Cover Lay Down

We’re just back from Spring Break in and around Los Angeles, where the weather was fine, indeed, after months of cold rain and thaw in our chosen home New England. When we left the garden was just buds bulging on the tips of the first green stems; California, by contrast, was in full bloom, thanks to an unusually rainy winter, and we were grateful, indeed, to find the world sunny and hot in the late mornings and afternoons, and just cool enough in the evening to keep from shivering in our shirtsleeves.

My students think LA is exotic; I thought I knew better, having been several times in the past couple of decades, both times as the first stop in a meandering drive up the coast towards San Francisco and Oregon. But this time around, we came to settle in, with an Air B&B house in the canyons, on a suburban settlement down the street from my father’s first cousin, and I think we did it right by avoiding the city. Exquisite lunches on the beach and the Malibu pier; venison steak up in the hills at an authentic 150 year old stage coach stop surrounded by bikers and the warm amplified sounds of an amateur cover artist; mornings at the zoos, the Aquarium of the Pacific, the sprawling gardens of Pasadena; lunch on the beaches and piers, and a shot at the steampunk thrift shops in Ventura; Harry Potter World on a Tuesday, and a final Friday afternoon hot and high in the desert hills at the Wolf Connections sanctuary, surrounded by the scrub of an alien landscape.

At home, the mailbag bulges with promise and the hint of summer releases. Tomorrow, the workweek begins anew, with the usual stresses and strain of the impending summer; lesson plans and grading have taken me to this afternoon, providing but little respite to write here. But here on the porch in the afternoon sun, the daffodils blooming at my feet, it’s hard not to want to just soak in the sunshine, with a bank of light coverfolk as the soundtrack to our last remaining hours.

And so we return to our Vacation Coverfolk series on the eve of the ever-intruding real world with a last gasp at Los Angeles through the songs of cross-continental coverage: a whole universe of folk artists taking on a chronology of songs penned and originally performed by bands and artists born, bred, or discovered in and around the city of angels. May they bring Spring softly, planting the surf, the sand, the hills, and the boulevards in the rich new soil of your own sunshine dreams.

L.A. Coverfolk: A Cover Lay Down Mix [zip!]

• Michele Ryan: Our House (orig. CSN&Y) [2015]

• la folkeuse: Happy Together (orig. The Turtles) [2013]

• Laura Cortese: Take It Easy (orig. Jackson Browne / The Eagles) [2012]

• James Lee Stanley & Cliff Eberhardt: Love Me Two Times (orig. The Doors) [2011]

• Martin Sexton: Will It Go Round In Circles (orig. Billy Preston) [2007]

• Jasmine Thompson: Sweet Child O’ Mine (orig. Guns & Roses) [2014]

• Jastrid: Home (orig. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes) [2014]

• The Side Project: Island In The Sun (orig. Weezer) [2012]

• Aaron Rizzo: All Your Favorite Bands (orig. Dawes) [2016]

• Eef Barzelay: Jane Says (orig. Jane’s Addiction) [2014]

• Tony Henry: She Will Be Loved (orig. Maroon 5) [2008]

• Owl & Penny: Canela (orig. Devendra Banhart) [2014]

• Blue Dogs: Sailin’ Shoes (orig. Little Feat) [1993]

• Of The North: Happy Together (orig. The Turtles) [2013]

• Gil Hockman: What I Got (orig. Sublime) [2011]

When Chuck Berry passed last Saturday at 90, the airwaves swelled with gratitude and stories of the man who brought us the duck walk and My Ding-A Ling, did gigs as a beautician and a stint as a reform school kid on the way up, and built the genre from the freestyle of the blues, the whine of the country guitar, the simple call-and-refrain verse-chorus-verse of the folksong, the beat of a rhythm and blues nation, and the definitive string-led combo.

Finding a plethora of coverage of Berry’s canon seemed inevitable: many of the long-standing artist and performer’s greatest hits were also hits for other seminal rock and rollers, both peers and inheritors, from Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis to The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, and The Beatles, whose classic versions of Roll Over Beethoven and Memphis helped put them on the map in the first place. Indeed, arguably, Berry’s songs are so well covered, many of them have become truly folk, part and parcel of the vast spectrum that is the modern western songbook; it says what it needs to that Johnny B. Goode is the only rock and roll song on the Voyager spacecraft, where one day, it may well establish the Earth as a cultured rest stop for the alien mind, a truly exciting and excitable space among the heavens.

Anyone truly deserving of the name “architect of rock and roll” has enough influence to cross genre lines, too. And sure enough, Berry’s songs have found their way from punk to country, where their easily translatable lyrics and eminently playable beats bring comfort to new audiences exploring the sounds of the soul. Though many of Chuck Berry’s songs are so seminal, their transformations are hard to search for, our dip into the vast realm of folk and roots coverage here today reveals a broad influence, heavy on the real and rustic but unusually diverse in subgenre, from sultry country swing to fieldhouse rhythm and blues to contemporary fingerpickin’ folk rock, with stops in everyspace from jug band blues to crackling Cajun along the way. Guess it just proves that rock and roll will never die – at least, not so long as it continues to infiltrate the sense and sensibility of the multifaceted folkways.

• The Philadelphia Jug Band: Sweet Little 16

• Cajun Roosters: Brown Eyed Handsome Man
• Jon Wilcox: Brown Eyed Handsome Man

• Trey Johnson: Let It Rock

• Kyle Thompson-Westra: My Ding-a-ling

• Lorenzo Menzerschmidt: Johnny B. Goode
• Mike Stevens & Raymond McLain: Johnny B. Goode

• Mississippi Chris Sharp: Nadine

• James Taylor: The Promised Land

• Harvey Reid: Maybellene
• Pat Donohue: Maybellene

• Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions: Memphis, Tennessee

Always ad-free and artist-friendly, Cover Lay Down is fast approaching its 10th anniversary on the web thanks to the music-makers, the promoters, and YOU. Want to help keep CLD alive and streaming? Donate here and receive a very special mix of our favorite unblogged and exclusive coverage from 2015-2016!

Vermont-slash-Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell was a fast-rising star upon her 2002 arrival to the scene, with out of the gate recognition from Kerrville’s New Folk competition and early adoption onto Ani Difranco’s record label, Righteous Babe, thanks to a strong debut recorded in a single afternoon and a distinctive knack for prescient hooks and heavy subjects couched in sweepingly intimate production and a distinctively, deceptively innocent yet complex and carefully honed voice. These days, her name-recognition runs high inside the broad boundaries of folk, and her talent is in high demand, as demonstrated by tours with Bon Iver, Josh Ritter, Punch Brothers and The Low Anthem, collaborations with Jefferson Harmer and Rachel Ries, and kudos from Pitchfork, NPR, The New York Times, and more.

If fame outside the folkworld or prodigious output were a measure of success, she would remain insulated. But although it has been three years since her last release, and five since her last of all new original work, there is something essential about Anais Mitchell right now. Just a half dozen studio albums into her career, Mitchell has become a true mover and shaker in the folkworld, cited by peers and press as central to the definitive depth and honesty that typifies the nucleus of the current folk generation.

A powerhouse out on the bleeding edge, her collaborative work, including our previously-featured exploration of the Child Ballads with Jefferson Harmer, which won a BBC Radio Two Folk Award for Best Traditional Track, is sharp. Her output – including the epic, introspective 2012 release Young Man In America, and folk opera Hadestown, which brought folk heavyweights Greg Brown, Justin Vernon, The Haden Triplets, and Difranco together to voice the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and has since been both toured with a rotating cast and turned into a New York stageshow due to return for the 2017-2018 season – reveals an artist exploring the potential of folk to speak deeply and cohesively about the world on a scale heretofore unattempted, illuminating the world of the political and the personal into sharp relief.

The proof, of course, is in the coverage, both in its richness and in its very fact. Note notables such as Billy Bragg and Bon Iver in the mix below, taking on the Anais songbook in homage and early tribute to a truly worthy songwriter and craftsperson. Take note, as well, of the flexibility of song here, as the lo-fi acoustic and the rich mix rebuilt, the balladeer and the barroom singer, the mellow and the mean, the jamband and the celtic take their turns on the canon, and come up roses.

Listen as others come to echo the echoes – revealing a set rich in Bandcamp discoveries, and diverse in tone and tenor, as befits the deep, versatile songbook that Mitchell offers forth. Pick and choose, or download them as a single set. And then, as always, click through to go back to the source – to celebrate, as it were, the artists who continue to circle around song, and around the whole of us, from Anais Mitchell herself to those who would braid their gifts with hers, to the betterment of us all.

• Billy Bragg: Why We Build The Wall (2015)
• Carey Farrell: Why We Build The Wall (2015)

An apt introduction from folk and social justice icon Billy Bragg, whose respect for Mitchell and for the power of political song frames a transcendent performance of a song originally performed by Greg Brown as the modernized king of the underworld. Put it against the bold potency of Chi-town amateur Carey Farrell, whose slowly deepening production slowly drowns us in despair, for a hell of an opening set.

• Nicole Goode: Wilderland (2014)

Toronto-based filmmaker and soundtrack soundscape creator Nicole Goode records tense, echoey, glitchy cover goodness, nominally with her morning coffee. And it is mesmerizing, rough and raw and bottomless.

• Robin’s Egg Blue: Epic, Pt. 1 (2015)

New York-based “folk rock Japanese band” Robin’s Egg Blue‘s sudden turn into newgrass jamband territory turns a transitional Hadestown track into a resting point reminiscent of the psychedelic Steeleye Span era, lingering in the river of madness until it seems like the struggle will never end. Epic, indeed.

• The Night Owls: The Wedding Song (2016)

The stand-out track from a late December covers release from Jess & Alek Deva, aka The Night Owls, “a married couple living and working in beautiful White River Junction, VT.”

• Paola Bennet: If It’s True (2016)

Soft tender balladry from “Boston native and New York transplant” Paola Bennet, found on a well-populated Soundcloud page that offers more from the amateur delight.

• Emma Carroll: Wait For Me (2012)

A dreamy, echolayered take on Wait For Me, a tiny fragment from the magnum opus that is Hadestown. From Irish amateur Emma Carroll, an enigma otherwise.

• Justin Paul Ortiz: Shepherd (2014)

A straightforward plainsong approach to a personal favorite from Soundcloud amateur Justin Paul Ortiz. Don’t underestimate this one: the lack of adornment lays the song bare, revealing strong bones at the core.

• Travis Knapp: Orion (2016)

A simple, elegant popfolk setting from prolific Ithaca, NY singer-songwriter, activist, and mindfulness practitioner Travis Knapp‘s 9th annual covers collection evokes grand pianos and candelabras as it pays homage to the tender, confessional side of Mitchell’s early canon.

• Sophia Stewart: Tailor (2016)
• Sophia Stewart: Cosmic American (2016)

Two Anais Mitchell covers from the stark solo Saturday morning cover recordings of Soundcloud amateur Sophia Stewart, a nuanced vocalist and solo stringstrummer well worth visiting for more.

• Harvey Reid & Joyce Andersen: Song of the Magi (2005)

A slightly countrified, well-produced lullaby version of Mitchell’s transposition of two West Bank refugees: one to be Jesus, the other a forgotten Palestinian. Joyce Andersen‘s hearty, heart-filled voice makes for a perfect pairing alongside Harvey Reid’s subtle pick and slide.

• Parsley: O My Star (2014)

Cambridge, MA duo Parsley‘s forefront harmonies lend a dustbowl honesty to this wistful, wild cut, originally penned and performed by Rachel Ries and Anais Mitchell on their duo EP Country.

• Kira & Garris: Old Fashioned Hat (2015)

South Carolina ex-pat Garris, now living in China and preparing for a stint as a yoga teacher in India, partners with friend Kira for a four-track EP featuring a solid Tom Waits cover and this subtle slackstring soft-track, gentle, wistful, and aware of its unrefined honesty.

• The Last Clarissa: Young Man In America (2013)

If there is such a thing as perfect lo-fi experimental anti-folk in the modern marketplace, it is embedded in The Last Clarissa’s hollow covers and recordings, each one rushed and anxious, resonant as a silo sing, and honest as the night.

• Bryan McFarland: Your Fonder Heart (2015)

Broken, flickering life from Bryan McFarland, another amateur hard to uncover. No matter: the song speaks for itself, with low recorder and layers of lush guitar pulsing around grungy octave harmonies for a dirge-like dark despair.

• Bon Iver: Coming Down (2015)
• Cricket Blue: Coming Down (2017)

Justin Vernon at his most tender and fragile, with gentle guitar and piano in low, tinkly parallel; Vermont bluegrass duo Cricket Blue at their tightest in sorrow, singing the fear of Icarus towards the sky and sun. And so we end as we began: vulnerable to the world, and the variances and vagrancies of song and lyric in tension: the crash impending, the loss palpable, the hope everlasting.

Artist-centric and ad-free since 2007, Cover Lay Down thrives throughout the year thanks to the makers, the mailers, and YOU. So if you can, consider a contribution to support Cover Lay Down – and receive undying praise, and an exclusive download code for a special gift set of favorite rare and exclusive covers from 2015 and 2016.

Because we are a folkblog first, the essential question of whether the performance of traditional song is an act of coverage is treated as trivial here at Cover Lay Down. Indeed, as alluded to in our 2013 feature on the Child Ballads, and in Single Song Sunday features on O Death, Wayfaring Stranger, Barbara Allen and The Water Is Wide, songs so old as to have lost their origin act as the prototype for our exploration of the depth and breadth of the folkways as they continue to stretch and evolve.

Someone has to have written these, of course; neither lyric nor melody springs from the cotton of whole cloth. Songs do shift as their culture grows around them, especially those originally carried by memory and not notation, but it strains the boundaries of reason to suppose that rhyming quatrains used to emerge from the air. But in the case of songs marked not standard but traditional, by definition, the mutation through versioning is so strong, the songs belong truly to the ages, to be identified by region rather than author. And this, in turn, makes of their reinvention an ideal opportunity to meet our mandate: to discover the performer through their interpretation of the familiar, and in embracing that comfort, to discover the new through the old.

There’s some wonderful tradfolk on rotation in our ears these days, from last year’s oops-we-missed-it super-collaborative Songs of Separation project, which brought together ten well-known female folk musicians from Scotland and England (with Karine Polwart, Eliza Carthy, and Hannah Read among them) for a tribute to their own ancient traditions, to Across The Waters, a newly-released full-length traditional album by Glastonbury’s Nathan Lewis Williams & Caelia Lunniss, and the upcoming sophomore album from Jayme Stone’s Folklife project, this time with a focus on the songs of the American sea islands and mountains.

Add in a recently-discovered Child ballad from UK storyteller and folk explorer Christine Cooper and her lovely 2011 5-track traditional EP, and an older live cut from Rachel Newton, whose most recent traditional album was celebrated in our Best Covers Albums of 2016, then cross the pond again for a cut or two from the American gospel hymnal from Americana icons The Stray Birds and an upcoming debut EP from new Mexico City-based band Peregrino, much-beloved tracks from ‘ghost folk” fave Allysen Callery and fiddlefolk duo 10 String Symphony, a mystical rebuild of Scarborough Fair from Sacramento banjofolk minimalist Hannah Mayree, a hopping bluegrass number from Beehive Productions recorded live at the Caramoor American Roots Music Program in Katonah, NY, and a heavily-modified Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies from Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri‘s fine and intimate all-covers Valentine’s Duets series, recently rereleased for their well-stocked and easy-to-justify Patreon patronage project, and you’ve got a fine set indeed, with links to both artists and song origin, just for fun.

• Devon Sproule & Paul Curreri: The Weeping Willow
  (a modified version of Roud 451, 2004)

• Jayme Stone w/ Moira Smiley: Hey Lally Lally Lo
  (UK/Bahamas, via Lomax, 2017)

• Christine Cooper: The Cruel Mother
  (Child Ballad 20, 2011)

• Rachel Newton Trio: Mo Chubhrachan
  (Traditional Gaelic “faerie” song, 2014)

• The Stray Birds: Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor
  (American South, via WC Handy, 2017)

• 10 String Symphony: Black Eyed Susie
  (Appalachia via UK, 2015)

• Peregrino: O Death
  (American gospel spiritual, 2017)

• Hannah Mayree: Scarborough Fair
  (British ballad, 2017)

• Allysen Callery: Katie Cruel
  (Roud 1645, American via Karen Dalton, 2016)

• Songs of Separation: It Was A’ For Our Rightfu’ King
  (Scottish Robert Burns setting, 2016)
• Songs of Separation: Echo Mocks The Corncrake
  (Round 2736, Irish/Scottish, 2016)

• Nathan Lewis Williams: I Know You Rider
  (American Blues, 2017)

• Man About A Horse: Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms
  (American bluegrass traditional, 2017)

Looking for more? We’ve got two bonus tracks today, both nominally authored – the first a Bandcamp Frenchwoman’s amateur version of a popular Appalachian tune generally viewed as by Ola Belle Reed but also claimed as an original hymn by the Church of Latter Day Saints, the second a brand new live recording of a song y’all will surely recognize, originally of disputed authorship and first recorded towards the beginning of WWII – but both often attributed and treated as American standards. Check ‘em out, download the entire set, and then click through as always above and below to purchase the music, the better to support the continued effort of those who channel and celebrate the folkways in all their myriad forms.

• Lila Sylvestre: High On A Mountain (orig. Ola Belle Reed) (2016)

• Leftover Cuties: You Are My Sunshine (orig. The Pine Ridge Boys) (2017)

Our ongoing (Re)Covered series finds us touting new and newly uncovered releases from folk, roots, bluegrass and acoustic artists previously celebrated here on Cover Lay Down. Today, we delve into the mailbag with news and new coverage from raspy crooners Jeffrey Foucault and Peter Mulvey, sweet soul mama Carrie Elkin, a country rock-ified Stray Birds, whispery indiefolk pairing Matt Minigell and Annabelle Lord-Patey, and still-rising stringband Parsonsfield taking on Dylan, Paul Simon, Teenage Fanclub, the Episcopalian hymnal and more!




Peter Mulvey has been a mainstay of this blog since its birth, thanks to a fondness for coverage and a tendency to transform rather than merely channel the goods. But in the last several years, his commitment to the political reality that he shares with his fans has grown strong and evident in his practice – the man rides his bike cross-county on tour, and his protest song Take Down This Flag has been adopted, adapted, and added to by hundreds of performers.

New album Are You Listening?, produced by and on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe label and due to drop late in March, is a perfect exemplar of the man’s continued prowess as a chronicler of the raw and real. Preorder here, and while you wait for its release, check out Mulvey’s recent EP Lift Every Voice, a perfect, politically-relevant timepiece with the aforementioned anthem at the forefront, released free to all who promise to donate to the social justice cause of their choice.

• Peter Mulvey: Lift Every Voice (hymn) [2017]

I’ve been holding on to this for a while, and now I’m thrilled to share what well may be the best Paul Simon cover this decade will see: Carrie Elkin‘s haunting, resonant take on American Tune, which simply aches with the pain and hope of an America still yawing into the void. We last saw Elkin in our 2010 couples round-up; seven years later, she and Danny Schmidt have just become first-time parents. The song, a teaser from Elkin’s aching Kickstarter-driven solo album The Penny Collector, named after Elkin’s father, who recently passed, is expected to emerge on March 10, and it’s a stunning set; we’re sure you’ll want to donate now, and help the album come to full fruition as it deserves, on the strength of this little taste.

• Carrie Elkin: American Tune (orig. Paul Simon) [2017]

In a very real way, Boston-based singer-songwriter and busker Mary Lou Lord serves as a sort of muse to this blog; she’s recommended some wonderful music over the years since I first wrote about her in 2008. Last year, she played our house concert series, and brought along daughter Annabelle Lord-Patey as an opener, who revealed herself as an artist just finding her voice; now, paired with young singer-songwriter Matt Minigell, another Lord find who graced our 2015 Year’s Best mixtape, Annabelle seems to have come into her own, with a tender, rhythmic lo-fi take on Teenage Fanclub that doesn’t just bring me back to my own moody adolescence – it helps me celebrate and make my peace with it. Kudos to the next generation, and thanks, Mary Lou, for continuing to bring it forth into the world.

• Annabelle Lord-Patey and Matt Minigell: If I Never See You Again (orig. Teenage Fanclub) [2017]

Somewhere in the shuffle of the holiday season we missed an eleventh-hour Christmas three-fer from Parsonsfield (previously Poor Old Shine), recorded live in our hometown stomping grounds and sent as a free exclusive to all “inbox sessions” subscribers by the potent, barnburning old-timey-meets-The-Band fivesome from just down the road apiece, who we first fell in love with in the aisles of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. I’ve always thought a certain Joni Mitchell setting deserved year-round consideration; here’s the boys to prove River can last long past December.

• Parsonsfield: River (orig. Joni Mitchell) [2016]

We first took note of The Stray Birds when they were coming up on Falcon Ridge, too. Here’s the string-trio-and-then-some on this past year’s Decoration Day Sampler from Brooklyn-and-Nashville-based production house Mason Jar Music – an annual compilation which usually serves as frequent flyer in our year’s end round-up – with a take on Dylan that boasts an apt slipperiness in the voice and a funky, chunky arrangement: pitch-perfect folkband folk sure to thrill those who love the country comfort of Gillian Welch, Gram Parsons, Old Crow Medicine Show and more.

• The Stray Birds: Mississippi (orig. Bob Dylan) [2016]

Jeffrey Foucault‘s been featured here several times before: as a solo artist early in our incarnation; later as a songsmith and collaborator with Mulvey and now-spouse Kris Delmhorst. But his recent video covers are perfect, precise carriers of his craft: close your eyes, and you can still hear the rugged face bobbing in and out of the frame; the wringing, nuanced movement of body, hands and guitar barely contained by the margins of song and solace; the soothing sepia wash that ages the soul. No Depression recently named him one of six Roots Artists On The Verge, but as far as we’re concerned, Foucault is already a master, dusty with the roads of a thousand miles and more.

• Jeffrey Foucault: Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) (orig. Bob Dylan) [2017]

• Jeffrey Foucault: The Devil’s Real (orig. Chris Smither) [2016]

Always ad-free and artist-centric, Cover Lay Down has been making noise about music since 2007 thanks to the generous support of readers like you. Click here to help fund the continued promotion of authenticity and craft through coverage, and get our very own super-secret covers mix as our thanks!

Sundays mean lesson planning, in the world of public school teaching. And so, although white-out conditions outside my cozy living room window suggest another snow day tomorrow, I’m looking ahead to Friday, where – in solidarity with those currently calling for a general strike – a few fellow schoolteachers and I are spearheading a National Teach-In in response to ongoing policy concerns which we see as harmful to truth, public education, common decency, and the dignity of our students and their families.

Because a well informed electorate cannot be taken advantage of by “alternate facts”. And because as educators, we believe it is our duty to develop that informed electorate within our own communities.

Historically, teach-ins are a form of civil disobedience, in which professors stand outside the canon, plying their status and knowledge on behalf of the counterculture. But in a very important way, regaining our footing by reclaiming our classrooms and hallways as strongholds of truth and justice is a restorative act, not a political one.

Teaching about the three branches of American government, and their checks and balances, are as innate to the History curriculum as the history of protest song, and its effects and effectiveness. Exploring popularity polls and gerrymandering are perfect pursuits for the Math teacher required by administration to make connections to the real world as they teach. Covering climate change, resource management through pipelines, and other issues currently on the ground in the Sciences is cemented into the pathways we must follow. Art and Music owe themselves to explore the way in which their forms are and have been utilized to speak truth to power, in our past and in our present.

Indeed, arguably, to NOT integrate the larger on-the-ground issues of our time and temperament into the classroom is to abdicate our responsibility to the highly-politicized infrastructure in which teaching and learning currently stand.

To join the Teach-In, then, becomes merely a matter of tweaking the pacing guide, and then delivering a lesson mindfully and joyfully, knowing that others across the nation are doing the same. And if it feels subversive, then perhaps that merely means that this is what teaching should feel like.


And so – since the Common Core Standards which guide my practice as an English teacher mandate that I prepare my students to “Analyze…[the] particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature” – I will spend this Friday with my students analyzing the promise of the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, and move from there to explore the particular standpoints and imagery of a series of poems by immigrants and second-generation Americans struggling with their identity, before they engage in clarifying and exposing their own cultural perspective and its expression through the creation of poems, essays, posters and more.

And so, today, here and now, we offer a set of topical songs which speak to the potential of the classroom to truly prepare students to engage politically and deliberately in a world drowning in alternate facts and social media echo chambers – both in celebrating its success, and in admonishing its failure.


There are plenty of songs with school-as-setting out there in the universe; we’ve covered them before. There’s a few songs, too, which reference learning, and the academy itself. But today’s parameters are narrow: songs which speak specifically to the act of teaching, either for its relevance to the real, in preparing our next generation for the social and civic world, or – more frequently – for its failure to connect students to that which matters most. And thanks to the crowdsource, we’ve come up with just enough for a fine mix of coverage.

So listen, and rejoice in the fact that even in the midst of a world driven by metrics and testing, there are still enough of us who remember that the essential purpose of education is prepare our students to take on the mantle of critical, deliberate, imaginative world leadership, and are determined to maintain our classrooms as spaces where mindfulness, critical thinking, and social justice aren’t just welcome, they’re part and parcel of our daily practice.

And if you are a teacher, or just know one, please share this post, or the National Teach-In Facebook page, with every teacher, student, and parent you know – both to help us spread the word about Friday, and to stand in solidarity with those who know that knowledge is power…but that only wisdom is liberty.


Teach Your Children Well: A Coverfolk Mix
…now available in handy zip format!

• Sadie Jemmett: Teach Your Children (orig. CSNY) [2012]
• Mike Dezavelle: Wind Up (orig. Jethro Tull) [2015]
• Ronny Cox: I Ought To Know (orig. Jack Hardy) [2016]
• Fionn Regan: Getting Better (orig. The Beatles) [2006]
• Joe Crookston: The Logical Song (orig. Supertramp) [2008]
• Dangerous Folk: Leave It Like It Is (orig. David Wilcox) [2012]
• Iain MacKintosh: Flowers Are Red (orig. Harry Chapin) [1991]
• Anti-Flag: What Did You Learn In School Today (orig. Tom Paxton) [2015]
• Albi and the Wolves: Another Brick In The Wall (orig. Pink Floyd) [2015]
• Edwina Hayes: It’s A Hard Life Wherever You Go (orig. Nanci Griffith) [2012]

Artist-centric and ad-free since 2007, Cover Lay Down thrives throughout the year thanks to the makers, the mailers, and YOU. Tune in as the winter continues for new tributes, cover compilations, and coverfolk singles from 2017, plus resurrected features on Jeffrey Foucault, Randy Newman, and more!

I’ve often said this is not a political blog, but that’s not really what I mean. Folk music cannot help but be political; it is political at its roots, not just in its branches. Woody Guthrie’s fascist-killing guitar is a means to an end; the ends he shares are more apparent in a broader statement, often attributed to Woody but more likely borrowed from a newspaper writer of his generation, that the purpose of folk music is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. But no matter the origin, it is true, of music and of folk: the tenets of social justice are entwined so deeply in the folkworld, to pretend otherwise would be a failure of coverage.

But I am not just a folkblogger. I am also a practicing Unitarian Universalist, who believes fundamentally that love will prevail. And I am a true descendent of Ellis Island, born of a line of immigrant Jews who came to this country as teenage refugees themselves, the sole members of their families pushed out just in time before the Nazi party rose to power and swallowed the rest of our shared family tree.

I live in Massachusetts, both home of the Salem Witch Trials, and a Commonwealth known for harboring religious persecuted minorities since 1620. I serve my community as a member of the school board, the better to help establish norms and priorities which will best cover the spread of vocational and civic possibility in a community that trends 60/40 towards blue-collar, independent-contractor Republicanism that appreciates the high school musical but doesn’t always recognize the merits of the liberal arts mindset among us, or in our schools. I teach English and Media Literacy in an urban setting not just because it is what serves my soul or pays the bills, but specifically because it serves my sense of patriotic duty to develop the civic, questioning mind in those populations historically underrepresented in the halls of power – not to feed it the pablum of any particular creed or standpoint, but to engender, to the extent I am able, the articulation of thought in service to right dialogue in the generation of my children, and beyond.

And then, in the increasingly rare moments of peace, I turn to this virtual soapbox, and share the joy of communion in music and culture-sampling that is folk coverage. And sometimes, because the songs are speaking, that means harboring the fugitives: in this case, songs crafted – and performances – to afflict the comforted, as Guthrie so wisely yet so probably did not speak, after all.

There are a few of you out there who sent partisan responses to our last post; there are, surely, a few reading this who will willfully misunderstand, and follow suit. But this is not a liberal blog, save that we celebrate the transformation of both song and of culture, as their arc bends towards justice. These attempts to shift the conversation here to partisan discussion will go unshared, and un-responded to, though I am ever regretful that there are those out there who cannot tell the political from the partisan.

For mine is not political work, and this is not a partisan blog. It is, in the end, a folkspace: a patriotic platform, proudly American, where those who sing intimately to power are welcome, regardless of their party affiliation.

Just like in my classroom, all opinions are wanted here, so long as they are offered respectfully. Just like at the school board table, we work in service to the dialogue, and its participants, not to its contents or conclusions. And no matter your beliefs or your actions, if you are doing so peacefully, and proudly, and mindfully, and joyfully, then you are one of us.

All are welcome here, just like in America. You, and you, and you and me. For all of us, everywhere, are native to this world we share. And in a very true way, all of us are descended from immigrants – all of us together, and each one of us alone.


Immigrant Songs, Covered In Folk

• Lucy Kaplansky: My Name Joe (orig. David Massengill) [1994]
• Richard Shindell: Acadian Driftwood (orig. The Band) [2007]
• Joe Jencks: Deportees (orig. Woody Guthrie) [2005]
• Luca Magnanensi: El Camino (orig. Amos Lee) [2011]
• Joan Baez: Fishing (orig. Richard Shindell) [1997]
• Robert Nottingham: Border Song (orig. Elton John) [2016]
• Melanie: My Rainbow Race (orig. Pete Seeger) [1972]
• Shawn Colvin: American Tune (orig Paul Simon) [2015]

Vermont folk artists come together for a performance of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land


My students were more restless than usual yesterday. And though it’s tempting to conflate their behavior with the unrest and uncertainty that has surrounded President Trump’s ascension, and the ending of an era for another, more humble President, one that looked more like them than ever before, I know better. In the inner city, students spend what little energy and attention they can muster on the lowest tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; end-of-term hopelessness, mingled with the daily grind of poverty and impossibility, is enough to explain their malaise, and empathize with it enough to double down on the markers of care and comfort I work to bring to my daily practice with each of them, and with all.

It’s a volatile time in America. Yesterday’s destructive attacks on the symbols of high capitalism kept me up late; last week’s cabinet hearings did, too. Our discourse is fragmented, and too often tinged with anger, even as, across the globe, we raise our voices in hopeful determination, even as we worry that only we are listening to ourselves.

I’m not marching today; though we had originally hoped to make it to Boston, family illness, kids far behind in their coursework, and end of term grading weigh heavily on the mind and soul. We are not ashamed, for living out loud in America proudly and well is as important as protest, in the end. But we are tracking, carefully, those who are: in Washington, Boston, New York; in smaller communities across the nation. Their smiles and pink hats fill our Facebook feed; their joy and purpose flowing like a mighty river in video posts and status updates as they converge on the centers of their communities, and raise their signs.

Our spirit is lifted as America unfolds before us. There is hope here, the candlefire of the determined spirit magnified a millionfold as the power of the people, gathered together, burns bright.

There’s new songs on the backburner, an undiscovered coverfolk country on the horizon. But today, we put aside the new and novel to embrace history in our midst with a soundtrack of sorts, with songs determined and patriotic, melancholy and uplifting in equal measure.

May those who march today find their journey light, their voices heard, their stamina great and their conviction strong. May love prevail across this great land we love.

• Quiles & Cloud: Ring Them Bells (orig. Bob Dylan) [2015]
• Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer: Democracy (orig. Leonard Cohen) [2016]
• The Gaslight Tinkers: Quite Early Morning (orig. Pete Seeger) [2014]
• Lucy Kaplansky: This Morning I Am Born Again (orig. Woody Guthrie) [2012]
• Dave Rawlings Machine: I Hear Them All (orig. Old Crow Medicine Show) [2009]
• Lizzie West & The White Buffalo: Get Up, Stand Up (orig. Bob Marley) [2006]
• Martin Sexton: For What It’s Worth (orig. Buffalo Springfield) [2012]
• Indigo Girls: Get Together (orig. Kingston Trio) [1989]
• Joe Solo: If I Had A Hammer (orig. The Weavers) [2011]
• Glen Phillips: American Tune (orig. Paul Simon) [2012]

The Avett Brothers take on George Harrison’s Give Me Love

Ad-free and artist-centric since 2007, Cover Lay Down thrives thanks to the support of artists, labels, promoters, and YOU.

So do your part: listen, love, share, and above all, purchase the music, the better to keep it alive and kicking. And if, in the end, you’ve got goodwill to spare, we hope you’ll consider a new year’s contribution to Cover Lay Down. All gifts go directly to bandwidth and server costs; all donors receive undying praise, and an exclusive download code for a special gift set of alternate favorites and rare covers from 2015 and 2016. Click here to give…and thanks.

If the holidays are over, then so is our respite from the day-to-day of work and school. No longer does the cold and snow bring hopes of friends and good cheer; instead, it drives us inwards: to our minds and our houses, the detritus still lingering after the burning of the old year.

We were going to see my father in Boston today, but the snow is coming: as much as a foot, out where he is. Here in the rural middle of the state we’re on the edge of the storm, looking at a shut-in day by the pellet stove, writing lesson plans and playing charades with the family while the blizzard whirls outside the window.

A day by the fire, then. And appropriately so, for it’s the time of year where we hunker down, huddling against the cold.

We’ve shared several relevant coversets over the years: on snow itself, and on the nondenominational seasonal songs so easily showcased among the holiday, thanks to a resonance with the hopeful spirit of the season.

But there are also wintersongs that are quiet, still, notes and voices resonating hollow against the shimmery white world, their voices soaring into empty, grey skies. In which each new day adds but a minute of daylight, not fast enough to slow the pace of deep introspection. In which Spring is present at a distance: a dubious promise, made muffled by the snow.

Themes of withdrawal and stillness typify the songs of this, the second season of winter. The longing for light we hear in these sounds is less golden, less joyful; more wistful, more weary. There is comfort, here, of a sorts, knowing that such states are temporary. But it is one that we must bring, ourselves, to complete the emotive loop.


Wintersongs: A Cover Lay Down Mix [zip!]

• Sailyk: Winter (orig. Noah Gundersen) [2013]
• Reid Jamieson: Winter (orig. Tori Amos) [2012]
• Emily Jane Furlong: Winter Song (orig. Sara Barielles) [2014]
• Marissa Nadler: Winter Lady (orig. Leonard Cohen) [2011]
• Grey Season: Faded From The Winter (orig. Iron & Wine) [2015]
• Wintery Songs: In The Cold Cold Night (orig. White Stripes) [2015]
• Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield: Angel In The Snow (orig. Elliott Smith) [2015]
• Darol Anger w/ John Gorka and Dar Williams: While Roving On A Winter’s Night (trad.) [1996]
• Thea Gilmore: Listen The Snow Is Falling (orig. Yoko Ono & John Lennon) [2009]
• The Good Lovelies: Song For A Winter’s Night (orig. Gordon Lightfoot) [2015]
• Smoke Fairies: Steal Softly Through Snow (orig. Captain Beefheart) [2015]
• Dustin Kensrue: Cold As It Gets (orig. Patty Griffin) [2016]
• Catherine MacLellan: Snowbird (orig. Anne Murray) [2011]
• יותם בקר: Eskimo Snow (orig. Why?) [2011]
• Til Willis: Winterlude (orig. Bob Dylan) [2014]
• Bobby Kendall: Landslide (orig. Stevie Nicks) [2013]

Ad-free and artist-centric since 2007, Cover Lay Down continues to thrive thanks to the support of artists, labels, promoters, and YOU.

So do your part: listen, love, share, and above all, purchase the music, the better to keep it alive and kicking. And if, in the end, you’ve got goodwill to spare, we hope you’ll consider a new year’s contribution to Cover Lay Down. All gifts go directly to bandwidth and server costs; all donors will receive undying praise, and an exclusive download code for a special gift set of alternate favorites and rare covers from 2015 and 2016. Click here to give…and thanks.

And so the old year passes once again. And in our ears, there is music, echoing for all to hear.

In previous “Year’s Best” features, we’ve prefaced our final musical offering with an attempt at data analysis – a sort of state of the folkways address, as glimpsed through the lens of coverage.

This year, other than to note that there’s a good lot of tradfolk in the mix, we’re skipping the formalities of trend and tribulation. Instead of trying to make sense of what is ultimately as much a private act as it is a collective one, we’ll let the genre speak for itself, and focus in on the song.

Because at year’s end, we find ourselves holding a full deck: 52 well-loved tracks, one for each week; each one a winner on its own, and nary a joker in the bunch.

Taken as a set, this curated collection shows the margins of folk, and its underbelly; yawing wide and deep, it runs and rambles, confronting and comforting with the manic, the maudlin, and everything in between.

But taken song by song, it offers 52 chances to fall in love again with the world. And in the end, maybe that’s the more powerful reason we come here, every year, to lay the year at your feet, and begin again.

So download the entire collection here, or sample track-by-track below, as Cover Lay Down proudly presents our favorite coverfolk singles, b-sides, live tracks and deep album cuts of 2016, from indie to traditional, and all the contemporary singer-songwriter, alt-country, and acoustic poprock genres in between – with thanks, as always, to the artists, the labels, the promoters, and you, for holding us up, and in, and close, when the world keeps spinning right round, like a record.

Join us, as we rejoice in a year gone by, and welcome in the new, with the beautiful, the bountiful, and the bold – the very best coverage of a year now ended, with a whisper of what is to come from the darkened wings.

The Year’s Best Singles: A 2016 Coverfolk Mix [zip!]

• 3hattrio: Get Up, Stand Up (orig. Bob Marley) [via]
• Molly Tuttle: How Can I Tell You (orig. Cat Stevens) [via]
• Sam Moss: Working On A Building (trad.) [via]
• Will Cookson: Death With Dignity (orig. Sufjan Stevens) [via]
• Quiles & Cloud: You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (orig. Bob Dylan) [via]
• Daphne Willis: Something (orig. The Beatles) [via]
• Billy Bragg & Joe Henry: Gentle On My Mind (orig. John Hartford) [via]
• Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker: Dark Turn Of Mind (orig. Gillian Welch) [via]
• OKKO: Heartbeats (orig. The Knife) [via]
• Elouise: I’ll Fly Away (trad.) [via]
• Civil Twilight: Dancing With Myself (orig. Billy Idol) [via]
• William Fitzsimmons: Everywhere (orig. Fleetwood Mac) [via]
• Red Tail Ring: Wondrous Love, Lay Aside Your Crown (trad.) [via]
• Peter Katz: Sorry (orig. Justin Bieber) [via]
• Jane Kramer: Down South (orig. Tom Petty) [via]
• Bees Of Paradise: Dancing In The Dark (orig. Bruce Springsteen) [via]
• Allysen Callery: Sundown (orig. Gordon Lightfoot) [via]
• Anna Elizabeth Laube: XO (orig. Beyoncé) [via]
• Vini, Lindsay & Isaac: She Said She Said (orig The Beatles) [via]
• Maryam Raad: I Walk The Line (orig. Johnny Cash) [via]
• Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche: Bleecker Street (orig. Simon & Garfunkel) [via]
• The Oshima Brothers: Hearts On Fire (orig. Passenger) [via]
• The Infamous Stringdusters w/ Nicki Bluhm: Somebody To Love (orig. Jefferson Airplane) [via]
• The Paul McKenna Band: Song Of Choice (orig. Peggy Seeger) [via]
• The High Bar Gang: Silver Dagger (trad.) [via]
• Emily Mure: Between The Bars (orig. Elliott Smith) [via]
• Jenna Mammina & Alex de Grassi: King Of Pain (orig. The Police) [via]
• The Man Who Fell In Buffalo: Blank Space (orig. Taylor Swift) [via]
• Noah Wall: Sittin’ On Top Of The World (orig. Mississippi Sheiks) [via]
• Aoife O’Donovan: Nebraska (orig. Bruce Springsteen) [via]
• Jen Lane: Thirteen (orig. Big Star) [via]
• Phosphorescent: I Want You (orig. Bob Dylan) [via]
• Johnnycake Street: Hello My Old Heart (orig. Oh Hellos) [via]
• KINLEY: Evil Eye (orig. Al Tuck) [via]
• Eli West: Rainbow Midst Life’s Willows (trad.) [via]
• SHEL: Enter Sandman (orig. Metallica) [via]
• Kathryn Williams: Autumn Leaves (orig. Yves Montand) [via]
• Chris and Morgane Stapleton: You Are My Sunshine (orig. The Pine Ridge Boys) [via]
• Pilgrim’s Way: Boston City (trad.) [via]
• Robert Nottingham: You’re The One That I Want (orig. Grease) [via]
• Miranda Sykes & Rex Preston: SAD (orig. Boo Hewerdine) [via]
• Coty Hogue: Poor Ellen Smith (trad.) [via]
• Sean Rowe: Vincent Black Lightning 1952 (orig. Richard Thompson) [via]
• Jemma Johnson: Hey There Delilah (orig. Plain White T’s) [via]
• Chris Coole: Led Me To the Wrong (orig. Ola Belle Reed) [via]
• Nataly Dawn: Still Crazy After All These Years (orig. Paul Simon) [via]
• Parker Millsap: You Gotta Move (orig. Missippippi Fred McDowell) [via]
• Odell Fox: Moonshiner (trad.) [via]
• Fantastic Negrito: In The Pines (trad.) [via]
• Caitlin Canty with Darlingside: Wildflowers (orig. Tom Petty) [via]
• Jameson: Sweet Pea (orig. Amos Lee) [via]
• Juliana Daly and Bryce Merritt: Somebody Else (orig. The 1975) [via]

Cover Lay Down thrives throughout the year thanks to the support of artists, labels, promoters, and YOU. So do your part: listen, love, share, and above all, purchase the music, the better to keep it alive and kicking.

Got goodwill to spare? Want to help keep the music flowing? Please, consider a year’s end contribution to Cover Lay Down. All gifts go directly to bandwidth and server costs; all donors will receive undying praise, and an exclusive download code for a special gift set of alternate favorites and rare covers otherwise unblogged. Click here to give – and thanks.

Previously on Cover Lay Down:
• The Year’s Best Coverfolk Videos (2016)
• The Year’s Best Coverfolk Albums (2016)