America, The Beautiful: Coverfolk for a Thoughtful Fourth

I'm not exactly the patriotic type. I've been to more countries than states; I prefer solitude to mall culture. Heck, we don't even have basic cable. But all power-hungry, commercial/corporate complex, bittersweet modernity aside, I believe in the ideals which frame the constant American dialogue with itself -- including first and foremost the requirement that we keep talking, lest we abdicate our role as government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And I believe that, by definition, as music which speaks of and for a people, American folk music holds a particular place in that conversation which is America. Folk focuses that conversation, making it real and vivid, whether it is through the lens of policy critique or protest cry, the immigrant experience or the internal monologue of a singer-songwriter struggling to be free.

Checks and balances and a mechanism for self-correction; fireworks and barbecue, and the right to make dumb mistakes and have to live with 'em. Losing love, and falling in it again. Finding hope, and being scared to dream one more time. It's the American way, all of it -- and it's been that way since inception.

Which is to say: if I may sometimes work to change the policies of those in power, through sharing song or through town meeting politics, it is because I love this country. And I hope I never lose that fluttery feeling in my stomach when we come in for a landing at the international terminal, and I know that I am home.

So let other bloggers share patriotic song today. I'd rather take the country as it is: dialogic, complex, open about its faults and favors, and always looking for a better way. And if saying so means posting songs we have posted here before, then so be it -- for these are, after all, timeless songs, with messages that bear repeating.

Happy Birthday, America. Long may your contradictions endear us to you. May you never lose hope. And may we never stop singing.

• Eva Cassidy, American Tune (orig. Paul Simon)
  (from American Tune; more Eva here)
  
  
• Melora Creager, American Girl (orig. Tom Petty)
  (from Perplexions; more Melora here)
  
  
• Danny Michel, Young Americans (orig. David Bowie)
  (from Loving the Alien; more Danny here)
  
  
• Ann Vriend, Rockin' In The Free World (orig. Neil Young)
  (from When We Were Spies; more Ann here)
  
  
• Tony Furtado, Fortunate Son (orig. Creedence Clearwater Revival)
  (from Thirteen; more Tony here)
  
  
• Richard Shindell, Born in the U.S.A. (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
  (from South of Delia; more Richard here)
  
  
• Allison Crowe, Independence Day (orig. Ani DiFranco)
  (from Live at Wood Hall; more Allison here)

Sinéad O'Connor Covers: from Disney to Dolly, from Nirvana to Nilsson

I toyed with using today's post to address some of the unsung heroes of traditional Irish Folk Music, but I'm no expert on the subject. Berkeley Place got to Van Morrison first, I've only got a few good U2 covers left, and Wednesday's post on Celtic Punk was pretty thorough. And even with the SXSW posts starting to get a bit thick on the ground, there's still plenty of bloggers out there dropping diverse sets of Irish and Celtic music on you this weekend.

But never fear, faithful reader: I'm not about to leave you empty handed on the eve of St. Patrick's Day. I may not remember how to code that little accented e in her name, but I do know that the more I hear of her, the more impressed I've been with the deliberate interpetive power of one particular Irish folkrocker. And since she's terribly underrated in the American soundscape, what better way to celebrate the fire of the Irish than to provide an introduction to Sinead O'Connor?

In fact, in many ways, Sinead O'Connor is the perfect counterpart and compliment to our earlier post on Celtic Punk. Behaviorally, Sinead is sociopolitical punk: the shaved head, the infamous pope-shredding on Saturday Night Live. But sonically, Sinead is anything but. Her voice is little-girl innocent, even when angered to a shaky open-throated vibrato; though she can rock with the best of them, her preferred arrangements and phrasing, especially in coversong, tend towards that full sound which best supports her slow phrasing and lush, languid tone.

Though they're not usually clustered, this puts Sinead in a select group of like-voiced and like-minded women, such as Dar Williams, Bjork, and Ani DiFranco: contemporaries who set the standard for serious world-changing worldbeat-slash-folk music clothed in breathy high-vibrato vocal sweetness and pop production value.

Of these women, though I love Dar, and respect Ani, when we're talking about coversong I'd have to put Sinead at the top of the panetheon. Primarily, this is because Sinead has an especially gifted ability to play the tension between punk sensibility and sweet, sultry performance effectively in other people's songs. Few performers of any type can do this as well, and with as much versatility. If all you've heard of Sinead's cover songs is her poppy take on Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U, even if you love her angsty take to pieces, you've probably been guilty of severely underestimating this pop punk pixie.

As a cover artist, Sinead brings an unparalleled range to her performances. Her softer song choices clearly are designed to maximize the potential for interpretation to bring new and often ironic meaning to familiar song. Her breathy take on Someday My Prince Will Come isn't wistful; it's resigned, conflicted, and startlingly feminist. The echoing ghost-like etherial beauty she brings to Nirvana's once-grungy All Apologies isn't restrained so much as angelic: loving and deliberate, it sounds like it comes from Cobain's coffin.

But Sinead isn't a one-trick pony, choosing songs to suit a particular strength of interpretation. When a song inherently speaks to the sort of tension she can create through lyrical interpretation, she forgoes use of dissonance between song and voice, letting herself go.

The results are diverse, and equally impressive. Her cover of older political Irish songs like The Foggy Dew tend to be pure and loudly true to the original mournful fife and drum cadence. The build she brings to House of the Rising Sun uses her full spectrum: In five minutes of blues, you can hear an emotional cycle that some artists take a lifetime to scan. And her cover of Dolly Parton's Dagger Through the Heart manages to be both true-blue bluegrass and emphathetically the most incredible take on Parton's original wail and frustration in an otherwise excellent collection.

Heck, let's skip the Prince cover; it's weak by comparison. Here's the Sinead O'Connor you should have been listening to all along: the songs mentioned above, and a few more that I could go on about for hours. It may not all be pub music, and celebrating a countercultural bisexual critic of the Catholic Church may not make the conservatives happy. But this is music with the true fire of the Irish in every note. And whether you agree with her politics or not, you just can't dismiss her craft, her breadth, or the power of her voice.

• Sinead O'Connor, All Apologies (orig. Nirvana)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, Dagger Through the Heart (orig. Dolly Parton)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, House of the Rising Sun (trad.)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, Her Mantle So Green (trad.)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, You Do Something To Me (Cole Porter)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, Someday My Prince Will Come (orig. Disney)
  
• Sinead O'Connor, I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (orig. Harry Nilsson)
  
  
• The Chieftains w/ Sinead O'Connor, The Foggy Dew (trad.)
  
• Willie Nelson w/ Sinead O'Connor, Don't Give Up (orig. Peter Gabriel w/Kate Bush)

Sinead O'Connor's prolific career has resulted in a vast collection of albums which run the gamut from edgy poprock to atmospheric soundtrack pop to acoustic singer-songwriter folk; though I'm usually reluctant to link to Amazon, Sinead's website uses it, so head on over to buy her work.

Not sure where to start? Sinead's newest release Theology is a two-disk set which should make everyone happy: one CD offers stripped down versions of her songs; the other recasts the same songs with a full band. Her reworked version of traditional gospel ballad River of Babylon sounds excellent on both, as do her covers of Curtis Mayfield and Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber. Taken as sets, the covers AND the doubled albums speak perfectly to both the diversity and excellence I was getting at above.

Finally, lest we forget that Sinead is not just a coverartist, today's bonus coversongs show that Sinead's songwriting displays the same power and creative energy she brings to her performance. I saw Bettye LaVette do her a capella version of I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got in a cramped jazz club a while back, just before she hit the blogs; though Bettye's is a totally different sound, it still fits, emotionally.

• Bettye LaVette, I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got (orig. O'Connor)
  
• Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, This Is To Mother You (orig. O'Connor)
  
• Hilary Scott, The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance (orig. O'Connor)

Best of the Season: The Holiday Halfcovers of Over The Rhine

One last holiday post, though I promised otherwise. Because the holiday songs of Over The Rhine transcend the season. I saved the best for last.

I just re-discovered Over The Rhine, and they blew me away. The sweet breathy girlvocals, the moody guitar and piano, the exquisite musicianship and tonality. I'm a bit too much in awe to say much, honestly.

Post-folkers Over the Rhine have been around for fifteen years, touring with everyone from Dylan to the Cowboy Junkies. In that time, they've gone from a foursome to a married twosome, mellowed out significantly, and produced not one but two holiday albums: 1996 masterwork The Darkest Night of the Year, and last year's fan-only, absolutely mind-blowing Snow Angels, which didn't truly hit the mass market until this holiday season.

It was Snow Angels which recaptured my heart. Most of the album consists of heart-stopping originals: identifiably Christmassy, of a variety of types, all resonant with the best of the fireside yule. But it also includes two half-covers, new Christmas songs which start with or contain the kernels of traditional Christmas songs. I'm not sure what to call these, except so incredible, you just have to hear them.

For our final holiday post, then, a featurette: three Over The Rhine holiday songs -- one old, two new -- that are more than covers. Each uses the familiar as a starting point, adding lyrics, rechording the sound, twisting melodies beyond recognition. But this isn't like that tiny shard of Jingle Bells at the head and tail of Joni Mitchell's River. This is something new, on the far edge of the coversong, but still identifiably a cover. And it's gorgeous.

• Over The Rhine, Silent Night
  
• Over The Rhine, One Olive Jingle
  
• Over The Rhine, Little Town

Look, I know it's late in the season to push holiday music. But I swear, I plan to keep Snow Angels on the turntable until February, at least. And new Over The Rhine album The Trumpet Child, too. You will too, when you hear them. Get them now.

Today's bonus coversongs are more true to their much more recently written original. But they're both sweet and sleek, just the thing for that last, late-Christmas afternoon light.

• Rosie Thomas, Christmas Time is Here
  
• Shawn Colvin, Christmas Time is Here

Bonus bonus (late addition): in case your Christmas isn't truly here until after the holidays, here's the best version I know of Blue Christmas, by Chaim Tannenbaum, off The McGarrigle Christmas Hour. (Do you think Chaim Tannenbaum is his real name? Translated, it means "tree of life".)

Guestfolk: I'll Be Folk For ChristmasSongs from Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials

Hello folk fans! Kurtis from Covering the Mouse here, for one more guest post before the end of 2007! This time, I'm taking a break from Disney but sticking with a cartoon theme. Folk covers of cartoon Christmas songs!

One of my favourite parts of the holiday season are the Christmas television specials. I love them. A Charlie Brown Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Garfield Christmas, A He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special, I love them all!

Pioneering the Christmas special tradition was a small animation company called Rankin/Bass who specialized in stop-motion animation. I will be focusing on these specials today.

• Raffi, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  Rankin/Bass' first Christmas special was an adaptation of the famous Christmas song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964. Originally by Johnny Marks, this cover is by the famous Canadian children's folk singer, Raffi.
  
  
  
  
• Johnny Cash, Little Drummer Boy
  In 1968, Rankin/Bass produced their second stop-motion animated Christmas special, this time based on the popular song, Little Drummer Boy, which was originally written by Katherine K. Davis and popularized by the Vienna Boys Choir. More recently, David Bowie and Bing Crosby sang a duet that has become a Christmas standard. This cover of the song by Johnny Cash actually came out in 1959, a decade before the TV special.
  
  
  
  
• Fiona Apple, Frosty the Snowman
  The last special I will be covering today is Frosty the Snowman. The song was written for Gene Autry after he recorded a version of Rudolph that sold millions. In 1969, Rankin/Bass created a new story around Frosty that tied him into the Christmas holiday. The unique thing about this special is that it is done in the traditional cel animated style instead of stop-motion animation. This version comes from 2005 alt-rock compilation Christmas Calling.
  

Today's bonus coversongs:

Along with cartoons, I'm also a big fan of the Muppets! Here are a few tracks from the Christmas album they did with Folk legend John Denver!

• John Denver & the Muppets, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
  
• John Denver & the Muppets, Twelve Days of Christmas
  

[Looking for more last-minute holiday coverfolk? Click here for the full run of Cover Lay Down holiday posts, including multiple covers of Joni Mitchell's River, some non-denominational wintersongs just right for solstice, and a full set of Christmas songs penned by Jewish songwriters!]

The Twelve Jews of Christmas: Folk Covers of Holiday Classics by Jewish Songwriters

I was planning on posting this entry for the Sabbath, but the snow's getting deep outside, and in my rural area, that often means long-term network outages. Hope no one minds getting this "Friday" post a bit early...

Today we celebrate the holiday coversongs of Jewish-American songwriters, most notably the prolific Johnny Marks, who is best known for penning a holy host of non-canonical Christmas songs, and lesser known for being the head of ASCAP from 1957 to 1961.

Familiar carols written by Marks include Holly Jolly Christmas, which most of us imagine in the voice of Burl Ives, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is based on the story by Marks' brother-in-law, and I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day, which Marks adapted from a Longfellow poem. He also wrote Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree; I was hoping to share some folkcovers of that song, too, but for some reason, I can't find any. Wonder why?

Pedro the Lion, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Johnny Marks)

John Gorka, Christmas Bells (ibid.)

Martin Sexton, Holly Jolly Christmas (ibid.)

Jack Johnson, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (ibid.)

In fact, a significant percentage of "traditional" Christmas tunes turn out to have been written or co-written by "verifiably Jewish artists". Here's a few more, mostly from the country and alt-pop ends of the folk spectrum, though the list runs the gamut from urban folk to indiefolk:

Raul Malo, White Christmas (Irving Berlin)

The Roches, Sleigh Ride (Anderson/Parish)

Mindy Smith, I'll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram)

A Fine Frenzy, Let It Snow (Cahn/Styne)

Steve Goodman, Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)

Liz Phair, Winter Wonderland (ibid.)

Aimee Mann, The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)

Suzy Bogguss w/ Delbert McClinton, Baby, It's Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

No purchase links today, kids: many of these songs are in the public domain, and even those that aren't are hard to avoid this time of year. (Plus, how the heck do you link to a songwriter?) Just keep on buying your Christmas music from artists and labels directly, and we'll call it square, okay?

Brooks Williams Covers: Toots and the Maytals, Pat Metheny, Jorma Kaukonen, more!

I listen to Brooks Williams as if he were two accomplished artists: the instrumentalist and the more traditional singer-songwriter. This makes me an unusual listener –- because while his instrumental wizardry is rightly celebrated, for a surprisingly significant portion of his career, Williams has been hailed by most as a folk guitarist who happens to sing once in a while. Even his own website reinforces this perception of Williams as a guitarist first, defining him as a singer-songwriter but front-loading his bio with quotes about his virtuosity as a guitarist, mentions of awards for the same, and a description of the origins of his playing style.

And that's a shame. Williams has always been both an incredible guitarist and a sweet, tuneful singer-songwriter who tends to alternate pure instrumentals with sweet-voiced tunes in recording and performance alike. It just took a change-up to prove it.

To be fair, for most of his career, it was hard to blame those who would dismiss or forget his vocal skills and lyric-craft. His awards and recognition have been almost entirely for his slide blues, and his flat- and finger-picking style. Until the release of 2003 folkpop album Nectar, New England transplant, festival fave and "acoustic guitar god" Williams brought his voice out as just one more instrument – and if it came across as a slightly lesser one, it was only because so little could compete with his fretwork.

Nectar represented a significant shift for Williams. Unlike previous albums, which -- with the exception of Little Lion, his surprisingly diverse instrumental release of 2000 –- tended to contain an even mix of instrumentals and more typical folkfare, Nectar contains no instrumentals at all. Instead, it comes across as a sweet, enjoyable listen grounded in the voice-forward production values of the urban folk and -- dare I say it -- Adult Alternative models.

Nectar brought about a strong reaction from Brooks Williams’ fan base, much of it negative. But none of William's work is easy to dismiss. There's never been anything urban or even easy about his fingerpicking, even as it moves from the foreground to become one component of many in the more fleshed out songs of his produced work. His hands remain light on the strings, bright and loose, regardless of whether he’s going for a more traditional strum pattern or a wizardry that rivals true folk instrumentalist Leo Kottke.

Among his other talents, Williams has a collector's ear for covers, and he finds them all over the musical map, from the deep roots of reggae and jazz to the most sensitive of some pretty obscure blues and folk artists. In every genre, he's rediscovered great but buried songs you haven't heard in years, if you've heard them at all, and made them his own.

His instrumental versions are playful and rarely deep; his vocal work always sounds, to me, like he's grinning as he sings. This brings a consistent approach to his songs, but because the source material is so diverse, his covers never sound the same -- even before the relatively wide set of production modes of Nectar brought us a fulfilled potential for a greater diversity of song and performance.

Today, some covers from Brooks Williams before-and-after. First, some lovely instrumental work on familiar covers of Toots and the Maytals, popjazzman Pat Metheny, ex-Hot Tuna bluesman Jorma Kaukonen, and a crisp and playful Beethoven classic, along with an older, lighthearted something from Sam Phillips/T-Bone Burnett in which you can hear the guitarplay overwhelm the vocal stylings and lyrics. Then, for comparison, a gorgeously atmospheric Dougie MacLean cover, and a pair of lush, melodic folkpop takes on John Martyn and Memphis Slim songs from Nectar. Plus a holiday bonus song that needs no introduction.


Brooks Williams, the solo acoustic guitar virtuoso:

• Brooks Williams, 54-46 (Was My Number) (orig. Toots and the Maytals)
  
• Brooks Williams, Travels (orig. Pat Metheny)
  
• Brooks Williams, Water Song (orig. Jorma Kaukonen)
  
• Brooks Williams, Joyful, Joyful (orig. L. van Beethoven)

Brooks Williams, the singer-songwriter:

• Brooks Williams, Libera Me (orig. Sam Phillips)
  
• Brooks Williams, She Loves Me (When I Try) (orig. Dougie MacLean)
  
• Brooks Williams, May You Never (orig. John Martyn)
  
• Brooks Williams, Mother Earth (orig. Memphis Slim)

Brooks Williams' newest CD is slated to be released just after the new year. No matter what it sounds like, it will surely be another daring, crisp set of songs both familiar and innovative, full of his standard string-subtleties, worth listening to a dozen times or more. Get Nectar and Little Lion while you wait for its release, and start a love affair with a maestro as undersung and overlooked as the artists he covers here.


Today's bonus Holiday coversong:

• Brooks Williams, I Wonder as I Wander (trad.)

Looking for more acoustic coversongs? Head over to Covering the Mouse, where later today I’ll be guestposting a sweet scatsong bossa nova version of Cinderella classic Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.

And don't forget to come back Friday, when we'll be featuring folkcovers of popular Christmas songs written by Jews.

Folkcovers For A Winter's Night: Snowsongs, sleigh rides, and other nondenominational carols

Raising Jewnitarian children means working hard to balance the outer culture's overabundance of Christmas music with alternative seasonal sounds. This is sometimes harder than it sounds, especially when it comes to covers. Though there have been a few originals over the years that would fit the category, most notably a recent spate of Hannukah music from the fringes of the indierock world, it's harder for these songs to enter the canon, driven as it is by the tick and tinsel of gift-giving and public holiday display in a predominantly Christian culture.

In some ways, it's surprising, given the national push towards multiculturalism over the past decades, that there aren't more songs of not-just-Christmas. There are plenty of modern, entirely secular songs about Christmastime, it's true -- common themes here might include "I miss you more this time of year", "I want stuff", and, more recently, "crass commercialism is getting kind of evil, isn't it?" But ultimately, these songs are still about Christmas. After all, it's not like I miss people more this time of year just because it's cold.

Still, there's a small, stellar selection of nonedenominational songs that have crept into the songbook over the years, many lying unnoticed among paeans to Christmas trees, Jesus, and holiday celebration. And a few great, well-covered songs out there which are appropriate for a snowy December day, even if they'd never make it on a holiday sampler.

Today, as an antidote to the already-overfamiliar Christmasmusic that fills ears and airwaves this time of year, a few select songs of solstice, snow, winter, and other alt-seasonal delights from the world of folk covermusic. Plus the usual bonus covers, just for kicks.

Erica Wheeler, Song For A Winter's Night (orig. Gordon Lightfoot)

Quartette, Song For A Winter's Night (ibid.)

Gordon Lightfoot's mellow Song For A Winter's Night fits the folk mindset perfectly: the hearth, the snow, the story of us in a house. A spare cover from Erica Wheeler and the rich harmonies of Canadian folk supergroup Quartette do it justice, twice over.

Robert Earl Keen, Snowin' On Raton (orig. Townes Van Zandt)

Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem, Snowbird (orig. Gene McLellan)

The cover of snow becomes a metaphor of darkness and loss in Robert Earl Keen's latenight honkytonk cover of Snowin' on Raton, and a mantle in Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem's light, swinging version of Elvis/Anne Murray classic Snowbird.

Elizabeth Mitchell, Jingle Bells

Sufjan Stevens, Jingle Bells

The Roches, Jingle Bells

Three vastly different versions of a jinglebell sleighride carol you forgot wasn't about Christmas. Widely divergent possibilities of glee from the mistress of authentic kidfolk, the king of weird holiday indiefolk, and the unique harmonies of The Roches.

As always, all artist links above go to artist/label storefronts -- the best way to give artists the most bang for their buck. And remember, kids: music is a present that fits any occasion, any season, any connection between you and your family and friends, no matter what you celebrate.


Today's bonus coversongs:

Jill Sobule, Merry Christmas From The Family (orig. Robert Earl Keen)

Okay, so it's not nondenominational. Folkpopstar (and Jew) Jill Sobule covers this drunken anti-spiritual paean to dysfunction with such aplomb, it transcends the holiday setting.

Nanci Griffith, Ten Degrees and Getting Colder (orig. Gordon Lightfoot)

This one's not technically about winter, just cold. Lightfoot was Canadian. I guess it gets chilly up there. From coveralbum Other Voices, Other Rooms.

The Roches, Winter Wonderland

The Roches, Frosty The Snowman

Two more familiar, playful, tongue-in-cheek "traditional" songs of snow from The Roches' mostly-Christmas album We Three Kings.

Haven't had enough of Christmas coverfolk? Never fear! Stay tuned over the next few weeks for a plethora of acoustic holiday cheer still to come!

Rock of Ages: Holiday Coverfolk, Part Gimel

A special post today, short and sweet, in honor of the first night of a very early Hannukah...and because despite the recent trickle of indiebands doing Hanukkah albums, I can't for the life of me find any folk covers of Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah or Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.

Maybe it's fitting to feature just one song today. And maybe it's fitting that it's the best-known Hanukkah song, the one that's become such a central part of the candle-lighting ritual itself.

Here, then, just in time for tonight's candle-lighting, indieguitarist Ben Kweller and folkbluesman Marc Cohn interpret Rock of Ages. The song is over seven hundred years old, but it's still powerful in the right hands.

• Ben Kweller, Rock of Ages
  
• Marc Cohn, Rock of Ages

We'll be back tomorrow for a post of greater substance featuring some secular songs of the season. May your candles burn bright until then.

Rani Arbo Covers: The Beatles, Springsteen, Holiday Songs and more!

Rani Arbo knows good music. As sole female member of New England's premier folkgrass roots combo Salamander Crossing, she was the stunning, crystal-clear voice behind some of my absolute favorite originals and interpretations of songs from the traditional to the popular. She was also founding member of honkytonk act Girl Howdy, where she lent her crisp fiddle-playing to a fun, authentic group of women that moved on without her before recording a lick. And, since the turn of the century, as the leader of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, she's been consistently blowing the minds of those who thought folk-tinged bluegrass was nothing more than country music in disguise.

I've been lucky enough to have seen this amazing artist in small venues in all three of her musical incarnations. Over that time, I've seen Arbo -- who originally presented herself as just one vocalist/instrumentalist among several in Salamander Crossing's first release -- grow into a powerful vocalist, arranger, and bandleader, first tentatively, and then with the kind of easy, grinning confidence and control that brings her name to the front of the marquee.

There's a reason why reviewers compared Salamander Crossing's later work favorably to that of Alison Krauss and Union Station. But since then, as leader of Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem -- a band which also features fellow ex-Salamander Crossing member Andrew Kinsey and Arbo's husband, percussionist Scott Kessel -- Rani and her cohorts have gone far beyond the simple genre-work of Krauss. From their first release, each Daisy Mayhem album has spanned an incredibly broad spectrum of style, from honkytonk to folk to blues to bluegrass to swing -- and with the support of her powerful bandmates, each of whom contributes to authorship, arrangement, and leadership, Rani makes it all work exquisitely.

Rani Arbo's life hit a snag a few years ago when she was diagnosed with cancer just around the time she and Kessel became parents. During that time, Rani stopped touring much, and we moved away from the Northern Massachusetts region that Rani calls home; I haven't seen her live in a while, with or without her incredible band of musical cohorts. But now, after a four year gap between albums, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem are back in swing. Critics love their newest release Big Old Life, which like their previous ventures, is a solid mix of up- and down-tempo traditional songs, originals, and just plain fun. (It also includes some sweet covers of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs.) I think you'll love it, too.

Today, a history in covers -- both in the hopes that you'll support Rani and the rest by picking up their catalog, and in celebration of an artist that, like the beautiful and ever-changing musical phoenix that she is, keeps rising from the ashes to shine once again. Listen for a range of musical styles, the playful stretching of a still-evolving musician comfortable in every mode from slow ballad to acoustic swing to the familiar bluegrass style made popular by Alison Krauss. Then listen again. Then buy. And repeat, ad infinitum.

One note before we get to the tuneage. There's a lot of music here today, but only because it was damn hard to keep from posting every song on every album. Instead of just going for the "popular" covers, why not try 'em all for once? I promise your ears will thank you.

• Salamander Crossing, Things We Said Today (orig. The Beatles)
  (from Salamander Crossing)
  
  
• Salamander Crossing, Two Faces Have I (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
  (from Passion Train)
  
  
• Salamander Crossing, Five Days in May (orig. Blue Rodeo)
  
• Salamander Crossing, Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow (trad.)
  (from Bottleneck Dreams)
  
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, Limo To Memphis (orig. Guy Clark)
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, I Do My Cryin' At Night (orig. Lefty Frizzel)
  (from Cocktail Swing)
  
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, O, Death (trad. / Bessie Jones)
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, Turtle Dove (trad.)
  (from Gambling Eden)
  
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, Oil in My Vessel (trad.)
  (from Big Old Life)
  
  
• Rani Arbo, I Saw Three Ships (trad.)
  
• Waters, Moore, and Arbo, Nowell Sing We (trad.)
  (from Wonderland: A Winter's Solstice Celebration)

Still wavering? To make purchasing easy, I've linked each album mentioned above directly to a purchase page at long-time Pioneer Valley folklabel Signature Sounds, which is currently offering their yearly artist sampler free with any purchase. This years sampler includes Winterpills, Crooked Still, new work from previously featured folkartist Peter Mulvey, unreleased Erin McKeown and more!


Today's bonus coversongs:

• Electric bar-blues band the Tarbox Ramblers cover O, Death
  
• Mountain music pioneer Ralph Stanley covers O, Death, too

Yesterday's bonus coversongs:

• Salamander Crossing covers Shawn Colvin's Shotgun Down the Avalanche
  
• Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem cover John Carson's The Farmer Is The Man

Single Song Sunday: Joni Mitchell's River (Holiday Coverfolk, Part 1)

Though each year brings a few wonderful additions to the caroling songbook, eventually, every truly great holiday song gets covered and recovered in a multitude of genres and styles. Which is to say: there's plenty of folk covermusic for the holidays. As we slide towards December, stay tuned for a cornucopia of features on Christmas albums, folk musicians, and folksinger favorites, from the Roches We Three Kings to the very best label-driven holiday compilations.

Today we begin our foray into the holiday coverfolk spirit with a focus on perhaps the first truly modern folk song to be brought into the cycle of once-a-year covers that is the Christmas Canon: Joni Mitchell's River.

For a Christmas standard, Joni Mitchell's River is extraordinarily complex. The subtle piano instrumentation and tongue-in-cheek intro lend itself to holiday ballad; even in the original, the way the sharp chords of Jingle Bells segue into a flowing, languid piano and Joni's soaring vocals calls up images of drinks by the fireside, snow falling outside frosted glass. But below the surface, this song reveals its songwriter's mental state. And Joni's not feeling very Christmassy.

Like the rest of Joni's 1971 album Blue, River bears the bitter mark of Joni post-relationship, struggling to put words to a feeling of defenseless fragility. The lyrics are explicit: though it helps to know that Joni was in sunny California at the time she wrote this song, far from the Christmas cold of her native Canada, the litany of faults and life failures which causes Joni to long for a river to "skate away on" certainly transcends mere geographical dissatisfaction.

Has River become a Christmas standard in denial of its wistful, cynical core? Or is Christmas, in our modern, overcommercialized world world, becoming something from which we long to escape? It's hard to say. Certainly the song has been disproportionately covered in the last decade: according to one authority, there are over 130 recorded versions floating out there in the ether. But most are saccharine sweet holiday pap, and many change neither instrumentation or voice much beyond adding a few layers of this era's production. Only a tiny few truly reinterpret this simple hymn of longing and regret.

But those few are treasures. For despite how easily it slides into the repertoire of the pop balladeer, and regardless of what it says about our changing feelings toward Christmas, River is eminently a song worth saving.

Today -- in a reluctant nod to the fact that half of our local radio stations have already switched over to holiday music -- we offer a short list of the best and folkiest.

Each manages to make the familiar meaningful again -- whether it is Peter Mulvey's low, broken voice bringing out the true core of Joni's longing and sadness, or just James Taylor being James Taylor, bright and full of hope even in acknowledgement of the deepest depression.

Each truly brings new light to an aging standard. Most notably, Angus Stone's re-rhythming of the song into a light, bouncy, fully orchestrated work of strings and guitar casts the work as a product of the modern mellow indie-folk movement without losing a drop of poignancy. Allison Crowe's solo piano version and Rachael Yamagata's piano-with-bass cover may not sound so different from the original at first, but listen again and the subtleties stand out: Yamagata's slurred, cracked breathiness lends tears to the sadness, while Crowe's majestic tonal read turns the song on its ear.

And each is eminently listenable. Listen to the way the waterfall tinkle of the harpsichord compliments the string-and-piano (and jingle bell) poppiness of Aimee Mann's version. And, sure, Sarah McLachlan is hardly folk, but this fellow Canadian still manages to bring the fireside feel of winter to her electrified popversion.

Enjoy today's covers, the first of many gifts from us to you as we celebrate the holiday season here at Cover Lay Down. And remember: without the bittersweet world for context, we could not so love our songs of comfort, joy, and peace.

• James Taylor, River
  (from James Taylor at Christmas)
  
  
• Peter Mulvey, River
  (from Wonderland: A Winter Solstice Celebration)
  
  
• Angus Stone, River
  (from No Man's Woman)
  
  
• Aimee Mann, River
  (out-of-print; more Aimee Mann here)
  
  
• Rachael Yamagata, River
  (unreleased b-side; more Rachael Yamagata here)
  
  
• Allison Crowe, River
  (from Tidings; also here)
  
  
• Sarah McLachlan, River
  (from Wintersong)

We'll host a full Joni Mitchell edition of Covered in Folk sometime in 2008, but if you just can't wait for your coverfix, buy Blue, and start catching up on one of the truly seminal artists of American folk music.

Or head over to Coverville to download The Joni Mitchell Cover Story II, which ends with the incredible title cut from Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters.

Or visit The Late Greats for an incredible 30-song post of songs with the word river in them, including both Joni's original and an amazing version from Madeleine Peyroux and kd lang.

Or, whet your appetite with today's bonus coversongs:

• Joni Mitchell and James Taylor re-cover Taylor's You Can Close Your Eyes
  
• Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell cover Dylan's Girl From the North Country

Come back Monday for a very special feature on folk covers of Disney's Winnie The Pooh, guest hosted by Kurtis of Disney coverblog Covering the Mouse! Meanwhile, I'll be over at eclectic coverblog Fong Songs analysing covers and original of The Smiths' Girlfriend In A Coma, while Fong closes the loop with a sweet write-up of yet another Winnie the Pooh cover over at Covering the Mouse. It's coverblog musical chairs!

Thankful Folk: A Thanksgiving Holiday Special

The web is full of Thanksgiving originals this week: Alice's Restaurant, Loudon Wainwright III's Thanksgiving, songs about helping others, the odd song about pie or turkey. Here at the Boyhowdy House, we're feeling grateful for a few choice folk-tinged coversongs of thanks and blessing-counting that stand out in a small pond of hymns and secular songs just right for the season. Without further ado, here's some particularily Thankful Folk.

• Chris Smither, Thanks To You (orig. Jesse Winchester)
  The opening cut from previously featured Chris Smither's powerful, well-produced Small Revelations, this cover just plain rocks, from the first bass growl (I know I'm a sinner/I ain't no beginner) to the last sustained blues lick.
  
  
• Erin McKeown, Thanks For The Boogie Ride (orig. Buck/Mitchell)
  This short, crisp boogie-woogie tune from diminuative-yet-powerful folkartist Erin McKeown comes from Sing You Sinners, her full album of old Tin Pan Alley tunes. You can hear her infectious grin throughout.
  
  
• Dave Van Ronk, God Bless The Child (orig. Billie Holiday)
• Eva Cassidy, God Bless The Child (orig. Billie Holiday)
  Two blues versions of this Holiday tune from two very different folk artists stolen from this world far too soon. Dave Van Ronk's slow, bluesy solo acoustic fingerpick and Eva Cassidy's electrified loungeclub blues swoon make the perfect counterpart. Off Your Basic Dave Van Ronk and American Tune, respectively.
  
  
• Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem, The Farmer Is The Man(orig. J. Carson)
  A mournful paean for the oft-invisibles who bring our table's bounty and a gruff, loose-fiddled reminder to those who would forget. From Gambling Eden, which, like most of Arbo's work, is chock full of wonderful interpretations of old folk and gospel tunes. (Buy before 2008, get free shipping! And 10% of all profits go to Rock and Roll camp for girls!)
  
  
• Sufjan Stevens, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (trad.)
  My absolute favorite hymn, ever since I heard Sufjan's five-EP set Songs For Christmas last year. Our hymnal lists this song as a hymn of Thanksgiving, so there's no need to wait a month to hear the beautifully torn banjo-jangle plainsong approach Sufjan brings to it.

As always here on Cover Lay Down, wherever possible, all artist/album links above go to that artist's preferred purchase source. Help make some artist thankful -- buy their music today!


Psst! Looking ahead towards our next holiday? I usually try to hold off on celebrating too early, but yesterday, on our way home from an authentic 1830s Thanksgiving feast, we passed a family cutting down trees and putting up reindeer, and it reminded me of a song lyric. So stay tight until Sunday for our first post of the 2007 holiday season: a Single Song Sunday feature on Joni Mitchell's River.