Kasey Chambers Covers:
Son Volt, Ben Harper, Cyndi Lauper, Dolly Parton, Crowded House & more!
November 17th, 2009 — 11:25 pm
I keep missing Kasey Chambers when she comes through town, but it’s not for lack of trying. The Australian singer-songwriter with the airy twang in her voice does heartache so well, it’s a dream of mine to sit on the grass at some summery festival, eyes closed, letting the bittersweet music burn through me like the sunshine.
Kasey’s talent springs from growing up with music in her veins: the daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers, she picked up her first strings early, and spent an adolescent decade on the road with her parents and brother as the Dead Ringer Band, a mid-nineties staple on the Australian Country charts. When her parents separated in 1998, the band broke up as well; Kasey went solo, emerging with a debut album in 2000, and brother Nash moved behind the scenes as her producer. The Captain was a perfect showcase for a well-honed sense of song, but more than anything, it was the tension between that girlish voice and the mature, direct depth of her sentiment which caught - and kept - the minds and hearts of her listeners.
Since then, Chambers has continued to demonstrate a knack for the perfect hook, and a true-blue countryfolk craftswoman’s sense of emotional lyrics. Like Payton, who does a great artist spotlight, Nelson, who calls Kasey’s music “life-changing”, and Simon, whose recent celebration reminded me I was long overdue for a feature on her, I have a special place in my collection for her still-short post-millennial canon, up to and including last year’s decent (but sadly coverless) collaboration with hubby Shane Nicholson, and consider her 2001 sophomore effort Barricades and Brickwalls an essential component of the modern folk-listener’s soundscape.
But like her own heroine Lucinda Williams, who we featured here last May, Kasey is a powerful interpreter of song, too. And though as a fellow child of the late eighties I come back to her Crowded House and Cyndi Lauper covers more than anything, she’s especially, undeniably adept with others from the country side of folk, where Americana and alt-country live. Fred Eaglesmith, Son Volt, Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton and Gram Parsons may represent the farflung corners of a musical subgenre, but in Kasey’s capable hands, their songs take on angst, ache, and the lonely sorrow of a universal outback. Were it not for that slight Aussie intonation, the music could come from any country’s dustbowl heartland or country barroom.
Here’s the aforementioned, and a few others, with thanks to Simon of Beat Surrender for passing on several of the rarities included below; though they cover but a few years in total, they show a strong diversity of style and substance, and speak well of why so many of us celebrate Kasey’s life and music. I’ve arranged the solo cuts, at least, in rough chronological order, with hopes that someday the list will stretch from here to infinite summer.
- Kasey Chambers: Better Be Home Soon (orig. Crowded House)
- Kasey Chambers: Another Lonely Day (orig. Ben Harper)
- Kasey Chambers: Freight Train (orig. Fred Eaglesmith)
(from The Captain - Bonus Disc, 2000)
- Kasey Chambers: Changed the Locks (orig. Lucinda Williams)
(live from Austin City Limits, 2001)
- Kasey Chambers: Still Feeling Blue (orig. Gram Parsons)
(from Barricades and Brickwalls, 2002)
- Kasey Chambers: Tear Stained Eye (orig. Son Volt)
(b-side from the Not Pretty Enough single, 2002)
- Kasey Chambers: Top of the World (orig. Patty Griffin)
(live, 2002)
- Kasey Chambers: Little Sparrow (orig. Dolly Parton)
(from Just Because I’m A Woman: The Songs of Dolly Parton, 2003)
- Kasey Chambers: True Colors (orig. Cyndi Lauper)
(single, 2003)
Kasey’s solo albums all come highly recommended, and they can all be purchased direct from the source along with the usual wearables. Her most recent project, an original family-made kids album called Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and the Little Hillbillies, is a bit sparse and silly, but it has its sweet moments; I can’t find a source for hardcopy US sales, but the album is available through iTunes.
But wait! There’s more! Today’s bonus tracks include a pair of collaborations, both early and more recent…
- Kasey Chambers & The Dead Ringer Band: He Thinks I Still Care (orig. Dickey Lee Lipscomb)
(from Hopeville, 1998)
- Paul Kelly w/ Kasey Chambers: You’re Learning (orig. The Louvin Brothers)
(from Foggy Highway, 2005)
…and a lone cover of Kasey’s work - there’s not that many Kasey Chambers covers to be found this side of the equator - but it’s well worth the space, both for its exquisitely bitter lyric and for the weary live interpretation which local hero Lori McKenna brings to the tune:
- Lori McKenna: Ignorance (orig. Kasey Chambers)
(from Signature Sounds 10th Anniversary Collection [out of print], 2004)
Previously on Cover Lay Down: Bill Chambers covers Mary Gauthier, and other drunkard songs.