(Re)Covered, Vol. XXVI: New Covers of
The Band, Paul Simon, Bill Withers, Springsteen, Dylan, & more!
May 27th, 2012 — 08:27 pm
Our last (Re)Covered post at the end of April focused on new coverage from folk bands and singer-songwriter previously featured here on these pages, thus adding to our ongoing celebration of those who interpret song. But our mandate is bi-directional here at Cover Lay Down: the songbook is sacred, too, and our features just as often tout composition and canonical outlook. Today, then, we pay tribute to the songwriter, revisiting older Covered In Folk and Single Song Sunday features through select new additions to their respective sets.
Levon Helm’s passage earlier this year sparked a spike for an old Covered In Folk feature on The Band here on the blog, and a notable mention of two fave artist tributes – Mark Erelli’s homespun Ophelia and Denison Witmer’s rereleased stunner It Makes No Difference – here on the blog immediately thereafter. But we weren’t the only ones mourning through song: in the weeks since, several more projects and performances have emerged which sustain the posthumous legacy, showing that Helm’s influence may have been even greater than most gave him credit for. Among these, several stand out: irish folk experimentalist Lisa Hannigan’s set-list addition of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is sweet and adept, for example (and her Gotye cover, an unrelated bonus track, has a spare, sluggish beauty of its own). But most significant, at least in terms of scope, is Turnstyled Junkpiled’s Last Ramble For Levon, an 11-track “online video concert” featuring a host of LA-based countryfolk and coffeeshop cowboys.
The Coals: When I Paint My Masterpiece (orig. The Band)
Lisa Hannigan: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (orig. The Band)
BONUS TRACK: Lisa Hannigan: Somebody That I Used To Know (orig. Gotye)
It’s been quite a while since we featured Paul Simon’s songbook – not since July 4th, 2010, which featured a Single Song Sunday set of covers of American Tune, though arguably this delightful moment from last year counts. But the 25th anniversary of Graceland this month has sparked renewed interest in both the man and his music, and none shines so well as Louisiana acousti-cajun indie band Givers, whose recent Rolling Stone video version of That Was Your Mother kicks up its heels and stomps around with graceful impunity. Bonus points for this utterly haunting Fuel/Friends Chapel Session cover by Bryan John Appleby, which still slams me months after its release into the world.
- Givers: That Was Your Mother (orig. Paul Simon)
- Bryan John Appleby: Duncan (orig. Paul Simon)
(from Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #11: Bryan John Appleby, 2012)
Springsteen covers flood the market – see, for example, recent note of both Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem and Rose Cousins and Mark Erelli’s tributes to the man, not to mention top 2011 picks from Holly Figueroa O’Reilly and Marissa Nadler, a holy host of Springsteen covers that pepper through our singer-songwriter and thematic features, and a Springsteen compendium way back in 2009. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still room at the top. Brand new cases in point: Horse Feathers, whose delicate Used Cars arrived alongside a mid-May Tim Hardin cover, and Coyote Grace – a coed duo-led Americana-folk band I keep missing at the folk festivals – who drops a Springsteen cover among the originals on their highly recommended new album Now Take Flight; like the rest of the disc, it’s poignant and raw, with beautiful midrange harmonics that run like a shiver down the spine of their performance.
- Coyote Grace: I’m On Fire (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
(from Now Take Flight, 2011)
- Horse Fathers: Used Cars (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
(from Aquarium Drunkard Lagniappe Sessions, 2012)
We did a whole week of Dylan last year, and his songbook for multiple Single Song Sundays (You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Girl From The North Country). But given Dylan’s canonical stature, it’s inevitable that the floodgates would remain open here, too. Most recent finds include a stunning new take on Shelter From The Storm from mesmerizing, dreamy 2011 Cover Lay Down fave Joshua Hyslop, who releases his debut major-label full-length in July on Nettwerk, and a newly-found deep cut from Australian folkduo Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton, whose 5/4 duet graced last weekend’s Single Song Sunday feature on tradfolk tune Barbara Allen.
- Joshua Hyslop: Shelter From The Storm (orig. Bob Dylan)
(from Where The Mountain Meets The Valley, coming July, 2012)
- Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton: Boots of Spanish Leather (orig. Bob Dylan)
(from A Thousand Miles Or More, 2000)
Bill Withers covers, on the other hand, are decidedly not a dime a dozen, though we certainly found enough love for a full Covered In Folk: Bill Withers treatment way back in February of last year. But Opus Orange bursts onto the scene with a cool indie swooner that starts acoustic and builds from there; by the time it blossoms into a trance-inducing chillhouse, you won’t care whether it truly counts as folk. Check ‘em out for an even-more-frozen collaborative cover of Peter Gabriel’s Mercy Street and a grungy, greasy cover of Our Love Is Here To Stay featuring Eleni Mandell.
- Opus Orange: Ain’t No Sunshine (orig. Bill Withers)
(single; 2012)
We don’t often get a chance to come back to our New Artists, Old Songs posts through featured artist coverage. But among the sweet, rich, soundtrack-ready original folkpop tracks on Starry Eyed, a 7-song EP from previously unheard-of Boston-by-Nashville songwriter Annalise Emerick which has caused me so much joy in my morning commute the past month, is a solid, folk-rockin’ cover of I Came Around that calls back to the vibrancy we felt in our 2008 post introducing songwriter Amie Miriello. There’s shades of Rosie Thomas here, too, and Ingrid Michaelson, and Regina Spektor, and the boston indiefolker crowd – all good stuff – and so, as bonus and balance, we also add a track from way at the other end of Emerick’s stunning sense of breadth and mastery: a quiet, surprising coda that earns our utmost respect for breathing new life into Ben E. King’s Stand By Me, an oft-sung tune that had previously struck us as too saccharine to cover with any depth. Thank Annalise for proving us wrong by snagging the whole EP in download or hard copy.
- Annalise Emerick: I Came Around (orig. Amie Miriello)
- BONUS TRACK: Annalise Emerick: Stand By Me (orig. Ben E. King)
Finally, I just can’t help coming back to kindie duo Renee & Jeremy, whose Coldplay cover we shared just a few days ago, for a wayback machine call to a 2008 Supertramp feature. The pair’s newest album, an all-covers delight called A Little Love, has been a perfect companion to a week without Mama, helping bridge the gap between my tastes and theirs as the kids and I have struggled to function as a pitch-perfect father-daughter team. Buy it for the kids you know; stick around for their perfect uke-and-bells turn on Monkees classic Daydream Believer, a truly gentle acoustic kindie reggae take on REM’s Shiny Happy People, a Queen cover right out of some sweet indie-flick, the joyous sing-along below, and more childlike transformations of originals from the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Simon & Garfunkel, John Lennon, and Yael Naim. And their website has samples of every one.
- Renee & Jeremy: Give A Little Bit (orig. Supertramp)
(from A Little Love, 2012)