a sparse but electropunky mutation of Steve Earle’s I Ain’t Ever Satisfied, and a synth-and-fingersnap reinvention of Joni Mitchell’s California. But for now, here’s the first, with a promise of all of these eventually, and always more to come from our favorite fiddling singer-songwriter.

Previously on Cover Lay Down:



New covers project The Big Bright is still in the early stages, with just two official songs to their name; as such, it’s a bit of a stretch to consider them within a feature designed to showcase full albums and EPs of coverage. But the very premise that brings Ollabelle’s Glenn Patscha and Fiona McBain and “critically-acclaimed neo-noir singer/songwriter” Liz Tormes together is well within our mandate: The Big Bright was formed to pay tribute to 80s New Wave songs, and if the two songs they’ve released so far are any indication, their goal of finding the tender frailties hidden under the bombast of New Wave production is already well on its way to successful fruition.

The two tracks below, which currently represent the first and only official output from the trio, are unlabeled, underscoring the project’s novelty, but their transformation of INXS and Tears For Fears provide apt exemplars for both breadth and premise; as you’ll hear, this is true-blue indiefolk emocore – a bit of a surprise for those familiar with Ollabelle’s rootsy neotraditional output, but delightful all the same. Those in the NYC area will be pleased to hear that the band are in residence at The Rockwood every Monday for the month of November, offering three more chances to hear fuller sets from the trio; the rest of us will be eagerly awaiting more.

  • The Big Bright: Don’t Change (orig. INXS)

  • The Big Bright: Change (orig. Tears For Fears)



Finally, speaking of tribute albums: our search for second-generation artists willing to cover their fathers’ songs for our recently-announced charity “dream project” continues, with four nationally-recognized artists officially committed already. It’s way too early to name names, but suffice it to say that although I’m still hoping to hear from more of our 30 “dream team” members soon, I’m so excited about the generosity and talent of each and every one of these four incredible artists, it’s becoming quite difficult to keep the cat in the proverbial bag.

But by way of some not-so-subtle justification for saying so, allow me to note that a long discussion with a still-secret fifth potential contributor this week led to engineer, producer, house concert host, and studio-owner Neale Eckstein of Fox Run Studios, who has had a hand in enough cover videos to allow us to consider his body of work a series in and of itself.

Full disclosure mandates that I mention that Neale and I are already members of the mutual admiration club: he subscribes to this blog, and I’m a huge fan of his annual Falcon Ridge Folk Fest after-fest photo-and-music collages, which often show me dancing wildly at stageside, if you know where to look. But the work he’s done in presenting the below artists and their covers speaks for itself: each represents its artist exceptionally, while offering intimate and apt entry into their body of work. We’ll close out, then, with a trio of YouTube covers produced by Fox Run Studios, and note that BettySoo’s bluesy take on standard You Don’t Know Me, Cliff Eberhardt and James Lee Stanley’s Doors cover, a Prince cover from singer-songwriter KC Clifford, and more original and cover recordings from Antje Duvekot, Grace and Pierce Pettis, Bethel Steele, Cary Cooper, Matt Nakoa, Brother Sun, and others are available on the Fox Run YouTube page.


Emilia Ali: Edge of Seventeen (orig. Stevie Nicks)



Robin Batteau w/ Neale Eckstein: Heart Of The Matter (orig. Don Henley)



Ellis Paul: Crying (orig. Roy Orbison)





Before we compile our list of the year’s best tribute albums, cover compilations, and single tracks, Cover Lay Down wants to hear from YOU! Helping out is easy: just check out award criteria and categories for both Best Tribute Albums and Cover Collections of 2011 and our 2011 coverfolk mix of The Year’s Best Singles, use the sidebar to scour and sift through a year’s worth of archives, and leave a message in the comments below touting your favorite albums, EPs, and single tracks from 2012. And don’t forget to come back in a few weeks for news of new holiday compilations from Catie Curtis, The Sweetback Sisters, For Folk’s Sake, and more!

3 comments » | Compilations & Tribute Albums, Laura Cortese, Reid Jamieson

Local Folk Notes: New Coverage In The New England Scene
featuring Laura Cortese, Cliff Eberhardt, and a new YouTube covers project!

December 28th, 2011 — 11:50 am





Other than a short feature on local newgrass heroes Crooked Still back in September, it’s been a year or more since we returned to the local here on Cover Lay Down. But as previous features on Kristen Andreassen, Rose Polenzani, and various members of the Berklee College and New England Conservatory scenes have demonstrated, Greater Boston remains a hotbed of folk hybridism, thanks to ongoing cross-pollination among a still-growing set of artists living and attending school in and around the area.

Berklee still continues to crank out great acts through their bluegrass, roots, and folk programs, of course – most recently, we’ve been watching the emergence of Chasing Blue, a young bluegrass/Americana group whose promising May 2012 kickstarter-driven debut is still open for microfinancing. Local festivals still bring out the best of the region; local clubs from Passim to the Iron Horse continue to feature the best in local talent of several generations, furthering the spread. And the Lizard Lounge’s Sub Rosa series, aka “the secret society of Rose Polenzani with friends and strangers”, in which a dozen or more rotating local-and-beyond singer-songwriters serve as session players for each others’ songs, remains a central component of these singer-songwriter’s co-evolutionary paths, with each month’s roster a vertiable who’s who of emergence and interconnection.

But of the players in this fluid powerhouse of collaboration, several newer developments have also emerged in 2011, lending heft and bringing further honor to the traditional and singer-songwriter folk development in the region.

Of these, none has stood out more in the past year than the combined works of Laura Cortese, fiddler, singer-songwriter, co-organizer of the Boston Celtic Music Fest (which will take place next weekend in and around Harvard Square), and founder and editor-in-chief of Folkmopolitan, a hilariously snarky, tongue-in-cheek gossip blog on all things style and sex behind-the-scenes in the world of folk music, not unlike a Seventeen magazine for the hardcore folk set. But further moves, including a new peer-coverage YouTube-based blog series, are also part and parcel of the scene, and they, too, deserve our recognition and rally. So, too, do new cover albums from long-time players and stalwarts of the scene, lest we forget that the richness of a region spreads wide through its various traditions and communities.

Today, then, as a nod to that local scene whose success supports our hearts and souls throughout, and as a kickoff to a new year of ethno-musical pursuit, we introduce you to these new developments in our own nearly-home base – the better to build upon as we enter our fifth full calendar year of artistic exploration here at Cover Lay Down.

When Boston-based Laura Cortese started a midsummer Kickstarter campaign to begin raising money to produce, compile and release a series of tracks recorded in the past two years with a number of well-known peers from the Boston-area scene – among them Aoife O’Donovan, Sam Amidon, Jefferson Hamer, and a host more of artists who we have followed closely and touted often here on our pages – she described it as a project under her own name. And knowing that Cortese’s career and craft lead her towards both the traditional and the experimental, I couldn’t help but throw in a few bucks to help make it happen.

Since then the collaborative (with Cortese at the center, as bandleader and primary songwriter) has reconfigured itself as The Poison Oaks, finishing off their first album and a few extras, releasing a teaser or three via their website, and beginning to tour as a band. And though Pine (the album in question) hasn’t technically been released yet, the sum total of this work is stunning, pushing the boundaries of American folk into the realm of folk rock and indiepop, grounded in the lush, joyous, gleeful sound of the collaborative at work and play, and built around Cortese’s full-bodied, percussive, lusty fiddlework, her hearty yet oh-so-feminine vocals, and her playful, surprisingly deep songwriting.

You’ve heard two of these tracks in the past weeks, in fact. Despite its unofficial release via Laura herself as an exclusive thank-you for Kickstarter support, and despite the fact that it seems to have been recorded in-studio in 2009, with Laura’s permission, I included The Poison Oaks’ Magnetic Fields cover in our “best of 2011″ singles set, where it truly belongs. And thanks to a last-minute streaming-only web release on the cusp of Christmas, their take on Merle Haggard’s If We Make It Through December found top billing in our last-minute holiday set posted Christmas Eve, which we hope you were able to use as a soundtrack to your last-minute celebrations.

But equally exciting is the various collaborations which Cortese took on under her own name during the two year window in which she was recording and planning the debut of what would become The Poison Oaks. And since my Kickstarter support netted me the full set of Laura’s recent projects – a collection that’s quite literally filled the CD changer – I’m passing on the joy to you, with a track per album/EP, and our highest recommendations for any and all of these.

Among them you’ll find chamberfolk (The Acoustic Project, with sisters Natalie and Brittany Haas and Hanneke Cassel on fiddles and cello), duo singer-songwriter stuff (2010 release One Mic, Two Amps, a collaboration with Jefferson Hamer), “vocals project” femmefolk (Simple Heart, which features many voices we know and love from the local scene), and the hybrid indierock of Poison Oaks itself, whose debut album Pine is a full-blown delight. Any of them are worth the find – so pick and choose among them based on your genre preferences, or order the whole set direct from Cortese’s website.



Here on the other end of the state, there’s also news for rejoicing: one-time Fast Folk growler and elder statesman Cliff Eberhardt recently teamed up with iconoclastic Philly-bred singer-songwriter James Lee Stanley to release an entire album of acoustic Doors covers and reinventions called All Wood and Doors – a follow-up of sorts to Stanley’s 2005 Stones tribute All Wood and Stones, created at the urging of founding Doors drummer John Densmore – and though it arrived at our doorstep just a hair too late to consider it in our year’s end “best of 2011″ lists, the result is certainly award-worthy, featuring slow, bluesy pick-driven takes on a canon often thought of as nearly uncoverable.

There’s some notable sidemen here, including ex-Monkee Peter Tork and Paul McCartney guitarist Lawrence Juber, but the album primarily revolves around Eberhardt’s torn lead vocals, Stanley and Eberhardt’s light walking-blues picking styles, fluid contemporary production dynamics which echo Richie Havens’ most beloved albums, and rich, layered 70′s-era folk rock harmonies reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash or Buffalo Springfield. And the local connection? Eberhardt may have made his name in the 80′s-era New York City folk scene, but residency matters: he’s currently based out of Williamsburg, MA, just a hop and a jump from our mid-Massachusetts home, and does regular shows in the area when he’s not on tour. Pick up All Wood and Doors direct from the project website, or download the entire album from Amazon.com for only $4.99.



More globally/regionally speaking, we’ve had our eyes closely glued to Cover Your Friends, an amazing concept created and implemented by percussive Maine folksinger and guitar-slinger Connor Garvey. The premise: singer-songwriters learn and then record themselves covering their peers via YouTube, on a site which, linguistically-speaking, at least, seems targeted towards those singer-songwriters…but which remains public, so we can watch them share the joy amongst themselves.

The videos range from the playful to the intimate, with a broad variety of interpretation, and each serves as apt introduction and tribute to both performer and songwriter, promising an ongoing fount of new coverfolk to expand our horizons as the project continues. The site, which necessarily runs broader than our New England focus would imply, nonetheless features many locals among its mix; two rounds of coverage have been published and collected so far, from the likes of Carrie Elkin, Anna Vogelzang, Ethan Scott Baird (of Pesky J. Nixon), and Garvey himself. The future seems bright, indeed.


Carrie Elkin: Along The Way (orig. Robby Hecht)





Justin Roth: Real Love Song (orig. Amy Speace)



What’s on the horizon for 2012 in our region? Plenty. Boston-based folk foursome Pesky J. Nixon, who recently were announced as the hands-down winners of the 2011 Falcon Ridge Folk Emerging Artists Showcase, have recorded and are expected to drop Red Ducks, a covers album, in February. Local label Signature Sounds, who brought us both Boston-based singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst’s Cars tribute and a rock and roll tribute EP from Amherst, MA transplant Chris Smither in 2011, has several projects in the works, too, and they’ve yet to disappoint us. And here in rural Monson, we’re just starting to reach out to artists for a Spring 2012 House Concert Series that’s sure to impress.

So stay tuned throughout the year for more folk coverage from near and far. And if you, too, want to help us continue to bring you the best in coverfolk on our regular twice-weekly basis, won’t you please consider a charitable donation to Cover Lay Down? All proceeds go directly to bandwidth costs on one of the largest ad-free music blogs in the blogosphere; all donors will receive our exclusive LP-length 2011 Xmas covers mix, and that warm fuzzy feeling.

1 comment » | Cliff Eberhardt, Laura Cortese, The Boston Folkscene

Goodbye Bill Monroe, Hello Blondie: Kristin Andreassen and the new tradfolk revival

August 3rd, 2008 — 09:47 am

When a knowledgeable folkfriend suggested I interview singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and percussive dancer Kristin Andreassen at Grey Fox Bluegrass Fest this year, I jumped at the chance. Kristin’s background as a folk dancer and her varied work in organic musical collaborative Sometymes Why, an impromptu trio formed with Aoife O’Donovan (Crooked Still) and Ruth Ungar Merenda (The Mammals) in a parking lot a few years ago, seemed promising; I like her solo work a lot, and I’d already fallen in love with her work through the old-timey fiddle music of neo-bluegrass girl group Uncle Earl at previous visits to Grey Fox.

But when my introduction to Kristin backstage after her first set of the day is delayed by two little girls, who appear out of nowhere, square off for a schoolyard patty-cake, and proceed to perform Kristin’s entire award-winning composition Crayola Doesn’t Make A Color For Your Eyes right in front of us, I know I’m on to something big. It’s a great thing when your fellow struggling singer-songwriters pluck your songs out of the collaborative and put them on their own records, and I’m eager to talk to Kristin about how that happens, and how it feels. But when ordinary people – a pair of adorable children, entire special education classrooms, 200-member community choruses from New Hampshire – want to sing your songs in public, then you’re talking about the very core of what it means to be folk music: of the people, for the people, and by the people.

I’ve gone long today, folks, and I make no apologies: both Kristin herself, and the new school of folk which she represents, are something special, and they’re worth addressing carefully. For those interested in good folk source material, I’ve included my partial field recording of those kids in the usual batch of coversong at the tail of today’s entry; it’s cute, and worth the moment. Read on for the good stuff.

By the time I catch up with her late Friday afternoon at the back of the Dance Tent, it’s six o’clock, and Kristin Andreassen has been on stage for a cumulative total of almost five hours straight since her midday appearance in the songwriter’s workshop. We share a laugh at the thought of our earlier encounter, and talk covers for a while — how it feels to be covered by others, and what process brings that about — before turning more generally to first traditional music, and then the state of bluegrass, two generations after Bill Monroe invented the genre. Though she’s surely exhausted, Kristin seems happy to chat; she turns out to be even more thoughtful and charming in person, and she’s got a lot to say.

Kristin’s solo work isn’t bluegrass; her entry to Grey Fox is via Uncle Earl, which plays a form of old-timey yet singer-songwritery fiddlefolk that is often cited alongside the work of Crooked Still, The Mammals, the Duhks, and the Infamous Stringdusters as part of a new wave of young “neo-bluegrass” bands and musicians pushing the boundaries of bluegrass and other folk genres. But the welcome reception Kristin herself receives at this festival, both as a songwriter and a performer, speaks to the crossover appeal of a small group of musicians, in these bands and others, who find themselves playing music which feels consistently authentic to themselves, but which — because of a particular openness to influence from other forms of music, and a focus on collaborative, earnest, and generally be-stringed musicianship — is fluid enough to sound “right” at multiple venues, from singer-songwriter coffeehouses to bluegrass festivals, from Bonnaroo to irish pubs.

Of course, boundary-pushing diversity is nothing new in modern folk. There are many corners and stages on which one can hear folk-influenced music which is new and familiar and anything but derivative all at once. As this year’s hotly debated post-folk lineups at such classically “folk” festivals as Newport suggests, such fluidity has already permeated the folkworld, threatening to make moot the very nature of folk as a recognizable pop culture phenomenon by blurring it with an already commodified indie and alternative culture and credibility.

From the outside, then, the vast shift in musical modality which exists between, say, the solo output of a Ruth Ungar or Kristin herself and their work in their respective bands and small groups can sound like a major shift in sensibility, an illustration of the vast gap that exists between “traditional” and singer-songwriter folk. What’s different here is that Kristin, who has only recently started thinking of herself as a songwriter, sees this work as all part of the same process, rather than a set of discrete “projects”.

And having a group of musicians collected around each other, committed to openness to both the roots of american music, as well as an ear to what the community is producing, is what makes a folk movement. Consider the touring and mutual admiration society that was the Greenwich Village folk troubadors of the fifities and sixties, the upstate New York Mud Acres collaboratives of the seventies, the fast folk community of the eighties, as folk’s most obvious examples.

In Kristin’s case, a loose set of peers, including her fellow Uncle Earl g’earls, members of Crooked Still, post-Mammals members Ruth and Michael Merenda, fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger, singer-songwriter Laura Cortese, and Sam Amidon — all indie artists with strong roots in traditional folk but training in and generational familiarity with a variety of musical forms from classical to pop to, well, clogging — seem to be forging their new ground together. And though their output is often vastly different in terms of sound, the common sensibility of pushing the boundaries of traditional folk music, and the friendships that create community around this urge, feed back into the constant evolution of an increasingly identifiable neo-trad folk sound.

This is not to say that this is necessarily unique, in folk at large: there are certainly many, many other pocket collaboratives out there, both musically and in stylistic terms — see the Naturalismo/Freak Folk “family”, for example, or the new old-timey americana of the Be Good Tanyas and Po’ Girl. But today, it is clear that something exciting is happening right here, among Kristin and her friends. It goes deep into the roots of folk, and seems to be about as inclusive and organic as it can be.

And though today it’s coming from Bluegrass, or at least from a field of it, more than anything, in the moment, this particular loosely-affiliated group of musicians comes across like the missing link between traditional and modern folk music — young, vibrant, and ready to collapse the distance singlehandedly.

And of these performers, though Crooked Still and the Infamous Stringdusters have more buzz, and Sam Amidon more blog cred, Kristin Andreassen’s work, both a solo performer and as a contributing member of two organically formed groups, the Bluegrass quartet Uncle Earl and the experimental neo-trad trio Sometymes Why, is among the more flexible — and thus one of the most central — of this small but growing scene.

Her melodies are sparse and fluid, old-timey and modern all at once, with their full set of diverse influences right up front. Her subjects are universal, and treated in plain language which exposes the poetry of everyday life while poking at commonly recognized cultural phenomena and their effect on us, from cell phone realities to Crayola’s commodification of color. Her background in folk dance forms gives her a sense of rhythm which long pre-dates Bluegrass itself, resulting in sweet, singable song which calls back instead to the earliest folk sound of Ella Jenkins and others. Her songwriting, and her performance — which can include vocal work, string playing, handclaps, and cheerful percussive clogging — share a refreshing innocence and honesty; one of her songs has been misidentified as a traditional field holler by no less an authority than the NY Times. It’s no wonder that Kristin’s music, like Jenkins’, appeals so deeply to the very young, and the young at heart.

The organic, fluid relationship between community ownership, songsharing and creation, and musical performance that Kristin both describes and personifies is not new to folk, of course. It was highly visible in the Fast Folk movement, and in the Seeger collaborative which drove so much traditional and labor folk movement as the singer-songwriter set were emerging from the troubador tradition in the sixties. It exists in the collaboratives of older musicians who still work the circuit, like the crowd which surrounds Gordon Bok, Cindy Kallet, and other members of the New England oldsongs generation, for example.

What is new is who is playing, and where, and what that community seems to take for granted. As Kristin and I discussed, until very recently, bluegrass was still about Bill Monroe — first in imitation, and then, as a second generation grew up steeped in bluegrass as a form of music, in reaction, forming newgrass, country-grass, and other forms. Certainly, some folks who made their name in traditional folk music, such as Grisman and Doc Watson, could not help but bring folk sensibilities to this process. But even as Kristin notes that, at least in its pure form, “all of bluegrass is one big coversong, because everyone learns from the same Bill Monroe records”, Kristin’s is the first generation for which bluegrass is simply part of the water, taken for granted, like older folk forms have been for more mainstream folk music since the American folk form was redefined in the sixties.

As such, when I point out that many younger artists in her part of the bluegrass world — like Uncle Earl, for example — play primarily a mix of their own compositions and older, more traditional folk music, rather than Bill Monroe tunes, Kristin is able to place herself and her peers in a different school altogether:

It’s really true that the younger bands are putting a little bit more of an emphasis on new material, and…morphing out into the pop influences that are all there for all of us…so I feel like all of us are developing a sound that’s not purely one thing. There were a few generations before us that were defining the territory of bluegrass, but I’m not sure there’s anybody that’s doing that right now. Now we’re experimenting with the borders of bluegrass.

From a traditional bluegrass perspective, then, Kristin’s work is eccentric and experimental: clogging and old-timey, instead of core or countrified, but at least categorizable, if not mainstream. But from a folk perspective, Kristin’s success in what previously were considered different modes of folk output — singer-songwriter solo work, her bluegrass work with Uncle Earl, her old-timey trio work with Ruth and Aoife, the increased coverage of her songs as both standard singer-songwriter fodder and as children’s song and choral music, even her continued self-identification as a folk dancer — seems cohesive and consistent; part of a trend, perhaps even a revival.

Moreover, having this conversation here at Grey Fox, while the Infamous Stringdusters begin to play their original compositions on stage behind us, says everything it needs to about bluegrass’ emergence, finally, as a full form of and locus for folk music, coming back to the fold after two generations of refinement, ripe for the picking, and looking for new ways to spin song.

It’s no wonder, then, that bluegrass has recently begun to resonate deeply with those — including Craig of Songs:Illinois, Kat of Keep the Coffee Coming, and myself — who have long aligned themselves with folk music. For this may just be where bluegrass, both as a whole form and as a series of musical elements, truly becomes a “folk” music, of and from an entire culture — in the water and air, as it were, as part of the landscape of American sound. If so, it makes perfect sense to find original and innovative songwriters like Kristin Andreassen here, writing not just lyrics and melodies, but crafting new sounds out of American culture, and their hearts and souls, wherever they find them. And if that’s not folk, what is?

Previous features on Sam Amidon, Infamous Stringdusters, Crooked Still, and Ruth Ungar Merenda are still live; for more about the members of this new movement in trad/blue/folk/grass, it’s worth going back to those entries for a refresher. But Kristen’s songwriting is something special, and her voice is sweet and earnest and happy and lovely to listen to, in conversation and on the record. I’ve made sure to include her own voice in the bonus section below, so you, too, can fall in love with her singer-songwriter side, and you should absolutely head over to myspace to listen to Kristin’s catchy version of Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color For Your Eyes, and then over to her her website to purchase her solo 2006 release Kiss Me Hello. But first, here’s a few sweet covers of Kristin’s songs, “written for the party”, as Kristin tells it, and in good hands.

  • Lissa Schneckenburger: Like The Snow
    (from Different Game)

  • Laura Cortese: Even the Lost Creek
    (from Even the Lost Creek)
  • Uncle Earl: Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color For Your Eyes
    (live, Northwest String Summit, Aug. 25, 2007)
  • Two Little Girls at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival: Crayola Doesn’t Make A Color For Your Eyes (partial)
    (field recording, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, July 18, 2008)

In our post-interview discussion, Kristin mentioned that she’s always wanted to cover Blondie’s Heart of Glass; I think it’s an excellent choice for her, and hope to hear it someday. While we wait, here’s a short set of bonus coversongs featuring Kristin as performer: her sole recorded solo cover, and a few cuts from Uncle Earl, including a great if slightly fuzzy live version of Police obscurity Canary in a Coalmine which has been roaming the blogosphere for a while now, originally prepped, says Kristin, as a sort of joke just in case they met Sting in the green room at Bonnaroo last year. Plus fellow new-school member and fellow fiddler Laura Cortese with a cover of Just Like Heaven — an oft-covered song done exceptionally well, eminently resonant of this same school of earnest, honest string-based music, planted in the roots of folk, reaching towards the future.

  • Kristin Andreassen: Dancin’ In My Sleep (orig. Bob Lucas)
    (from Kiss Me Hello)

  • Uncle Earl: Little Annie (trad.)
    (from Raise A Ruckus)
  • Uncle Earl: John Brown’s Dream (trad.)
    (live, Northwest String Summit, Aug. 25, 2007)
  • Uncle Earl: Canary in a Coalmine (orig. The Police)
    (live; unknown source)
  • Laura Cortese: Just Like Heaven (orig. The Cure)
    (from Live Club Passim CD Release)

557 comments » | Kristin Andreassen, Laura Cortese, Lissa Schneckenburger, Uncle Earl