Schneckenburger’s newest album Covers, which drops on CD June 6 but has just become available for purchase on Bandcamp, benefits greatly from her talent for deep study, revealing unplumbed depths in the transformative yet true reconstructions of a diverse set of songs that define the various radio-play generations that arose in the second half of the 20th century. But like many of her “new folkscene” compatriots, Schneckenburger also knows how to use the space between notes to her advantage – both the silences, and the resonant echoes as notes fade – and here this means heavenly, luscious transformations of songs otherwise known through the distinctive voices of Jim Croce, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Tom Waits, Stephen Merritt and more.

Sensitive without sentimentality is a tough balance to find, but with deceptively simple settings, clear-as-a-bell fiddle strains and soundscapes, and a warm alto, Schneckenburger makes it seem effortless. The result is a potent mix, bright and soaring and sweet, that crosses genre borders from Americana and folk rock to traditional and contemporary folk. As a bonus, Aoife O’Donovan, bassist Corey DiMarino, and cellist Tristan Clarridge sing and play on several tracks, making this surprisingly sparse and airy album the closest thing we’ll get to a Crooked Still reunion for a while; other guests familiar to long-time readers include Ruth Ungar and Mike Merenda (who also recorded and mixed the album), and Stefan Amidon, brother of Sam and founding member of new countryfolk band The Sweetback Sisters. Check out two heartwrenching favorites below (plus a bonus track from tradfolk collection Song), and then head over to Bandcamp to stream the rest and download for just 7 bucks.

• Lissa Schneckenburger: Crimson & Clover (orig. Tommy James & the Shondells)
• Lissa Schneckenburger: You Don’t Mess Around With Jim (orig. Jim Croce)
  (from Covers, 2013)

• Lissa Schneckenburger: The Fair Maid By The Sea Shore (trad.)
  (from Song, 2008)

We championed deepwoods folkduo Arborea back in 2010 for their “echoey, delicate, almost nufolk sound”, and previously for their powerful contribution to a 2009 Odetta tribute, but as I pointed out to guitarist and songwriter Buck Curran when he contacted me about their newest release, anything new from this married couple is good news, indeed – and sure enough, Fortress of the Sun, which was released April 30 to honor NYC label ESP-Disk’s 50th anniversary, is a wallop to the senses, with fluid movements, abstract poetics, Shanti’s soaring vocals, and enough depth and atmosphere to drown in.

Arborea’s influences are evident in their coverage – in the past, we’ve heard them take on both Robbie Basho and Tim Buckley, and several traditional folk ballads, showing the straight line between the marginalized and primitive post-modernists and the vast potential of the old ways wrought anew. And Fortress is no exception: a spine-chilling Cherry Tree Carol and a newly-penned lyric for old Irish tune When I Was On Horseback that resets the song as a history of the death of Southern Calvary General JEB Stuart near Richmond in 1864 fit right in among a collection on the knife-edge of tradition and experimental delicacy that rivals the best of Sam Amidon, Devandra Banhardt, and other indiefolk inheritors of the Vashti Bunyan and Karen Dalton branches of the folkworld. Order it at ESP-Disk in LP or CD formats, and your digital download of all tracks will be filling your ears and soul in minutes.

• Arborea: Cherry Tree Carol (trad.)

• Arborea: Blue Crystal Fire (orig. Robbie Basho)
  
  (from We Are All One, Under The Sun, 2009)

• Arborea: Phantasmagoria In Two (orig. Tim Buckley)
  
  (unreleased single, 2009)

• Arborea: This Little Light Of Mine (Harry Dixon Loes)
  (from Beautiful Star: The Songs of Odetta, 2009)

• Arborea: Wake Up Little Sparrow (arr. Ella Jenkins)
  (from Wayfaring Summer, 2006)

Our 2011 full-length feature on the folkier side of Eef Barzelay was a near inevitability, given the oddly broken tenderness with which the former leader of indie band Clem Snide had turned to the work of such artists as Christina Aguilera and Eddie Money since breaking up the band after after an ill-fated post-9/11 tour left him disillusioned with the industry; later that year, we named his under-the-radar EPs covering Journey and The Transmissionary Six the Best Tribute EPs of 2011, citing their ragged, heartfelt solo interpretations, and celebrating the way the latter collection provided an entry into the work of the obscure duo through coverage, and we’re happy to report that the Wayback Machine has all songs from both features linked above still live for your downloading delight.

But although nominally recorded under the old band moniker, the Israeli-born singer-songwriter’s recent pursuit of solo fan-funded coverage continues to focus and mature, and nothing provides better evidence than the surprisingly cohesive flow that takes us through Fan Chosen Covers, Pt. 2, a name-your-price collection built on songs chosen and funded individually by donors released April 30 on Bandcamp. From the almost medieval drone of All Tomorrow’s Parties to the plainspoken simplicity of Carole King & Gerry Goffin classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, the well-ordered sequence offers a journey through angst and pain into peace and possibility, with pensive, newly deconstructed takes on everything from the Indigo Girls, Leonard Cohen, Neil Diamond, Paul Young, and The Church in the mix. Even a slightly tongue-in-cheek version of the theme song to Welcome Back, Mr. Kotter barely disrupts the flow of earnestness. And the new melody Barzelay has written for Bonnie Raitt tearjerker I Can’t Make You Love Me is a revelation.

Email Eef if you want to commission a cover of your very own for a very reasonable rate, or just enjoy the fruits of other fan’s requests vicariously over at Bandcamp after checking out the samples below. And if you do download, remember to give a few bucks in return, if you can: the fan-funded model only works if those who can, do.

• Clem Snide: All Tomorrow’s Parties (orig. Velvet Underground)
• Clem Snide: I Can’t Make You Love Me (orig. Bonnie Raitt)
• Clem Snide: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (orig. The Shirelles)
  (from Fan Chosen Covers 2, 2013)

As we’ve noted here before, the shift from records to digital media in the past decade has led to more fleeting affection for songs and artists, over-collection, and a tendency to shuffle – all listening and archival behaviors which many have cited as a death knell for the album. But Americana singer-songwriter Nell Robinson seems to have either missed the message, or is determined to push back against the modern. Her 2011 concept album On The Brooklyn Road, which we featured back in July of 2011, raised the bar for personal and historical exploration on a grand scale, impressing us with its perfect balance of classic country covers, sepia-toned originals, and octogenarian interview clips. And her ongoing work with guitarist Jim Nunally and others channelling the stories of soldiers with music “from the Revolutionary War to the present, interwoven with 250 years of letters, stories and poetry from Nell’s Alabama family,” offers an equally powerful experience, holistic and whole, unifying the soldier’s plight across time and space.

Now Nell and Jim return with a tribute to the garden, a lighter but no less substantive subject, and unsurprisingly, though short and sweet at 13 tracks and 33 minutes, the duo project is no less comprehensive, from its plant-and-grow seed packet CD inserts to the breadth of darkness and light channelled through the sheer joys of warm sun and wind and rain, and the metaphors of dirty hands and growth, homestead and harvest. Their voices blend like old friends on a backporch, with fingerpicking that dances and an old-timey twang that invites a smile, and shades of everyone from to Kate Wolf and Patsy Cline to The Louvin Brothers and Bill Monroe himself in the echoes that linger. And to our joy, in among the originals on House & Garden, the pair channels Dolly Parton and George Jones with such grace and gentle gravity, the old songs fitting in snugly like well-curated heirloom varietals among the new blooms and the tall, cool grasses. A bounty indeed.

• Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally: Old Old House (orig. George Jones)
• Nell Robinson and Jim Nunally: My Blue Tears (orig. Dolly Parton)
  (from House & Garden, 2013)

• Nell Robinson: One Morning In May (trad.)
  (from Rose Of No Man’s Land, 2012)

• Nell Robinson: Turn Your Radio On (orig. Albert Brumley)
  (from On The Brooklyn Road, 2011)

Back in the New England scene, Boston-based band Joy Kills Sorrow – one of our favorite stringfolk bands here at Cover Lay Down, helmed by Berklee grad Emma Beaton, one of our favorite folk voices, and with new members with some serious chops on acoustic guitar and stand-up bass since we last mentioned them here – releases a grand teaser of a Postal Service cover this week as a possible leading indicator of a shift in sensibilities towards an even more raucous Americana sound on their upcoming EP Wide Awake, due to drop June 4 on preeminent local label Signature Sounds. As I noted on our Facebook page late last week, I tried taping a live version of this high-energy acoustic stringband take on Such Great Heights last summer at a bluegrass fest, and failed due to crowd noise. Happily, the newly-released version is perfectly clear and crisp, a bouncy early promise of summer delight sure to thrill fans of Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers. Can’t wait to hear the whole EP!

This weekend, we’re all in a production of The Sound Of Music; I’m actually completing this as I sit backstage waiting for my cue. Today’s feature is especially fitting, then, as it acknowledges my distraction while including a beautiful cover of Edelweiss to honor the work. Look for another older post featuring songs based on the works of Shakespeare this summer, when I’ll be one of three actors in a Shakespeare in the Park production of one of my favorite pieces, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged.


I was one of those arty middle-class music-and-theater kids – you know, the ones who spend their free periods in the band room, stay after school to paint sets, seem utterly disconnected from the mass media-driven marks of popular consumer culture, and demonstrate a complete and utter lack of coordinated ability in running shorts.

But it wasn’t just desire or common interest that kept me there. Natural talent, a strong ear, and an ADHD sufferer’s tendency to misplace my instrument had led to formal voice lessons and private choruses as a child (lose your clarinet, and mom gets pissed; lose your voice, and it comes back on its own). From there, I found myself on stage, and until I discovered that teaching could provide the same inner thrill, I fully expected to spend my life at its center, singing under the spotlight.

Thanks to this combination of talent, training, and opportunity, my adolescence was marked by more than just solos in the school chorus and lead roles in the high school play. Sure, I played Pippin in Pippin in my freshman year, losing my virginity to one of the older chorus members a few hours before opening night, but I also missed a lot of school in those years, thanks to active engagement in several major production companies in and around the Boston area before I cleared middle school. I even spent a late eighties summer at the Boston University Theater Institute, dressing like a Chorus Line extra, staying up late with the next generation of aspiring stars, burning through showtunes, improv exercises, Tennessee Williams monologues, and obscure Brecht/Weill operettas while my schoolmates got sunburned on the fields at soccer camp.


If the Internet is to be believed, many students growing up in the arts and theater crowd ultimately hew close to musical theater in their adult lives, finding preference and even pleasure in the songs of the stage. But for me, the theater was merely a means to an end – a love affair with the self, a mechanism for being at the center of attention, and a route to popularity and fame.

Though the stage was a place where I could shine, on my own time, as I’ve noted here before, my tastes ran towards the radio, the rising grunge and alt-rock movements, and the vast LP stacks of an audiophilic father heavy on the blues, jazz, folk and country. My mother’s small collection of original cast recordings of South Pacific, The Sound Of Music, and My Fair Lady may have been an endcap in our record cabinet, but just as my father never turned to those records, so did I eschew them, and groan alongside him when they came out of their sleeves for the occasional holiday.

As a result, though I recognize much of the canon of Broadway musicals – from Gershwin to Porter, Gilbert & Sullivan to Rogers & Hammerstein – unlike, say, the Top 40 of the eighties, or the East Coast alt-grunge movement, the genre does not interest me much as a fan or collector. To me, the Broadway songbook is something to sing, not something to listen to. To each his own, I guess.


In many ways, musical theater is the opposite of folk. The staging is formal; the audience is distant. The performers wear make-up, and are not themselves. And the distinct origin of song, lyric, and performance are clear, though attributed authorship is generally eschewed in favor of the shows from whence such songs came to us.

Where folk connects audience and performer within a complex of cultural feedback and communality – a sharing strategy which prioritizes emotional accessibility over pitch-perfect performance – as an ideal, the nuances of show tune performance are grand and showy, thanks to the trappings of character and grand narrative which underlie the very nature of theatrical production. Hearty where folk is delicate, melodramatic where folk is honest, stylized where folk is organic, show tunes don’t just come from a different part of the culture than folk music – they come from a very different place in the heart and the mind than the music we find and feature here.

Yet as a strand of the popular, the songs of the stage and screen quite often find their way into the folkways – most commonly via that melting pot of the popular, The Great American Songbook. Coverage, as such, is not uncommon, though it is rarer in the world of the solo singer songwriter than, say, the smoky realm of pop, jazz or blues vocalists – more common, even, for folk musicians to “go pop” or “go jazz” with these tunes, than for them to truly lend their folk sensibility to the popular songbook of musical theater.

But when it happens, it’s a beautiful thing. Given the difference in style and function between the two forms, the folk approach to the songs of Broadway and beyond tends towards the transformative, as the songs are localized, closing the vast gulf of spectacle which the stage mandates, replacing scale with intimacy. And so, as in coverage writ large, the song is born anew, with new meaning.

Here’s a broad set of coversongs, timeless and up-close, with a post-millennial focus, to help you see what I mean.

• Rosanne Cash: Wouldn’t It Be Loverly (orig. from My Fair Lady)
  (live from KCRW, 2006)

• Vic Chesnutt & Liz Durrett: Somewhere (orig. from West Side Story)
  (from The “Somewhere” Compilation, a rarity from TIAA-Cref’s ad campaign, 2005)

• Vikesh Kapoor: Mack The Knife (orig. from The Threepenny Opera)
  (from Newspress Scare 7″, 2009)

• Mark Kozelek: Send In The Clowns (orig. from A Little Night Music)
  (from The Finally LP, 2008)

• Pura Fe: Summertime (orig. from Porgy & Bess)
  (from Hold The Rain, 2007)
• Colin Meloy: Summertime (ibid.)
  (from Colin Meloy sings Sam Cooke, 2008)

• Dar Williams: Midnight Radio (orig. from Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
  (from Promised Land, 2008)

• Serena Ryder: Good Morning Starshine (orig. from Hair)
  (from If Your Memory Serves You Well, 2006)

• Daisy Mayhem: Bushel And A Peck (orig. from Guys and Dolls)
  (from Ranky Tanky, 2010)

• Dolly Parton: I Get A Kick Out Of You (orig. from Anything Goes)
  (from Little Sparrow, 2001)

• The Honey Trees: Edelweiss (orig. from The Sound of Music)
  (demo recording, via MySpace, 2008)

• Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule: Blue Skies (orig. from Betsy)
  (from Duets II, 2004)

• Peter Mulvey: Our Love Is Here To Stay (orig. from The Goldwyn Follies)
  (from Letters From A Flying Machine, 2009)

Bonus Repost Tracks (2013)

• The Lemonheads: Frank Mills (orig. from Hair)
  (from It’s A Shame About Ray, 1992)

• Martin Simpson: Brother Can You Spare A Dime (orig. from New Americana)
  (from Purpose & Grace, 2011)

• Lavinia Ross: Millworker (orig. from Millworker)
  (from Keepsake, 2003)
• Emmylou Harris: Millworker (ibid.)
  (from Portraits, 1996)

• Mark O’Connor: This Can’t Be Love (orig. from The Boys From Syracuse)
  (from Heroes, 2003)

• Peter, Paul & Mary: September Song (orig. from Knickerbocker Holiday)
  (from Lifelines, 1995)

Cover Lay Down publishes new coverfolk features and multisong sets twice a week thanks to the support of readers like you. As always, if you like what you hear, please follow the links above to support the artists we promote. We also accept donations, gratefully.

But although it is common for modern folk musicians to pay tribute to the early blues and country songs of depression-era radio and the early Grand Ole Opry, and to certain subgenres such as outlaw country, outside of a smaller subsection of folk artists playing on the periphery where swing, honky-tonk, and bluegrass elements are second nature, they don’t always acknowledge their debt to the Nashville strains of modern country music, even in those subgenres which arose simultaneous with the revival movements.

Enter George Jones, a Texan by birth who found voice in the be-suited Nashville crowd in the late fifties, and never left, even as country began to branch out into country rock, outlaw county, and rockabilly forms. With an identity closely tied to his alcoholism, a hard-livin’ attitude which caused him to miss no small share of his own shows, a penchant for overspending and lawn tractor accidents, and four wives – including a stormy “country couple” pairing with country icon Tammy Wynette at the height of his career which produced at least one seminal album – Jones lived the country life, and the way he channeled this life into music was duly celebrated in the sixties, seventies, and eighties by peers and critics who saw him pour heart and soul, hardship and struggle into his music as he did that daily life.

Jones identified himself as having been pushed aside in the nineties by a move towards younger, more pop-influenced artists, and record sales alone tell us his read is accurate. But there was nothing personal in this shift. Although Jones primarily performed on acoustic guitar, both his generational perspective and the country band-driven and orchestrated elements he favored in his recordings placed him squarely in the same camp as other true-blue Nashville-era artists of his time and place, from Johnny Paycheck to Charlie Daniels, and their audience aged with them as the world changed.

But the emotional core of his songwriting resonates nonetheless. And that inimitable voice – sad and pensive, soulful and sweet – continues to be as recognized and recognizable as the songs he wrote and interpreted, many of which have become true-blue staples of the honky tonk jukebox.

Fittingly, when Jones passed last week at 81, it was primarily those artists who had been most directly influenced by him in the country world – both of his own generation, and relative newcomers such as Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, and Randy Travis – who stood at the forefront of tribute, recognizing their debt even as their presence acknowledges the shift in county over time. Still, with over 150 hit records in an alcohol-fueled lifetime of touring and recording, and a knack for getting to the plain-spoken heart of the sorrow and pain inherent in the human condition, even as the world moved on, it was almost inevitable that a few of Jones’ songs – both those which he wrote, and those which he made his own – would find their way into the hands of others outside of the genre.

Today, then, we explore just a few songs from that vast periphery where the genres blur, and folk meets country, in tribute to a seminal songwriter and performer whose voice and vices were hallmarks of a bygone era. From twang to stomp, from slight to sure, from folkies-gone-country to delicate singer-songwriter and indiefolk, the breadth of coverage alone offers ample evidence for a life well interpreted. Listen individually, or download the whole set as a zip file for a tribute set that’s as country as we get.

• Teddy Thompson: She Thinks I Still Care [2007]

• James Taylor: She Thinks I Still Care [1993]

• Deana Carter w/ Shooter Jennings: Good Hearted Woman [2007]

• Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell: Good Year For The Roses [2007]

• Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Kyle: You’re Still On My Mind [2010]

• The Proclaimers: (I’m Gonna) Burn Your Playhouse Down [1987]

• David Rawlings and Gillian Welch: He Stopped Loving Her Today [2007]

• Joey Harkum: He Stopped Loving Her Today [2012]

• The Sacred Shakers: Taggin’ Along With Jesus [2008]

• Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Little Boy Blue [2006]

• Dave Alvin: What Am I Worth [1994]

• Grateful Dead: The Race Is On [1981]

• Kevin So: Pass Me By [2013]

• Nick Swan: Choices [2013]

• Elvis Costello: I Still Miss Someone / The Last Town I Painted (orig. Johnny Cash / George Jones) [2002]

Like what you hear? Always ad-free and artist-friendly, Cover Lay Down shares new songsets and ethnographic musings bi-weekly thanks to the kind support of readers like you. Here’s how to do your part:

As noted last month in our three-part series on New and Impending Tributes, it’s been a great year so far for the former, with strong turn-outs taking on the songbooks of John Denver, The Everly Brothers, Tim Hardin and Nick Drake already on the books and in our hearts. But there’s some strong showings emerging in the larger world of broad coverage, too – and we’d be remiss if we didn’t give our favorites a chance to shine. And so today we bring our Spring 2013 “New & Impending” series to a close with a look at some great new collections of song unified by mood, topic, and common origin from indiefolk standby Vandaveer, Cover Lay Down favorite Hannah Read, NYC singer-songwriter Bess Rogers, and folk duo Jasonrockcity.

Pulling from the radiowaves surely sells albums: as we note in our own mandate, familiarity breeds contentment, providing an entry into craft to the mutual benefit of fan and artist alike; maximizing this potential by picking only popular songs that the average listener would know is a well-hewn path to fame through coverage. But taking on the uber-popular carries risk, too – more coverage in the ether raises the competitive bar for artists, making it that much easier for single recordings to drown in a sea of commonality, and that much harder to find new meaning in songs so broadly interpreted.

By that standard, however, the newest EP from Hannah Read and Charlie Van Kirk is a triumph of tribute. Lush and layered, flowing and stunningly clear, yet ultimately less fragile and more robust than Wrapped In Lace, Read’s last EP-length outing, the gorgeous treatments Read and Van Kirk bring to the four well-known songs on their brand new Covers EP are ethnographically and sonically unifying, exposing the clear thread that runs from Fleetwood Mac (The Chain) and Nick Drake (Riverman) to Radiohead (Atoms For Peace) and MGMT (Kids) in ways that reveal the common nuances of the popular even as they transcend the originals. Frankly, I’d pay good money for this small set; that it is being released completely free gives us ample reason to download with impunity after streaming the set below.

Risks abound, especially, in taking on the Hip Hop canon as folksong: as noted in our April Fool’s day feature on Gangsta rap, the tendency here is towards irony, a stance seemingly unavoidable when enacting the tensions between often-obscene lyrics and softer, more gentle production and performance choice. And doing so as a debut is essentially unheard of, in that it could too easily categorize the band as, ironically, mere interpreters.

But new folkrock band Jasonrockcity isn’t so much a debuting duo as it is a side project of Woodenhouse Records standby Jason Applin of harder-rocking post-folk indie bands Union Starr and Damn Damn Patriot and experimental-folk singer Debbie Brown. And perhaps this is why the pair transcends these potential pitfalls with aplomb in Gold Digger & Other Hip-Hop Joints of Distinction, an EP due mid-May from Woodenhouse that reconstructs originals from Missy Elliot, N.E.R.D, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys and Tupac, demonstrating a keen ear towards cohesiveness and a studio sound that is as deliberate as it is successful. The atmospheric tracks that result trade the heavy beats of the originals for pulsing waves of predominantly acoustic sounds, from shimmering guitar chords to summery ukelele notes and ringing glockenspiel bells, authentically shifting the tonality of these songs into heartache and hope by bringing lovingly constructed harmonic layers to songs once sparse and stuttery without a hint of irony. The result is a true homage: alternately playful and fragile, entirely etherial, truly transformative, and totally worth our time.

Jasonrockcity: California Love (orig. Tupac Shakur)

Jasonrockcity: Lapdance (orig. N.E.R.D.)

With just three albums and an EP of original work on the market since he began performing in 2006, Mark Charles Heidinger, the core guitarist, arranger, and singer-songwriter behind Washington, DC-based alt-folk project Vandaveer, has already made his name on the ragged leading edge of the modern indiefolk movement. And we trust his ability to handle the old intrinsically, having features his work twice here on the blog: after a hauntingly beautiful 2008 take on Leonard Cohen in Teach For America benefit covers project Before The Goldrush, and a version of Long Black Veil on SpliceToday’s 2009 folk mix The Old Lonesome Sound.

Taking on an entire album of murder ballads is no stretch for Heidinger and co., and Oh, Willie, Please, the album that results, doesn’t disappoint, offering a dark indiefolk survey of the canon, bringing it into the modern with handclaps, banjo, piano and bowed strings much as Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer’s recent survey into the Childe Ballads found nuance anew in the old songs of the folkstream. Leading single Pretty Polly is an apt indicator, with a driving urgency that builds to breathlessness and ruin; the collection, which drops April 30, promises more of the same, with takes on familiar and obscure songs from Down In The Willow Garden to Poor Edward and Omie Wise; stream the whole thing at Relix, and then pre-order from Vandaveer directly in digital or CD formats.

Vandaveer: Pretty Polly (trad.)

Bonus Tracks:

• Vandaveer: Long Black Veil (orig. Lefty Frizzel) [2009]

• Vandaveer: That’s No Way To Say Goodbye (orig. Leonard Cohen) [2008]

Finally, Brooklynite songstress Bess Rogers‘ new cover series Songs Other People Wrote only has one song in it so far, making it a bit early to be able to comment on its cohesiveness or its coverage. But Gin Blossoms cover Found Out About You is a perfect beginning: a song hardly covered yet eminently familiar, reconstructed as a fluid, soaring combination of Americana and contemporary popfolk elements, radio-ready and sure to make a splash. We’re eagerly awaiting next month’s song. And given Bess’ previous forays into the world of coverage on these pages, her sweet duet recording of Everly Brothers classic with frequent touring compatriot Allie Moss last year, and her ongoing work with Ingrid Michaelson and others on tour, we’re sure to love it, too.

Bess Rogers: Found Out About You (orig. Gin Blossoms)

Bonus Tracks:

Bess Rogers & Allie Moss: Bye Bye Love (orig The Everly Brothers)

• Bess Rogers: In My Life (orig. The Beatles) [2011]

Cover Lay Down shares new coverfolk finds and feature sets biweekly on the blog…but our love for coverage doesn’t end here! Like us on Facebook to ensure frequent updates from the intersection of popular song and folk coverage throughout the week – including an incredible take on The Lumineers from an amazing young sister act, and – coming tomorrow – Sarah Blacker’s new and exclusive cover of Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy, recorded by yours truly live in concert Friday night!

Indeed, one of Cortese’s great strengths as an artist is her willingness to build each new project from the ground up, letting each incidence find its own voice anew, with partners or in solo guise. As such, Cortese’s solo work, and her legendary collaborations with Jefferson Hamer, indietrad stars Aoife O’Donovan and Sam Amidon, pubfolk band Session Americana, Michael Franti, Pete Seeger, and numerous fellow fiddlefolk have run the gamut from sparse singer-songwriter to full-bore tradfolk, modern folk rock and folkpop, and chamberfolk, making for a surprisingly diverse canon for such a young musician.

Cortese’s newest project Into The Dark, which drops today, finds her performing and touring under her own name with a chamberfolk trio of equally adept stringplayers – cellist Natalie Haas, and Brittany Haas and Mariel Vandersteel on fiddles – plus plenty of special guests, and the results are sublime: hearty vocals over rich, poppy layers of fiddlefolk, kickdrums, and harmony that make the heart sing and the feet ache to move, with a contemporary mix of traditional, classical, and indie elements that speak to Cortese’s easy confidence at the crossroads of what modern folk is, and can be, at its best. Her promotional tour will take her from coast to coast over the next few months, with shows in NY, VT, ME & MA in the week ahead, and I’m thrilled to note that it will include a stop this Friday in The Parlor Room, a hip, intimate folkvenue recently established by Signature Sounds founder Jim Olsen in the heart of Northampton, with tickets still available as of presstime.

Here’s a pair of exclusive tracks to whet your whistle for the tour and album – a Laura Veirs cover from Into The Dark, and another trickle from that secret Kickstarter covers EP granted to a hardy few who gave to make her last album happen – plus a few previously-posted favorites to remind us of just why Laura Cortese remains atop our list of perennial favorites here at Cover Lay Down. Check ‘em out, hit up Laura’s website for tour dates, and purchase Into The Dark today.

• Laura Cortese: Life Is Good Blues (orig. Laura Veirs)
  (from Into The Dark, 2013)

• Laura Cortese: Boulder To Birmingham (orig. Emmylou Harris)
  Laura Cortese: Take It Easy (orig. The Eagles / Jackson Browne)
  (from Kickstarter Covers, 2012)

• Session Americana w/ Laura Cortese: Love Changes Everything (orig. Amy Correia)
  (from Love and Dirt, 2012)

• The Poison Oaks: Tragedy (orig. Dave Godowsky)
  (from Pine, 2011)

• Laura Cortese: I Feel It All (orig. Feist)
  (from Simple Heart, 2011)

• Laura Cortese & Jefferson Hamer: A Song For You (orig. Gram Parsons)
  (from 2 Amps 1 Microphone, 2010)

• Laura Cortese: Greasy Heart (trad.)
  (from Acoustic Project, 2010)

• Laura Cortese: Just Like Heaven (orig. The Cure)
  (from Even The Lost Creek, 2006)

As in past years, I’m a bit woozy today after yesterday’s all-day drive up the East Coast from North Carolina. My head still swims with the sights of barbecue joints and crabcake stands, and roadside shacks where one can get smoked ham and sausages, local peanuts, and fireworks to celebrate it all.

James Taylor likes Massachusetts, too. And by the time I wrote the original feature below in 2008, I’d already been promising myself a feature post on good ol’ JT for ages. What better way to celebrate our triumphant return from a week in the Carolinas than with a resurrected 20-song megapost on the coversongs of this incredible singer-songwriter plus a 10-track Single Song Sunday bonus set of You Can Close Your Eyes – my favorite James Taylor composition? And so, ladies and gentlemen: James Taylor, Massachusetts resident and one-time North Carolina transplant.

Born in Boston, James Taylor spent his adolescence in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father was Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. But the family retained strong ties to Massachusetts, summering in Martha’s Vineyard; James attended boarding school at Milton Academy, and when he struggled with depression in his early adulthood, he headed for McLean’s Hospital, a stately suburban instititution just outside of Boston where I remember visiting one of my own friends in the last year of high school.

Though he has since lived in California and London, and though his signature voice retains the barest hint of southern twang under that clear-as-a-bell blueblood bostonian accent, like me, Taylor has always returned to the Massachusetts he loves. Today, he lives about thirty miles west of here, in the Berkshires, just on the other side of the Adirondack ridge. And he retains strong ties to his beloved Martha’s Vineyard, performing there each summer, sometimes with Ben and Sally, his children by ex-wife Carly Simon, who is also a Vineyard resident.

Beyond our shared love of the beaches and woods of Massachusetts, there’s something immutably local and authentic about my experience with James Taylor. My childhood understanding of and familiarity with folk music as a genre and a recorded phenomenon was primarily driven by a strong record collection at home, but my experience of acoustic music as folk – as something singable and sharable and communal – was peppered with young camp counselors who had learned their guitar licks from the radioplay of the day. For me, Fire and Rain will always be a song for campfire singalongs, one which helps me come to terms with the bittersweet and constant state of being both in good company and away from home.

Too, James Taylor was my first concert, and you never forget your first. I remember lying on the summer grass at Great Woods (now the Tweeter Center), looking up at the stars and letting the wave of Fire and Rain wash over me. I remember peering at the stage and recognizing the way James smiled at us, at bass player Leland Sklar, at the song itself as a kind of genuine communion, one which flavored the performance with something valid and universal.

Because of that night, and the organic songs-first-performance-afterwards way I came to it, James Taylor, for me, is the standard by which I measure the authenticity of folk performance. That so many shows have not met that standard since then is a tribute to both Taylor’s gentle nature, and his way with song and performance.

James Taylor’s voice is unmistakable, almost too sweet for some, and he doesn’t fit my every mood. His loose, white-man’s-blues guitar playing is better than most people give him credit for, but it is often downplayed in his produced work. But in the back of my mind his songs are a particular form of homecoming, one intimately tied to summer song and simple times outside of the world as we usually live it. And when I sing Sweet Baby James or You Can Close Your Eyes to my children at night, there’s a part of me that’s back on that summer lawn, letting the music reach a part of me that cannot speak for itself.

We’ll have a few choice covers of Taylor’s most popular in the bonus section of today’s megapost. But first, here’s a few of the many songs which Taylor has remade in his own gentle way over the years: doo-wop standards, sweet nighttime paeans and lullabies, hopeful protest songs, and others.

Though James Taylor does have his pop side, this isn’t it. You’ve heard ‘em before, so I’ve skipped the covers which Taylor has made his own through radioplay over the years — including Carole King’s Up On The Roof and Marvin Gaye’s How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) — though I did keep a live version of Handy Man in the mix, and thought it worth trying the newer version of You’ve Got A Friend from Taylor’s stripped-down favorites recording One Man Band. I’ve also skipped his lite pianojazz ballad version of How I Know You, from the Aida soundtrack, and the vast bulk of his two recent saccharine-sweet covers albums: it’s not folk, and it’s not my thing.

Instead, by presenting a selection of Taylor’s rarer and lesser-known coversong all at once, it is my hope that the diversity of the source material here allows even the most jaded of us to come to what is too-often dismissed as Adult Contemporary pablum with new ears, attuned to more subtle differences of tone and undertone — to explore and even collapse the distance between bittersweet and tender, longing and acceptance, home and homesickness, which continues to make James Taylor worth listening to, and celebrating.

• James Taylor: A Change is Gonna Come (orig. Sam Cooke)
  (performed on The West Wing, 2004)

• James Taylor: In My Life (orig. The Beatles)
  (live on the BBC, 2010)

• James Taylor: Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm (trad.)
  (live in New York, 2012)

• James Taylor: Walkin’ My Baby Back Home (Turk/Ahlert)
  (from Hourglass, 1999)

• James Taylor: Second Star To The Right (orig. Disney)
  (from Stay Awake: Interpretations of Music from Disney Films, 1988)

• James Taylor: You’ve Got A Friend (orig. Carole King)
  (from One Man Band, 2007)

• James Taylor: Suzanne (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from Covers, 2008)

• James Taylor: She Thinks I Still Care (orig. Dickey Lee; pop. George Jones)
• James Taylor: Handy Man (orig. Sparks of Rhythm)
  (from (Live), 1993)

• James Taylor: Oh, Susannah (trad.)
  (from Sweet Baby James, 1970)

• James Taylor: Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha (orig. Sam Cooke)
  (from New Moon Shine, 1991)

• James Taylor: Greensleeves (trad.)
• James Taylor: On Broadway (orig. The Drifters)
  (live from the Oakland Colliseum, 1972)

• James Taylor: The Water Is Wide (trad.)
  (unknown live source)

• James & Kate Taylor: Auld Lang Syne (trad.)
  (from a CD single, 1999)

• James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Graham Nash: The Times They Are A-Changin’ (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (live from No Nukes: The Muse Concerts For a Non-Nuclear Future, 1979)

• James Taylor, Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor: Hard Times Come Again No More (orig. Stephen Foster)
  (from Appalachian Journey, 2000)

• James Taylor, Mark O’Connor et al.: Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier (trad.)
  (from Heartland: An Appalachian Anthology, 2001)

• Mark O’Connor & James Taylor: Old Blue (trad.)
  (from An Appalachian Christmas, 2011)

• James Taylor & Allison Krauss: How’s The World Treating You (orig. Louvin Brothers)
  (from Livin’, Lovin’, Losin’: Songs of the Louvin Brothers, 2003)

James Taylor’s works are mainstream, and distributed as such; his website sends us to amazon.com for purchase. As here at Cover Lay Down we prefer to avoid supporting the corporate middleman in favor of direct artist and label benefit, we recommend that those looking to pursue the songwriting and sound of James Taylor head out to their local record shop for purchase.

Not sure where to begin? Anything released between 1968 and 1974 provides the best introduction to JT’s core sound; I promise it’s folkier than you remember. Jaded folkies who stopped listening a while back might take a second look at Taylor’s 1977 release JT, or albums from the late eighties and nineties such as Never Die Young, New Moon Shine or Hourglass, which stand on their own as well-produced contemporary folk. 2007 DVD release One Man Band, Taylor’s return to a sparser acoustic sound, is an anomaly in the midst of an otherwise-AAA pop-trending career. And coverlovers who do embrace his smoother side are advised – with caveats – to at least consider his two post-millennial covers albums.

As for bonus tracks: for years, I’ve been saving the bulk of my collection of covers of James Taylor originals for a future Folk Family Feature on the Taylor family – including James, brother Livingston, sister Kate, son Ben, daughter Sally, and Ben and Sally’s mother Carly Simon. But I’ve been leaking them slowly and surely as time goes on, and the floodgates are open today. So here’s a full Single Song Sunday-sized set of covers of my favorite lullaby, from Mark Erelli’s tender bedtime crooning to William Fitzsimmons’ fragile indiefolk to a young and drunken Bonnie Raitt’s live heartbreaker. Download the zip file here, or pick and choose below.

• Carly Simon, Ben Taylor, Sally Taylor: You Can Close Your Eyes [2007]

• Shannon Whitworth and Barrett Smith: You Can Close Your Eyes [2012]

• Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs: You Can Close Your Eyes [2009]

• Brooke Fraser ft. William Fitzsimmons: You Can Close Your Eyes [2011]

• William Fitzsimmons: You Can Close Your Eyes [2008]

• Mark Erelli: You Can Close Your Eyes [2006]

• Sheryl Crow: You Can Close Your Eyes [2006]

• Mae Robertson: You Can Close Your Eyes [2007]

• The Young’uns: You Can Close Your Eyes [2012]

• Bonnie Raitt: You Can Close Your Eyes [1971]

Cover Lay Down shares new songsets and ethnographic musings bi-weekly thanks to the kind support of readers like you. Here’s how to do your part:

Today, we turn to a new subject: Concord, North Carolina natives The Avett Brothers, whose rise to fame over the past decade has represented a coalescing of neo-traditional elements from the region and beyond. Read on for a look at one of the newest bands to pay tribute to the past and present of the great state in sound and sentiment, plus a full set of covers that speaks soundly to their history and inspiration.

Early harbingers of the same modern tendency towards mixing tradfolk elements into acoustic singer-songwriter almost-rock that brought a Grammy to British-Americana band Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers – currently a five-piece formed around banjo-wielding elder brother Scott, guitar-picking younger brother Seth, and their constant third man, bass player Bob Crawford – have risen through the ranks of the indiefolk world by making intimate, self-effacing music that tears into the soul. Honest hipsters who enact the tensions between the cultural expectations of strong, silent masculinity and the deep urge to feel, their appropriately broad songbook ranges from ballads to full-blown raucous romps, each one a tip of the hat to the myriad of guises and gazes that modern men must straddle to remain whole.

Which is a big part of why fans of their more acoustic sound, with its obvious bluegrass, country, Americana and folk elements, are often startled to find that the brothers, who have been playing together since childhood, got their start in “thrashing” rock bands, which merged in the late nineties when Seth was in high school and Scott was in college, and released three albums together under the name Nemo before breaking up to pursue more traditional American musical forms, allowing what had started as a back-porch side project exploring the potential in acoustic music to become their primary outlet.

The deconstruction reveals roots that reflect their Piedmont origins, with the exploratory paths and soundscapes of hybridized forebears from proto-country banjoist Charlie Poole to early bluesman Blind Boy Fuller echoing throughout, though their own admitted influences run wider still – incorporating, as one 2007 critic put it, “the heavy sadness of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop concision of Buddy Holly, the tuneful jangle of the Beatles, [and] the raw energy of the Ramones.” And although their subsequent rise to fame has seen them shift back and forth from subtle folk-Americana to a more country rock sound, and from rougher, homespun acoustic studio origins to a recorded and highly produced modality more recently refined by inimitable producer Rick Rubin and distributed by in-house kingmaker Starbucks, their common narrative themes, and their preference for the organic, collaborative one-mic performance that supports their grounded and well-populated narratives, have been strong threads throughout a still-growing career.

In the studio, The Avett Brothers reserve their time for sensitive originals – seven albums, four EPs, and twelve years past their 2000 EP debut, not a single cover appears in their major studio release catalog. But the North Carolina natives appreciate good coverage, and clearly recognize its value as a driver of attention and affection in the post-millennial world of viral pass-along; as a promotion for their last album The Carpenter, they asked fans to take on single Live And Die via YouTube, and the result was exactly as one might expect: a series of amateur takes on the song which contained several nice interpretations and a glut of also-rans which took fairly straightforward shots at what turned out to be an almost prototypical track from the brother-led band.

More significantly, at least for our own purposes today, The Avett Brothers’ coverage of the songs of others is both legendary and equally diverse, transcending their songbook. A survey of YouTube reveals hundreds of wryly and well-chosen full-band and solo takes from radio stations, home studios, and live shows, including a large collection of tender solo living room and green room covers from Seth and Scott paying tribute to a broad set of influences – from country classics to rock and Americana standards to touching songs written and originally performed by their peers in and beyond the indiefolk borderlands.

Stripping these songs from their visual component flattens them out a bit, so in addition to a small set of too-good-to-resist favorites, we’ve included a “selected best” playlist as well, with HUGE thanks to visual artist Mike Beyer, aka Crackerfarm, who has been photographing and videorecording Avett Brothers coverage backstage, on stage, and in small on-site sessions since at least 2007; it is Crackerfarm who provides the vast bulk of our live coverage today, and there’s scores more covers and originals where that came from over at the Crackerfarm YouTube page. Also well worth sharing: The Avett’s contribution to the 2010 Starbucks Valentine compilation, a track or two from the Avett’s earliest live album, The Avett Brothers covering Dylan on Jimmy Fallon, the boys taking on a John Prine cover for 2010 tribute Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows, and Scott & Seth’s appearance as both producers and sidemen on folk-hopster G Love’s 2011 release Fixin’ To Die that boils both an old Paul Simon talkie and a Velvet Underground classic into ragged Americana glory.

• The Avett Brothers: In The Aeroplane Under The Sea (orig. Neutral Milk Hotel) [2013]

• The Avett Brothers: Hammer Down (orig. Jason Molina) [2013]

• Scott Avett: The Coo Coo Bird (trad.) [2013]

• Seth Avett w/ Bob Crawford: Operator (orig. Jim Croce) [2012]

• The Avett Brothers: One Too Many Mornings (orig. Bob Dylan) [2012]

• The Avett Brothers: The Prettiest Thing (orig. David Childers) [2011]

• Seth Avett: Angeles (orig. Elliott Smith) [2011]

• G. Love & The Avett Brothers: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (orig. Paul Simon) [2011]
• G. Love & The Avett Brothers: Pale Blue Eyes (orig. Velvet Underground) [2011]

• The Avett Brothers: I Love (orig. Tom T. Hall) [2010]

• The Avett Brothers: Spanish Pipedream (orig. John Prine) [2010]

• The Avett Brothers: I’ll Fly Away (trad.) [2002]
• The Avett Brothers: Will The Circle Be Unbroken (trad.) [2002]

Stay tuned for a weekend feature on James Taylor, who – like us – moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina and back again…followed by a return home, and a feature on new and impending EP-length coverage sure to knock your proverbial socks off!

But the differences between the two are great, as well. In fact, presenting Doc Watson and Elizabeth Cotten side by side this week makes for an interesting exercise in folk history, one which allows us to see the great diversity of the strands and influences which came together to make modern folk music in America.


Unlike Elizabeth Cotten, who came back to folk in the sixties after a long hiatus, Doc Watson (b. 1923) was always a musician, busking with his brother for pennies as a child, supporting himself and his family with his work as a piano tuner to pay the bills when he could not find paid work as a sideman. Though he worked through much of the fifties as an electric guitar player with a country and western swing band, when the modern folk scene began to crystalize in the early sixties, Doc switched over to acoustic guitar and banjo exclusively, making a name for himself as one of the best fingerpickers in the business, and finding himself in high demand on the burgeoning folk circuit.

Where Cotten is primarily known for her original songs and original rhythmic style, Doc Watson’s greatest contributions to folk music came from his source material and lightning speed. His ability to blow the socks off every other picker in the room is well known, and his work as a songwriter is honest and respectable. But as folk, his repertoire is most significant for its use of songs from the oral tradition which might otherwise have been lost. We might say that while it was Mike Seeger’s recordings of Elizabeth Cotten which saved her authentic voice, Doc Watson’s recordings and performance of the mountain ballads from the areas around his home of Deep Gap, North Carolina allow us to consider Doc a Seeger to his own people.

This is not to say that the tradsongs of Doc Watson sound anything like Cotten’s originals, stylistically-speaking. While Cotten’s fingerpicking style comes from applying banjo style to the guitar, Watson’s quickfingered picking style is the successful result of moving songs that were traditionally fiddle tunes to the acoustic guitar. Where Cotton was self-taught, Watson learned his trade through the traditional country songs of the south, and the songs of early country greats like the Louvin and Monroe Brothers.

Where Cotton ended up finding a style that sounded more like early blues musicians, Watson’s different approach and experience, plus his apprenticeship in the country and western genres, left him with a wail and a sense of rhythm that call to the same acoustic old-timey country sound that you might hear in the rougher, hippier corners of bluegrass and country festivals today.

Another way of saying this might be to point out that where Cotten shows the blues influence on folk music, Doc Watson shows the country — an influence which, despite its significance, is often the elephant in the room when it comes to folk music. His style and his “mountain music” sound hark to a time back before country and folk music had truly split off from each other, and long before alt-country bands like Uncle Tupelo, newgrass bands like Yonder Mountain String Band, old timey bands like Old Crow Medicine Show, and modern western swing folk musicians like Eilen Jewell went spelunking in the deep well of potential that lies between true country music and the post-sixties folk (and rock) music scenes.

Today, both country and folk music claim Doc Watson as one of their own, and rightfully so. Doc holds multiple Grammy awards in both the Traditional Folk and the Country Instrumental categories; Merlefest — the festival named after Doc’s son and long-time musical partner, who died in a tractor accident in 1985 — is known for attracting the best music and musicians from the intersection of folk, bluegrass, and country. But no matter what you call it, Doc Watson’s sound is instantly recognizable, powerful, and no less potent today, eighty years after it could be heard on the streets of his beloved North Carolina.

Today’s collection is a bit heavier on the tradfolk than cover lovers might ordinarily prefer. But this is no loss. Focusing primarily on the traditional folksongs Watson interpreted allows us to celebrate one of his greatest contributions to American folk music. And so, out of hundreds of possibilities, we offer a short set of great and representative tradfolk from a fifty year career, from old live recordings with Merle and early collaborators Clarence Ashley and Bill Monroe to Doc’s haunting baritone lead vocals on several beautiful early-and-late-career back-porch standards.

• Doc Watson: Little Sadie (trad.) [1971]
• Doc Watson: Shady Grove (trad.) [1975]
• Doc Watson: Little Maggie (trad.) [1976]

• Doc and Merle Watson: Cuckoo Bird (trad.) [1977]
• Doc and Merle Watson: The Train That Carried My Girl From Town (trad.) [1974]

• Doc Watson Family: Ground Hog (trad.) [1990]
• Doc Watson Family: My Grandfather’s Clock (trad.) [1994]

• Doc Watson & The Chieftains: Fisherman’s Hornpipe / Devil’s Dream (trad.) [2003]
• Doc Watson w/ The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Tennessee Stud (orig. Jimmie Driftwood) [1972]
• Doc Watson & Bill Monroe: Where is My Sailor Boy? (trad.) [1964]
• Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley: Crawdad Song (trad.) [1960]

Download the entire Doc Watson tradfolk set as a single Zip file!

JUNE 2012: When Arthel “Doc” Watson passed on to the great jam session in the sky at the end of May, the ensuing nationwide recognition for the man and his impact on our culture was inevitable. Watson is and was rightly cited for his ethnomusical bent, most particularly for how the masterful fingerpicker transformed the fiddle tunes which he heard in his native appalachia for guitar and banjo, bringing traditional songs out of the mountains and hollers into the mainstream of popular music via the folk revival of the fifties and sixties, and creating a trademark picking style out of the transformation, in a time when bluegrass, folk, blues and country were at a crossroads.

The combination of timing, talent, and treatment became the perfect platform for fame and fortune, winning him multiple Grammy awards in both the folk and country categories. And many of the classic tunes he helped spread and salvage run strong in the tradfolk revival today; there is no questioning his legacy.

But though it is his prowess with the songs of Deep Gap, North Carolina which most impacted the folkways, Doc’s true impact on the culture goes far beyond the direct line between the appalachian hills and the folk movement which NPR and others so respectfully recognized in the last several days.

A child prodigy who learned from radio as much as he did from his elders, and who spent much of the fifties playing in a country and western swing band, Doc was a prolific performer and studio musician, and his ear for the popular was equal to his ear for the local.

As such, although it is predominantly for his traditional resurrections which we hear of him today, in his many years of recording and performing, Doc focused no small amount of attention on the swinging Nashville sound, using it to channel the hits and a small handful of originals. After a lifetime achievement of over fifty albums recorded live and in the studio, in collaboration and at the helm, his vast catalog came to include a number of hits from the country charts, plus standards from Elvis to the Everly Brothers, from Broadway to Tin Pan Alley, from The Mississippi Sheiks to Mississippi John Hurt.

We covered the traditional songs of Doc Watson way back in 2008 in a Vacation Coverfolk post, when a trip to North Carolina brought us to steep in the sounds of his particular south. Here, we pay tribute to the man with a second set of song, which features Doc, friends, and family taking on the tunes of his own century. Listen, especially, for the two lullabies, recorded just after the untimely death of his son and life musical partner Merle, which mark a poignant turning point in our set below.

• Doc Watson: Sitting On Top Of The World (orig. The Mississippi Sheiks) [1961]

• Doc Watson: Nashville Blues (orig. The Delmore Brothers) [1964]
• Doc Watson Family: A Tiny Broken Heart (orig. Louvin Brothers) [1964]

• Doc Watson: My Rough and Rowdy Ways (orig. Jimmie Rogers) [1967]

• Doc Watson: Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia (orig. Jimmie Rodgers) [1968]

• Doc & Merle Watson: Snowbird (orig. Gene MacLellan) [1972]
• Doc & Merle Watson: The Last Thing On My Mind (orig. Tom Paxton) [1972]

• Doc & Merle Watson: If I Needed You (orig. Townes Van Zandt) [1973]
• Doc Watson Family: Anniversary Blue Yodel (orig. Jimmie Rodgers) [1973]

• Doc & Merle Watson: All I Have To Do Is Dream (orig. The Everly Brothers) [1979]
• Doc & Merle Watson: Got The Blues (Can’t Be Satisfied) (orig. Mississippi John Hurt) [1979]

• Doc & Merle Watson: Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (orig. Bob Dylan) [1981]

• Doc & Merle Watson: St. Louis Blues (orig. W.C. Handy) [1985]
• Doc & Merle Watson: Stormy Weather (orig. Ethel Waters) [1985]

• Doc Watson: Prairie Lullaby (orig. Billy Hill) [1994]
• Doc Watson: My Little Buckaroo (orig. Dick Foran) [1994]

• Doc Watson: Heartbreak Hotel (orig. Elvis Presley) [1995]
• Doc Watson: Walking After Midnight (orig. Patsy Cline) [1995]

• Doc Watson & David Grisman: Summertime (orig. Abbie Mitchell) [1997]

• Del McCoury, Doc Watson, And Mac Wiseman: Live And Let Live (orig. Wiley Walker & Gene Sullivan) [1998]

• Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Ricky Scaggs: The Storms Are On The Ocean (orig. The Carter Family) [2003]
• Doc Watson: Tennessee Stud (orig. Jimmie Driftwood) [2003]

Download the entire Doc Watson post-Appalachian covers set as a single Zip file!

As you can see from the diverse source years listed above, Doc’s catalog is especially prolific; long-standing official website Doc’s Guitar has the comprehensive discography, and it’s a bit overwhelming. If you’re new to his sound, and want to begin a collection, purists tell me the best place to start for the older stuff is Smithsonian Folkways. Also recommended, in recognition of Record Store Day this coming Saturday: head to your local record store and, after searching fruitlessly for sections labeled “Traditional Folk” or “Traditional Country”, ask for any of the above-noted disks by artist and year.

Earlier this week, Volumes 1 and 2 of our series took on songs whose titles mention the Carolinas, and a tribute to the songs of Elizabeth Cotten. Today, we present a slightly modified tripartite feature on the Carolina Chocolate Drops: a Carolina Coverfolk set originally posted in 2009, and postscripts from both a 2010 multi-artist feature that acknowledges their last album together before the original trio splintered off to become the quartet currently touring under the moniker, and a 2012 check-in which acknowledges the changes to personel and sound which resulted from that transformation.


APRIL 2009: There are two ways to learn music, really: by formal study and by direct transmission. The vast majority of musicians these days learn through the former method, a mixed bag of training, recorded music and noodling, balancing their books on a combination of heart and chords, songbook and soul.

There’s nothing wrong with this, per se: originality, after all, comes of such ownership, coupled with a sense of creation. Indeed, the folkworld thrives on such evolution, depending as it does on a connection to an everchanging culture. Those of us who love modern confessional and coffeehouse folk, not to mention the myriad hybrid forms which have emerged over the last few decades, appreciate the way music stretches and evolves in the hands of such practitioners.

But the transmissionary model isn’t dead. Just as there are audiophiles who insist on the scratchy authenticity of their original 78s, there are still folk musicians who believe that to truly become part of an authentic tradition of music, one must learn the trade authentically, too. From blueswoman Rory Block to Kentucky Appalachian Brett Ratliff, such modern followers of the folkways eschew records and scales, and look to the older ways, seeking out the ancient progenitors of their forms to listen and play along, learning the scratchy, earthy sounds and songs from their elders as if through osmosis.

The result isn’t generally polished, but that’s the point. Instead, such performers tend towards a raw sound, rich in feeling but often sparse in instrumentation, which favors emotional impact over consistent tempo. There’s no gloss here, only timelessness. And folk needs such old blood, too, lest it evolve so far it becomes unrecognizable; lest we lose touch with our origins, and forget that without the old ways to refer to, we cannot have them to reinvent.


Writ large, the Piedmont or “East Coast” blues emanates from a vast swath of rural East Coast America; popular in the early days of recorded music, from the twenties to the forties, its most famous tracks, such as Blind Boy Fuller’s 1940 recording of “Step It Up & Go”, sold as many as half a million copies to blacks and whites alike. Generally, the ragtime-based fingerpicking style which characterizes the once-popular African-American dance music is located as far North as Richmond, VA, and as far south as Atlanta, though of course the emergence of records helped spread the sound much farther in its heyday.

The rediscovery of acoustic blues by folk fans in the sixties brought the music back into the mainstream, bringing many artists out of hiding and into the festival circuit, where they began to trade licks. Today, the Piedmont style and its repertoire can be found in the modern playing of many formally trained folk musicians, from Leo Kottke to Paul Simon.


Modern inheritors of the Piedmont sound, the founding members of “African American string band” Carolina Chocolate Drops may have found each other through the newest technology — two of the three met in a listserv and chatspace for Black banjo fans and players — but they picked up their music the old way, seeking out the oldest surviving members of the Piedmont style, learning at the feet of fellow North Carolinans Algia Mae Hinton and Etta Baker, who passed just before the ‘Drops released their debut albums Heritage and Dona Got A Ramblin’ Mind in 2007.

Learning from North Carolina musicians magnifies the Carolinan connection in this particular incarnation. Fans of Baker, Hinton, and Carolina Chocolate Drops mentor Joe Thompson of Mebane, NC, said to be the last black traditional string band player, will hear the mannerisms of each in their playing. Even their name, which recalls that of 1920s fiddle-led band the Tennessee Chocolate Drops, pays tribute to the combination of form and geography.

Mountain strings — the banjo, guitar, and fiddle — feature heavily in the Piedmont sound, though not all at the same time; these, plus a smorgasbord of washboards, jugs, combs, and other household instruments round out the Carolina Chocolate Drops performance. But in the end, the instrumentation and the process are subservient to the madcap, heartfelt, almost desperately gleeful energy of the Piedmont style itself, as reincarnated here. It’s dance music, designed to get you jumping, appealing to your basest instincts, your wildest primal hopes and fears.

Here’s a short set of samplers — a modern cover done up old style, a video link to a great version of an old classic learned from Etta Baker, a handful of traditional tracks from their albums, soundtracks, and live appearances — which, in their timelessness and raw beauty, prove the value of the osmotic process, even as they celebrate the eternal spirit of the music itself.

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Tom Dula (trad.)
• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Starry Crown (trad.)
  (from Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind, 2007)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: I Got Blood In My Eyes For You (orig. Mississippi Sheiks)
  (from The Great Debaters Soundtrack, 2007)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Cornbread and Butter Beans (trad.)
  (from Heritage, 2007)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: In the Jailhouse Now (orig. Jimmie Rogers)
  (live at the Old Town School of Folk Music, 2007)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Hit ‘em Up Style (orig. Blu Cantrell)
  (live on WDVX Blue Plate Special, May 2008; video here, and worth it)

• VIDEO: Carolina Chocolate Drops: Goin’ Down That Road Feelin’ Bad (trad.)
  (live from the Buckjump Blues Fest, 2006 — and plenty more where that came from!)

JANUARY 2010: I finally managed to catch the Carolina Chocolate Drops last weekend at the Somerville Theater, and was utterly thrilled to find they are even more stunning in concert than I had imagined. Their infectious joy in not just recovering but truly rejuvenating a whole set of found song, from old country blues and minstrel-show jazz to stringband and rural jugband classics, is evident in every smile, holler, and nuanced move on an array of authentic instruments, from quills and autoharp to banjo, fiddle, guitar, voice and bones. And as performers and ethnomusicologists, their patter and performance offers a first rate journey through the folk traditions of Black America.

New album Genuine Negro Jig will include a studio version of their infamous Blu Cantrell cover and a delicious take on Tom Waits’ Trampled Rose alongside a whole new set of resurrected stringband and old-time jazz and blues tunes done in their inimitable Piedmont style. Here’s two delightful cuts from the newest – a tightened studio release of the aforementioned Blu Cantrell cover, and a sweet, wry newly-recorded version of old stringband classic Cornbread and Butterbeans – plus a Mississippi Sheiks cover from a recent tribute, and a live cut to keep your feet moving in the meantime; for more, order Genuine Negro Jig, sit back, and wait for the magic to arrive.

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Cornbread and Butterbeans (trad.)
• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Hit ‘Em Up Style (orig. Blu Cantrell)
  (from Genuine Negro Jig, 2010)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Sitting On Top Of The World (orig. Mississippi Sheiks)
  (from Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks, 2009)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: On The Road Again (trad.)
  (live, via MySpace)

APRIL 2012: Unless you’ve been living under a cone of silence, you already know that once-featured, once-revisited African American String Band Carolina Chocolate Drops hit the ground this winter with a new release and a major change in personnel: gone is high-energy co-founder Justin Robinson, here to stay is beatboxer Adam Matta and new multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins. The result, an appropriately titled mixed bag called Leaving Eden, underutilizes all members (Matta appears on just a small handful of tracks), leaving us hoping for a second round with more cohesiveness. But the album also continues the band’s journey aptly, bringing forth a broad tracklist of songs from spare to jubilant that channel the traditions of Appalachia, turning the folk of the slavefields and the holler (and their modern equivalents) into songs at once ancient and timeless. And though the set is somewhat ragged as it yaws from slave hollers and fiddle tunes to melodic folk narratives, some of the selections here are quite stunning, with these sparse yet vastly different covers of North Carolinian songwriter Laurelyn Dossett’s title track and South African guitarist Hannes Corteze’s instrumental Mahalla serving as an apt exhibit A and B, and a bonus track from the biggest Dylan tribute ever as further evidence.

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Leaving Eden (orig. Laurelyn Dossett)
• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Mahalla (orig. Hannes Corteze)
  (from Leaving Eden, 2012)

• Carolina Chocolate Drops: Political Words (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 2012)

Like what you hear? Carolina Chocolate Drops will be appearing at several folk festivals this summer, but there’s more than one way to support the old ways; musicians can’t survive without fans who buy records, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops catalog is well worth owning. Buy direct from the artists, or head out to your local record store; both strategies help spread the word and warm the heart while keeping music small and local.

And stay tuned this week for more Carolina Coverfolk, including features on James Taylor and The Avett Brothers!

Today, we continue our journey with the songs of Elizabeth Cotten, born in Carrboro, North Carolina in 1895, who made her mark on folk music long before the sixties transformed American folk from cultural phenomenon to a true genre. It is a tribute to her indelible influence and stellar songwriting that these songs are still treasured in performance today.

Like many early folk musicians born at the turn of the century, Elizabeth Cotten had two careers: one in her early years, as a self-taught blues folk prodigy, and one later in life, when the folk revival of the fifties and sixties drove a desperate effort to recover and record the authentic sounds of early American folk forms before they could be lost to the ages. Cotten’s story of rediscovery is especially notable for its serendipity: though a few of her songs had taken on a life of their own in the hands of other blues and folk musicians during the forties, Cotten herself had quit making music for twenty five years, only to be rediscovered in the sixties while working as a housekeeper for the Seeger family.

Cotten’s strong songwriting and original upside-down “Cotten picking” guitar style, with its signature banjo-like low-string drone and alternating fingerpicking bass, would eventually result in a star turn on seminal disks and collections from the Smithsonian Folkways label, many culled from home recordings made under the reel-to-reel direction of Mike Seeger in the nineteen fifties. The support of the Seegers and others, and the subsequent success of her first album, 1957 release Folksongs and Instrumentals, brought her onto the folk circuit, where her unique sound influenced the burgeoning folk movement, and where her songs would be heard, recorded, and passed along by the likes of Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Peter, Paul and Mary.

In the end, though only four albums of her original and traditional material were ever released, Cotten remained a celebrated member of the folk touring scene into her late eighties, winning a Grammy in 1985 for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for Elizabeth Cotten Live! a year after being named a “living treasure” by the Smithsonian. Her music continues to be celebrated today for its timeless and distinctive qualities, and for the way it speaks to a childhood among the simple folkways of the rural North Carolina south. And her influence as a songwriter, a guitarist, and an artist echoes in the work of generations.

Our original post on Elizabeth Cotten way back in 2008 featured a few covers each of two of her most familiar songs: two fragile kidfolk versions of Freight Train, which was written when Cotten was eleven, and a full set of folkvariants on the timeless Shake Sugaree, from the hearty tones of folk blues legends Chris Smither and Taj Mahal to the delicate second-wave folk field recordings of Laura Gibson and grunge-folk goddess Mary Lou Lord. To that set, we add a number of other covers of the former, and of Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie, a distinctive Cotten arrangement often mistakenly identified as traditional, made famous by Davy Graham, The Grateful Dead, and others.

• Jerry Garcia and David Grisman: Freight Train
  (from Not For Kids Only, 1993)

• Elizabeth Mitchell: Freight Train
  (from You Are My Flower, 2002)

• Brianna Lea Pruett: Freight Train
  (from Soundcloud, 2011)

• Laura Veirs: Freight Train
  (from Two Beers Veirs, 2008)

• Laura Gibson: Freight Train
  (from Six White Horses, 2008)

• Mary Lou Lord: Shake Sugaree
  (from Got No Shadow, 1988)

• Taj Mahal: Shake Sugaree
  (from Shake Sugaree, 1989)

• Laura Gibson: Shake Sugaree
  (from a priceless live hinah session, 2007)

• Chris Smither: Shake Sugaree
  (from Another Way to Find You, 1991)

• Joe Walsh: Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
  (from Sweet Loam, 2011)

• Thomas Fox: Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
  (from Our Town, 2011)

• The Deep Dark Woods: Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
  (from a Hear Ya Live Covers Session, 2011)

• Davy Graham: Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
  (from Fire In The Soul, 1969)

• The Grateful Dead: Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
  (from Reckoning, 1981)

As always, artist and album links above lead to the most authentic, honest, and local places to buy music: from the artists and labels themselves, wherever possible. The Elizabeth Cotten originals, especially, are core must-haves for any true tradfolk collector; pick up her solo albums at Smithsonian Folkways.

Stay tuned throughout the week for a lengthy treatise on James Taylor coverage, a brand-new feature on The Avett Brothers, and a piece on the work of Doc Watson, yet another North Carolina fingerpicker. Meanwhile, I’ll be sitting on the back porch, local brew in hand, watching the sun set over the sound and the North Carolina mainland, while the wild deer and the goslings root for grub in the low grass below. Y’all come back now, y’hear?