Cover Lay Down

Gee, but it’s great to be back home. And bearing gifts, including an exclusive live Beatles tribute concert, recorded this past Friday in a sunny field in Hillsdale, NY, which you’ll find just down below.

But first, the weather report:

Regular readers may remember that I’d hoped to have a Utah Phillips tribute set to share today. Unfortunately, a freak hurricane-force thunder-and-hailstorm and torrential downpour mid-afternoon on Sunday brought several major event-sized tents down, flooding roads and washing away tentsites, soaking sound equipment, and generally turning the encampment into something just shy of a post-apocalyptic landscape, bringing an early end to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival just a few hours before that eagerly awaited set could take place.

Here’s a video taken from the storm (by Coriform). If you look to the left as the camera pans, you’ll see a golf cart parked in front of a white lump — that lump is actually the flattened remains of the site crew/ice/information tent, which collapsed on me and a couple of dozen others in high wind and heavy lightning, driving us out into the hailstorm. Scary. You can also read first-hand accounts from multiple festgoers at this livejournal thread.

It is, genuinely, a miracle that no one was seriously hurt, and a tribute to all the site organizers and volunteers that we managed to get everyone out safely, and with their sense of humor fully intact. And it says what it needs to, I think, that I’m already looking forward to next year’s fest.

And now, the news: something big is happening to folk music. Despite the rocky ending, spending time at both a major bluegrass festival and a major folk festival in rapid succession over the past two weeks provided no small insight into the ways in which the musical landscape is changing, and why. I saw and heard plenty which helped me understand why many folk bloggers have recently started “going bluegrass”, for example…and plenty, too, which shed light on the funny relationship between americana and alt-country and indie music and other folk forms, something which we have spent no small amount of time describing over our few months here at Cover Lay Down.

More broadly, a look at label-run merch tables, and at other festival and coffeehouse line-ups via fest-posted programs and tour schedules, provided a decent sense of the full circuit — since who’s recording, who’s touring, and who’s headlining, is a pretty good indicator of what people are going to perceive as the core of currency in folk when the festival season dries up in late Autumn. I’ve fallen in love with the work of multiple newcomers, garnered new respect for a few more familiar faces I had previously underestimated, and decided that I still do like the narrative-laden one voice, one guitar singer-songwriter folk music which has, for the last few decades, been at the core of American folk, even if it is no longer so central as to be definitive.

In trying to identify this shift, I am especially indebted to fellow ‘casters and fans, promoters and musicians, who took the time to help me groupthink the modern folkworld, most especially Kristin Andreassen (of Uncle Earl and Sometymes Why), Lindsay Mac, and Joe Crookston, all of whom made time to chat with me about the state of music and the music business from the performer and songwriter’s perspective. You’ll hear those names come up again as, over the next few weeks, we use our continued journey together here at Cover Lay Down as a platform for exploring the current state of folk music, and how covers can help us both understand and anticipate the near future of folk.

Right now, thought, I’m still a bit shaken from the storm and its aftermath. So while I try to organize my thoughts a bit, here’s the majority of the Beatles tribute workshop, taped by yours truly on a little iPod with Belkin voice-recorder attachment from the foot of the Falcon Ridge workshop stage late Friday afternoon. I haven’t trimmed the tracks yet, so intros may be a bit long…but if you want to get a sense of what it was like to be there in the moment, this is about as good as it gets.

I’ve starred my favorites, for those who just want a sample: Anthony da Costa’s gorgeous, torn rendition of I’m Looking Through You; Joe Crookston’s mystical banjo-led take on Norwegian Wood; Randall Williams’ powerful, soaring version of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. I’d have starred Lindsay Mac’s incredible rendition of Blackbird, too, if the bass notes of her cello had not fuzzed out my admittedly low-tech recording; I’ve included her live take here anyway, as a teaser, but keep an eye open for Lindsay’s upcoming sophomore album (release date Sept. ‘08) for what promises to be a beautiful, pristine version of the song.

Beatles Tribute Workshop
Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, July 2008

• The Strangelings: A Day In The Life
• Nerissa and Katryna Nields: If I Fell
• Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: With A Little Help From My Friends
• Joe Crookston: Junk
• Anthony Da Costa: Get Back
• Lindsay Mac: Blackbird
• Randall Williams: Come Together
• Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry: Till There Was You
• Nerissa and Katryna Nields: Lovely Rita Meter Maid
• Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: All You Need Is Love
• Joe Crookston: Norwegian Wood*
• Anthony Da Costa: I’m Looking Through You*
• Randall Williams: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds*
• Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry: Eleanor Rigby

Thanks to all my guest posters, who shared such powerful words, perspectives, and song in my absence; it’s a truly wonderful thing to come home and find the place in better shape than you left it. We’ll be back Sunday with the first of several subgenre- and artist-focused posts from this year’s festbest and brightest.

The world was ripe after weeks of waiting, so we ushered in the solstice with a trip to the U-Pick farm just up the hill. One hour and seventeen pounds of sweet, deep red berries later, we staggered home bearing summer’s first bounty, our fingers stained, our knees dirty, our mouths sweet with the first fruit of summer.

Since then, we’ve eaten more than we could count, and given away a good quart or two more. My wife cut half a flat and set it in the deep freeze, sprinkled with sugar, ready for a midsummer jam session; the kids helped make a strawberry Bavarian cream pie with a shortcake crust. The rhubarb that grows wild in the front yard is looking more and more tempting by the minute. I ate a hundred strawberries, says the younger one, and though she cannot count, she’s not far off.

Around here, summer means many things: birthdays, barbecue, summer wheat beers, hot afternoon car rides to out favorite local state park swimming holes. And music festivals, of course: last week’s feature on Falcon Ridge Folk Fest (July 24-27) was the first of several; stay tuned this week for a preview of fave local bluegrass fest Grey Fox.

But the wheat beers are overeager, arriving in Spring to help us train our tastebuds for June. Music happens year-round, but like birthdays, the festivals come and go throughout. And we’re the kind of folks who take out the grill the moment the last snow fades from the earth.

Fresh local strawberries, on the other hand, mean summer is finally here. Ripe, juicy, and delicious. Dripping down our chins, staining our shirts. Summer itself, plucked fresh from the vine.

• Lawrence Juber, Strawberry Fields Forever (orig. The Beatles)
  (from LJ Plays The Beatles)

• Ben Harper, Strawberry Fields Forever (orig. The Beatles)
  (from the I Am Sam soundtrack; more Ben Harper here)
• Holly Kirby, Strawberry Wine (orig. Deana Carter)
  (via Youtube; more Holly Kirby here)
• Michelle Shocked w/ Doc Watson, Jerry Douglas, and Mark O’Connor, Strawberry Jam (trad.)
  (from Arkansas Traveler)
• Mary McCaslin and Jim Ringer, Strawberry Roan (trad.)
  (from The Bramble and the Rose)

And since the pickings are slim for strawberry covers, here’s some bonus berry/tinyfruit coversongs from the folkworld, while we’re at it:

• Bruce Cockburn, Blueberry Hill (orig. Fats Domino)
  (from Breakfast In New Orleans, Dinner In Timbuktu)

• Michelle Shocked, Blackberry Blossom (trad.)
  (as above)
• Sarah Harmer, Home Soon (The Cherry Song) (orig. Oh Susannah)
  (from the out-of-print Sweetheart Love Songs: 2004; more Sarah Harmer here)
• Colin Meloy, Cherry Tree Carol (trad.)
  (from the tour-only EP Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins; more Meloy/The Decemberists here)
• Maria Sangiolo, The Cherry Tree Carol (ibid.)
  (from Wonderland: A Winter Solstice Celebration; more Maria Sangiolo here)
• Bluehouse, I Heard It Through The Grapevine (orig. Marvin Gaye)
  (from These Days)

First and foremost, the purpose of Cover Lay Down is to spread the word about amazing artists, that we might support the future of folk music. As always, if you like what you hear, follow the links above to artist and label preferred webstores for samples, bios, tour schedules, and online options for purchase. Remember, folks: buying music from local and artist-direct sources supports diversity in the garden.

PS: If anyone knows of a good folk cover of Raspberry Beret, I’d love to hear it. (No, Hindu Love Gods is emphatically NOT folk music.)

The coversongs of Brit-folker Billy Bragg have been hovering on the edge of my consciousness for decades. His lovely, raw cover of She’s Leaving Home was the earworm on 1988’s alternative UK-band coveralbum Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father. His folk-pop work interpreting the lost works of Woody Guthrie in the late nineties reminded me of the genius of both Bragg and genre-defining alt-country musician Jeff Tweedy even as the albums brought the musicians themselves from fringe fandom to full-blown mass market appeal.

Then today, as I crested the mountain in the frigid New England winter air, our local early-morning folkshow played Bragg’s now-seminal, pained 2002 version of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Tracks of My Tears. And I knew it was time to pay tribute to the collected covers of a man who’s made the journey from punk to folk, and come out smiling, without losing his radical political heart.

Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Bragg: folksinger, cover artist, and man of the people.

Billy Bragg’s bio describes his early work as that of a one-man Clash, an electrified punker with singer-songwriter style. More generally, he is often categorized as anti-folk, though his early work is punk folk, an umbrella that includes such smashingly loud, mosh-pit bands as Flogging Molly and The Pogues. His politically charged lyrics and angry street-broken voice are known for how they speak to the plight of the working class, while making explicit reference to a political arena which is both resonant with and alien to the American ear.

Perhaps because of this tendency to ground himself in the styles and politics of the United Kingdom, for most of his career, Bragg’s work didn’t show much on this side of the Atlantic. I first heard that Beatles cover, for example, on imported vinyl brought into our home by my younger brother, who was primarily in it for the much weirder stuff.

But while it’s true that Bragg still shares an anarchist’s sensibility with his fellow folk punk luminaries, in his later years, like fellow countryman Elvis Costello, Bragg has mellowed out musically, joining forces with Wilco to pay tribute to one of the seminal authors of the great American songbook, and turning his voice, already torn from the anger of his early punkfolk days, to an almost Americana sensibility.

The combination of new sound and old credibility, of socially aware soul and mellow mature interpreter, fits perfectly into the modern post-folk world of Grammy recognition and blog cred. It says what it needs to that when no less an authority than Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora was looking for someone to write music for two albums worth of unset Woody Guthrie lyrics, she considered Bragg enough of an inheritor of the Guthrie voice-of-the-people, politically and musically, to ask him to do it.

This is Bragg’s quieter work, to be sure, though I’ve planted some of Bragg’s harder stuff in the bonus section below. The lush fiddle and plainsong treatment of Pete Seeger is more churchmusic than mosh pit; his version of When the Roses Bloom Again falls towards the country ballad side of alt-country. But listen for the yearning, the core of that politicized soul, and you just can’t miss it. Today’s set even begins with that Beatles cover, a harbinger of the softer artist to come: beautiful, broken-voiced, and unequivocally Bragg.

• Billy Bragg w/ Cara Tivey, She’s Leaving Home (orig. The Beatles)
• Billy Bragg, Jeane (orig. The Smiths)
• Billy Bragg, My Father’s Mansions (orig. Pete Seeger)
• Billy Bragg, Tracks of My Tears (orig. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)
• Billy Bragg, When Will I See You Again (orig. The Three Degrees)
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, When the Roses Bloom Again (orig. A. P. Carter)
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, Stetson Kennedy (orig. Woody Guthrie/Bragg)
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key (ibid.)

Most of Billy Bragg’s work has been rereleased since his turn-of-the-century Grammy nominations; his back catalog is an incredible journey, if you’re up for the boxset collections and compilations. But no matter whether you choose his old work or his new, buy Billy Bragg’s work direct from the source, not the megastores. It just wouldn’t be cricket, otherwise.

Today’s bonus coversongs:

• Kirsty MacColl covers Bragg’s folkpunk anthem A New England popstyle
• Jonah Matranga and Frank Turner’s indiefolk approach to A New England.
• Billy Bragg in full-on folk punk mode…
  • Covers psych-folkers Love’s Seven and Seven Is in style
  • Does an electrified version of The Smiths’ Jeane, live from The Peel Sessions

Previously on Cover Lay Down:
Billy Bragg and Wilco, My Flying Saucer (orig. Guthrie)

It took me a while to get into Dar Williams. The way she plays with the strong break between her bold lower tones and her breathy upper register is an acquired taste. Her songwriting is generally wry and poignant, but it takes more than one skim-the-surface listen to appreciate its complexity. She tends towards strong, heavy production, which attracts a younger alt-folk crowd, but can overwhelm her well-crafted, literate lyrics.

But at her best, Dar is an incredible artist. Her songwriting and her stage presence are so raw and fragile, it’s like what it must have been like to see Joni Mitchell during her Blue period. She picks distinctive, powerful voices for harmony, weaves a rich, complex tapestry to tell her strum and story. Her work is the soundtrack of my soul. Her music is listenable, mature, and strong, and it bears repeating.

Dar is flat-out incredible live. I’ve seen her half a dozen times, maybe, and she just radiates good cheer and a cute, puppy-dog-awkward stage discomfort that makes you want to root for her. When she plays Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, she always asks the field to light up their cellphones and lighters all-at-once when she does “Iowa”, and there’s that created moment where she’s just awestruck and gasping, and you cry there in the dark, for the beauty of it all.

I was hoping to find a bootlegged copy of Dar covering the Cat Stevens song Peace Train this summer on stage at FRFF with the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Alas, we’ll just have to go on without it. Happily, there’s plenty of coverlove to put forth, from the sweet, poignant Pierce Pettis cover Family to the urban popfolk ride of the Kinks’ Better Things — both of which Dar makes so much her own I didn’t realize they were covers when I first heard them. Plus great covers of Springsteen, The Beatles, The Band, Nick Lowe, Pink Floyd, and some bonus songs, as always: supergroup Cry, Cry, Cry, a cover of a Dar song by the very first artist we ever featured here on Cover Lay Down, and another cover of that Kinks song. And don’t forget to head back to last month’s archives to pick up Dar’s folkrockin’ cover of David Bowie’s Starman after you’re finished here.

• Dar Williams, Family (orig. Pierce Pettis)
• Dar Williams, All Men Are Liars (orig. Nick Lowe)
• Dar Williams, Better Things (orig. The Kinks)
• Dar Williams, You Won’t See Me (orig. The Beatles)
• Dar Williams, Highway Patrolman (orig. Springsteen)
• Dar Williams, Whispering Pines (orig. The Band)
• Dar Williams w/ ani difranco, Comfortably Numb (orig. Pink Floyd)
  

Dar Williams has just come out with a new live DVD, which includes a cover of the Grateful Dead song Ripple. Her management usually frowns on pre-release, so buy Live at Bearsville, and the rest of her amazing catalog, and find out for yourself how intimate and powerful Dar Williams can be.

Today’s bonus coversongs:

• Dar’s live version of Better Things, for comparison’s sake
• Fountains of Wayne covers Better Things, too
• Peter Mulvey covers Dar’s Ocean
• Richard Shindell covers Dar’s Calling the Moon
• Dar takes the lead from songwriter Richard Shindell on Cry, Cry, Cry’s cover of Shindell’s The Ballad of Mary Magdalen

John Lennon died 27 years ago, on December 8th, 1980; I was seven, and the event was meaningless. But since then, like every one of you, I’ve absorbed the Beatles canon — which means, among other things, recognizing the loss of musical potential and statesmanship that marks Lennon’s passing.

Mostly, it’s the statesmanship I recognize. Though each Beatle — both the still-going and the dearly departed — went on to a fruitful solo career after the band broke up, for me, the Beatles as a cultural phenomenon are as much more a sum of their parts as they are musically. I mean, I know the music blogosphere is full of powerful Lennon tributes tonight, but by definition music blogs promote that which you haven’t really heard yet. Ask the average non-audiophile to sing a Beatles song, and the odds are they know dozens; ask them to sing a post-Beatles song, and they might be able to mangle their way through the first verse and chorus of a radio hit or or two.

Of course we know Beatles songs; it’s not like we have much choice. Over three centuries past their break-up, it remains a cultural rite of passage to grow familiar with the works of the Beatles. But their solo work has credibility on a smaller scale. As a member of the first post-Beatles generation, I never really took to the work of Paul or Ringo, with or without bands and mates, and my sense of the genius of Harrison and Lennon was mostly a peripheral awareness that there was more there than I was seeing from a distance, that some day I might like to listen to their work a little more closely.

In many cases, it was covers that brought me to to appreciate the continued later-in-life talents of the Beatles boys for what they were: individual talents, still powerful without each other. Great songwriters live forever, in the coverworld. That there are so many wonderful folk covers of the songs of the Beatles boys, both pre- and post-breakup, says what it needs to about their individual talents.

Today, in memory and in honor, over twenty coversongs from the fringes of the folkworld, our largest post ever here at Cover Lay Down. Including stellar folkversions of songs from the solo careers of Paul, George, and John, and some signature Beatles songs generally acknowledged as primarily a product of a single Beatlesboy. Plus a second set of select covers sung by a few of the boys themselves, as a little bonus.

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

Is there really anything left to say about the Beatles? Given the covercontext, perhaps only this:

The Beatles canon is etched indelibly on the popular psyche. On one level, these are all folk songs, if only by their memetic virtue. Sooner or later they are played on every busker’s corner. And every one of us smiles and sings, faintly, under our breath as they pass by.

And one reason the songbook sticks so well in the brainpan is how simple, how elegant, how open the pages are to interpretation. Chords, lyric, tone and timbre, their mutability in the hands of even a single genre is astounding.

I have almost as many folk covers of Beatles songs as I do covers of Dylan songs. Most are excellent. Today, I’ll be using our first of what promises to be a very fruitful Covered In Folk series on the Fab Four to introduce a few deserving folksingers and coversources we just plain hadn’t heard from yet. For some reason, today’s songs all begin with the letter I.

• Sam Phillips, I Wanna Be Your Man
• Alison Krauss, I Will
• The Paperboys, I’ve Just Seen A Face
• Allison Crowe, In My Life
• Nellie McKay, If I Needed Someone

That last cut, at least, is from This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. You need this record; happily, the folks who made it want to sell it to you.

The Sam Phillips cover is from a recent all-covers soundtrack to Crossing Jordan; the soundtrack is so amazing, it almost makes me wish we had television in my house. You’ll be hearing more of this disk here over the next few years, but get it now, because CD Universe has it for under 8 bucks!

Now That I’ve Found You, a collection of Alison Krauss covers and B-sides, is available direct from the Rounder Records label; it’s a great CD to start with if you don’t own any of her work.

Songwriter and mistress of coversongs Allison Crowe beat out Johnny Cash, Ben Lee, Chantal Kreviazuk and Shawn Colvin covers of In My Life at the last minute. Buy or download all Crowe’s albums via Rubenesque - her own label - and you’ll know why this Canadian youngster is one to watch for the next half-century.

The Paperboys bring in da Canadian Celtic folk-rock via CD Baby so you can bring it on home. They do a great All Along The Watchtower, too.

Today’s bonus coversong beginning with I:

• Keb’ Mo’ covers Lennon’s Imagine

I first encountered Peter Mulvey at the 2003 Green River Festival, where he appeared as part of lo-fi folk covergroup Redbird along with folk blues artist Jeffrey Foucault and his recent bride, the full-voiced Kris Delmhorst. Though at the time I was more impressed with the others, it is Mulvey’s interpretations I keep coming back to — though Delmhort’s work is sweet simplicity, and Foucault can play the blues like nobody’s business, it is Mulvey who has the versatility of the true cover artist, and the knack of bringing new meaning to a wide breadth of song.

Peter Mulvey fans speak mostly of his songwriting and guitarplay, which play off the similar strings but equally defined style of his constant sideman and collaborator David “Goody” Goodrich to create a rich slackstring sound; Mulvey’s voice falls more into the Tom Waits and Dylan camps, full of feeling but hardly melodic. As a member of Redbird, this lends a rough edge to harmonies. As a solo cover artist, though, the spare voice recasts lyrics powerfully.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Ten Thousand Mornings, a 2002 album of covers — the up-and-coming folksinger’s bread and butter — recorded live in Mulvey’s old stomping grounds: the Davis Square subway station just outside of Boston. It’s a neat concept, designed to call to his roots as a struggling busker, and it works exceptionally well: the echoes of the brick and tile underground lend an air of realism, and the trains and passersby screech and shuss, becoming part of the music, making the experience — and the songs — truly live.

It’s hard to pick just two cuts from this album, both because there’s so many gems and because there’s a surprising diversity among them, given that most are just a guy and his guitar (and his guy, and his guitar). In the end, I decided to save his best covers of folk artists for other posts, so you’ll have to wait for his amazing interpretation of Dar Williams’ The Ocean, and his Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, and Dylan covers. Two of my remaining favorites from the subway series, the second with backup from Jennifer Kimball Anita Suhanin (thanks, anonymous fact-checker!):

• Peter Mulvey, Two Janes (orig. Los Lobos)
• Peter Mulvey, For No One (orig. The Beatles)

Ten Thousand Mornings is one of many fine Peter Mulvey records from folk label Signature Sounds; Mulvey sells them directly through his website, so you know where he prefers that you buy them. And now you know why you should, too.

Today’s bonus coversongs:

• Peter Mulvey unplugs and overhauls U2’s The Fly
• Mulvey croons 1930s classic You Meet The Nicest People In Your Dreams
• Redbird make Moonglow their own