But the songwriter-specific video covers project concept seems to be peaking, with several major collections in process as we speak. Today, we present our favorite submissions from three new multi-artist coverage sets, granting us new glimpses into the songbooks of Guy Clark, The Grateful Dead, and Leonard Cohen…plus a few bonus vids we’ve had kicking around from another project with a very different focus, indeed.


The modern trend towards the slow, track-by-track leak of impending albums as distributed blog-by-blog exclusives intersects with the video cover project conceit in Old Ideas With New Friends, designed to raise awareness of Old Ideas, Leonard Cohen’s newest album, among a broad set of younger listeners by connecting his older songbook to the new, predominantly indie inheritors of his dark narrative style. You gotta admire the conceit of coverage as album promotion – it worked for Peter Gabriel and Okkervil River, after all – and though the central genre connection here is broad alternative and hipster indie, not folk, after only five installments, the inevitable crossover has produced some fine versions, with more to come from Old 97s’ Rhett Miller and The New Pornographers’ A.C. Newman, among others.

As a dubious bonus, of sorts, the project’s use of Vimeo’s precise sharing and embedding parameters show exactly how artists and labels can regain full control of the viral spread of media content without having to rely on broad-ranging, baby-with-the-bathwater law like SOPA or PIPA. Which is to say: you really must hear John Darnielle of The Mountain Goat’s sweet solo piano-driven cover of The Smokey Life, but you’ll have to head over to either Consequences of Sound or Vimeo to do it, as blog-embedding for the track is currently limited to that one major blog which managed to garner exclusive contract for first release. Luckily, after a similar short-lived period of exclusivity, the others in the project so far have now been made available to all of us. Here’s two that fit our mold.

Brandford Cox: Seems So Long Ago, Nancy (orig. Leonard Cohen)

Greg Dulli: Paper Thin Hotel (orig. Leonard Cohen)

As of the turn of the year, the official Grateful Dead page hosts The Dead Covers Project, a growing set of ‘tube-shared fan coverage – I’d use the term officially sanctioned, if it were not for the fact that, for a band which practically made its name through supporting the bootleg as a viable and supported mechanism of fan participation, the term seems fundamentally meaningless. The page will be featuring a new fan-made video every day in February, spreading the love…but in the end, like YouTube writ large, the project’s corporate underbelly hides a viable way to turn amateur status into gold: five of the videos will be “chosen” in March, and their artists’ profiles featured on the Dead’s online properties, and in the 2012 edition of the Grateful Dead Almanac, thus garnering VIP access to one of the largest music communities standing today.

Unlike other notables in today’s set, the Dead Covers project is truly amateur-oriented, with voting pushing fan favorites to the top of the home page; Dead fans being attuned to nuance in performance, the top of the list is quite good indeed, though the average Dead fan’s willingness to allow ragged recording quality after years of tape trading seems to favor interpretation over sound caliber. Still, a bit of digging after skimming the top of the list reveals hidden gems that linger, too. Here’s five favorites from the newest part of the vault.

Amal Bouhabib & Jeff Malinowski: Cassidy (orig. Grateful Dead)

Lauren Crow: Been All Around This World (orig. Grateful Dead)

JanelleVibes: Wharf Rat (orig. Grateful Dead)

Birdhouse: Here Comes Sunshine (orig. Grateful Dead)

Rob & Tom Wolfson: Deep Elem Blues (orig. Grateful Dead)

Townes Van Zandt contemporary and Red House Records recording artist Guy Clark’s been getting a heap of late-career recognition lately, thanks to This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, a two-disc set that finished January near the top of several major Country and Pop charts. But twelve-track companion piece Don’t Let the Sunshine Fool Ya: The Sin City Sings the Songs of Guy Clark over at Country-slash-Americana blog Turnstyled, Junkpiled is equally delightful, and a bit closer to the Americana and folk lines, thanks to a dozen LA musical acts that came together to pay tribute to the man and his music on streetcorners, stages, and studios, and in their living rooms.

We posted The Far West’s slow, boozy contribution to the project last week, claiming that its classic Gram Parsons vibe made it perfect for the No Depression crowd; it still remains a favorite. But these solo takes from Wic Coleman and Jackson Tanner are equally great in their own way, with a bit more of the dusty troubadour vibe which made Clark so vibrant in concert, for those of us lucky enough to have seen him perform in bare-bones form. And the full collection bears further note: if you like your folk on the country line, and you’re willing to accept a few tracks with the drums-and-bass so typical of barroom country among the more delicate, raw works, take a gander at every video over at the project page.

Jackson Tanner: Queenie’s Song (orig. Guy Clark)

Wic Coleman: She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (orig. Guy Clark)

In other cover project news: it’s not new, and it’s not focused around a single artist; its videos are not solicited, but sought out, and then filmed in a consistently intimate black and white style that has us zooming in on artists in their home environs as each one speaks into the camera, contextualizing our experience, before picking up their instrument and amazing us with raw beauty. But the continued great works from The Voice Project – a non-profit that uses its ongoing coverage chains to raise awareness for displaced women in Uganda – just keep on coming, and if you’re not a subscriber to their email blasts, thus ensuring that you don’t miss a single new video, you should be. Check out two fave vids from the project below, and then head on over to The Voice Project to browse, subscribe, donate, and fall in love.

Cillie Barnes: Million Dollar Bill (orig. Dawes)

Ben Sollee: Real Life (orig. Joan As Police Woman)

Looking for more video and streaming coverage throughout the week, including previews and bonuses from the blog and beyond? Don’t forget to check out and “like” the Cover Lay Down Facebook page!

Much of this is due to the particulars of our chosen worship setting. The UU church which we attend is in transition, with an interim minister who has my undying respect; wise, and gentle, with a knack for bringing new texts and ideas to the table, presenting them clearly and coherently, and then braiding them together to reveal the thing which we needed most of the world in that moment.

I experience her sermons as a kind of miracle of the mind, that binds my soul and body, and answers my unspoken need. Even when I am distracted by my own thoughts, her bright, intelligent prompting provides an avenue for me to come to myself with new eyes, and with a renewed determination to accept that which has been lurking in my heart and mind.

And in this case, a sermon on blessings and failures, and how we so often fail to allow ourselves to experience the joys and sadness they should bring us, has brought me back to my students.


The students I teach are ill-prepared for success. They are the product of a city that is stacked against them, a community that is in too much of a hurry to address the deep foundation issues which would support true progress, a system that is under too much pressure to make it look like things are working. They come to my ninth grade classroom with fifth grade reading skills, without the stamina to be learners for more than a few minutes per class day, with anger against me for enforcing the most basic rules, and an image of the classroom as a competitive space, where they win if they can overwhelm the lesson, or if they can sleep successfully, and thus avoid confronting their unpreparedness.

They also come, if indeed they come at all – one in five students is absent on a given day – with long histories of pitting themselves against the world, which make them almost unteachable for most of the semester, until and if we can delay the curriculum long enough to get into their hearts. Most of them are incapable of experiencing joy or sadness at all, let alone the empathy we assume is prerequisite for understanding a text. Instead, they experience only despair and bitterness, disappointment and pride – emotions they cannot acknowledge, to themselves or others, lest they appear weak, and lose the only game they know.

A few of them manage to survive and move forward, and a tiny, tiny percentage aim to thrive. But these are the minority: just 25% of students in the city where I teach even graduate from high school within four years, and it’s not hard to see why. Last week, a boy in one of my classes taunted a girl into attacking him; in the aftermath, his lack of ownership in instigating the fight was both frustrating and expected, but it was his comment that “It wasn’t a fight; she’s a girl” that reminded me just how unprepared these almost-men and almost-women are to accept even the basic conditions that we believe are necessary to help them move forward.

We do what we can for them, and sometimes more than we can afford, in an environment where each student gets just two minutes of my individual attention, if that, per day. In tiny slices of time we struggle to push our way in, to learn who they are as individuals, to identify the gaps between where they are and where the curriculum assumes they are, and construct a pathway for them that bridges their particular chasm.

But half a bridge is no better than none, and it may be worse, given that it contains so much false hope. In the end, it is our lot to hold them responsible for their actions, lest we become part of the machine that lies to them, and tells them that they are ready. It hurts to fail so many, but it would hurt more to pass them along without merit or ability, to undermine their next classes, to perpetuate the lie that a good heart, however buried and patinaed, is evidence of success.

And so many fail. Despite unanswered parent phone calls and teacher conferences full of hopelessness, long unattended after school sessions offered, a hundred new attempts at kind words and coaxing, over half of the 80 final grades I will enter into the database before the sun rises tomorrow are F’s. Of the remainder, another half are within the D range, marking their recipients as desperately unprepared academically but willing to struggle just enough to produce something that hints of promise, though probability says that not one of these 20-or-so students will pass sufficient classes this year to move on, leaving them stuck in the eternal-seeming limbo that is another ninth grade year.

Only four of my students from last term earned an A of any sort. Only six earned B’s. And of those, there are still one or two who only bothered and blossomed in my class, or perhaps one other – they liked me, but in a manner untranslatable to other teachers’ style.


How did we get from sermon to city? These things are related, somehow, though they are hard to untangle. But today, in church, as the minister read a section from Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, I was reminded that my students do not know what we taught them then, if indeed we taught them at all.

And although the time for sharing had passed, suddenly, in the middle of the sermon, I wanted to say a prayer for my students.

I wanted to light a candle for my beloved failures, curled up against the world so tightly that, like fists, all they can do is destroy.

I wanted to cry, and ask forgiveness; to say that I really did do everything there is to do, and let the feelings simply be, in the community I trust, even as I despair in the peace of my beloved wild things, who tear at me until the bell rings, and the clock runs out, and it is too late.

I wanted to, but I didn’t.

I offer it here, instead.

• The Diamond Family Archive: Here I Go Again (orig. Whitesnake) [2007]

• Marissa Nadler: No Surprises (orig. Radiohead) [2007]

• We’re About 9: Helplessly Hoping (orig. CSNY) [2005]

• Johnny Cash: Hurt (orig. Nine Inch Nails) [2002]

• The Red Paintings: Mad World (orig. Tears For Fears) [2005]

• Mark Erelli: Waiting For A Miracle (orig. Bruce Cockburn) [2005]

• Willie Nelson: Don’t Give Up (orig. Peter Gabriel) [1993]

• Amy Black: Words Fail You (orig. Kris Delmhorst) [2011]

• Kendra Morris: Can’t Tell Me Nothing (orig. Kanye West) [2008]

• Beck: Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime (orig. The Korgis) [2004]

And so, today, we bring forth an expanded set of shorties, pulled from recent Facebook posts, blogs, mailbag, and beyond. Because, as the slow but steady success of Angel Snow and so many others have shown us, the longevity and permanence that a blog can bring matter greatly, in the end. And while words in the blue-and-white slipstream fade fast from our consciousness, the depth and commitment we offer here on these virtual pages is where our heart lies.

It’s hard to avoid the inevitable comparisons to Sandy Denny and June Tabor when talking about new UK folk revivalist Josienne Clarke. But all British accent and penchant for tradfolk tropes aside, there’s something stunningly modern in the crystal-clear production she trends towards, and utterly ancient in the delicate stringwork she favors as accompaniment to her sweet, achingly controlled soprano vocals and recorders. The result is a perfect balance of both classical voice-and-guitar folk and traditional balladry, in many ways more reminiscent of John Renbourne’s quieter, more pensive work than anything. And the music is everything we might want in a folk album: delicate, crisp, subtle and nuanced, and beautiful in every tiny moment, from each full-throated opening note to a thousand lingering fades and falls.

For all that, Clarke has released but two formal albums: 2010 debut One Light Is Gone, and The Seas Are Deep, a “pay what you want” Bandcamp collection of well-loved folk songs recorded by and with multi-instrumentalist Ben Walker, and featuring apt assistance from Red Clay Halo cellist Jo Silverston on four of the nine album tracks. Walker’s production and mixing are exquisite; their take on Silver Dagger, especially, has been making the rounds of the folkblogs, even going so far as to bring songs:illinois out of semi-hiatus in mid-January. For comparison’s sake, check out mastered versions of John Riley and Black Is The Color below, fully sprung from the brand new collaboration, and then stick around for Josienne’s covers of Nick Drake, Jackson C. Frank, and Richard Thompson.

• Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker: John Reilly (trad.)
• Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker: Black Is The Color (trad.)
  (from The Seas Are Deep, 2011)

• Josienne Clarke: The Dimming Of The Day (orig. Richard Thompson)
• Josienne Clarke: Day Is Done (orig. Nick Drake)
• Josienne Clarke: Milk and Honey (orig. Jackson C. Frank)
  (via Soundcloud, circa 2011)

By changing up the rhythm of the melodic line into something more singer-songwritery, but keeping the fiddle and banjo that so traditionally lead these bluegrass and gospel standards, Upstate NY native (and Seattle transplant) singer-songwriter and experimentalist Gregory Paul‘s “old time noir” takes on Rain & Snow, Wayfaring Stranger, Little Sadie, O Death, and other traditional songs utterly transform our aural templates for the songs themselves, justifying our continued insistence that the parts of the cultural songbook which predate copyright have plenty of life in ‘em yet, and providing a powerful model for how to move the classic folkforms respectfully but firmly into the 21st century. The resultant tracks are mystical and freeing, hypnotic and haunting, challenging our preconceptions while thrilling the senses; as with other covers but moreso, they also lead us to Paul’s substantive set of original works, which tender the same tenor and tropes, ridding us of our preconceptions about what folk is and should be, even as they echo of the modern indiefolk and neo-trad movements. Found via Hearth Music, who missed it last year, too.

• Annie Ford & Gregory Paul: Rain & Snow (trad.)
  (from Lonesome Valley, 2011)

• Gregory Paul: Wayfaring Stranger (trad.)
  (from Little Black Train, 2011)

• Gregory Paul: Oh, Death (trad.)

  
  (from This Side Of The Ground, 2009)

We actually featured both Robby Hecht and Alex Brumel and Janel Elizabeth over the weekend here in these pages, as both had covered Townes Van Zandt’s If I Needed You; I had heard of Robby a bit before, since he’s been touring with Cover Lay Down faves Red Molly; Alex and Janel, who come from diverse backgrounds – he the singer-songwriter tradition, her a jazz singer’s past – fell out of the ether in the midst of the usual all-nighter that generally frames the winnowing process as I struggle to find the best and most diverse set for our Single Song Sundays.

But further pursuit of both artists in the subsequent days has revealed depths worth plumbing. Hecht’s more recent originals run from truly tender ballads to full-bore Americana folk – his original lost-love song A Reckoning Of Us is absolutely amazing, and should be played for anyone who thinks they’ve heard it all before – but his early YouTube covers are honest and warm, delightful and potent, the singer-songwriter’s heart and confidence showing through in what is ordinarily an amateur’s medium, despite low-tech, late-night videography and recording quality; as I noted on Facebook, his soft coverage of Patrick Swayze’s one and only hit single from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack is surely the best take on the song ever, bar none, even if the recording quality is ragged and a bit too low. And Brumel and Elizabeth’s Falling Slowly cover truly showcases their voices without drowning them, the low guitar more than just strumming, but carrying the undertow weight of the song, proving the worth of both their collaboration, and of the individual talents involved. Keep an eye on both artists for more as their careers continue to grow.

• Robby Hecht: I’m On Fire (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
• Robby Hecht: She’s Like The Wind (orig. Patrick Swayze)
  (from YouTube, circa 2009-2010)

• Robby Hecht: A Lonely Jew On Christmas (orig. South Park)
  (from AllDay Radio Christmas, 2010)

• Alex Brumel & Janel Elizabeth: Falling Slowly (orig. The Frames)
  (from MySpace, 2007)

I found Duncan Stagg through a random SoundCloud search for the word “cover”, which brought me five interpretations of modern popular indiefolk artists and a small set of original works. His coverage tells us what his influences are, really – two decent albeit formulaic Iron & Wine songs, a beautiful version of fingerpicking instrumental master Andy McKee’s For My Father, a warbly take on Angus and Julia Stone’s The Devil’s Tears, and this wonderful Bon Iver cover – but it’s his pinched, deliberately strained rock and roll tenor, reminiscent of Green Day lead singer Billy Joe Armstrong more than anything, that so startles me, especially when coupled with ringing guitar, lush bedroom production elements, and what appears to be overdubbed harmonies.

It took me forever to figure out that I had actually heard of Stagg before this – he’s the Bristol student whose YouTube Deer Tick cover so struck the band, they invited him on stage at the End Of The Road festival in 2010 to play along with them. But beyond that single anecdote, as with other artists we’ve featured in the past in our New Artists series, there’s very little else about Stagg himself out there – a google search reveals no such artist, the SoundCloud page itself contains nary a link; it’s possible that he’s now performing as part of a grungy pop trio calling themselves Silver Wings, but it’s hard to tell. For now, at least, the music will have to speak for itself.

• Duncan Stagg: Blood Bank (orig. Bon Iver)
• Duncan Stagg: The Devil’s Tears (orig. Angus & Julia Stone)
  (from Soundcloud/YouTube, 2011)

• Bonus VIDEO link: Andy McKee: Everybody Wants To Rule The World (orig. Tears For Fears)

I hate to copy and paste from the Facebook page itself, but in this case, I think I got it right the first time – and the repetition is especially apt here, given the topic, and the way it pushes us to consider the pace and postures of the Internet age. And so I repeat myself, by noting again that turn-around time on coverage these days is pretty fast; youth finds its way forwards faster, too. Here, with evidence of how the cycle works, is brand new 17-year old Swedish folk sensation Adna, newly signed to Despotz Records and just about to release her first single via YouTube sometime this week, who found enough time in the studio during that same session to cover one of the newest singles from equally young, equally scandinavian First Ait Kit, who made their own initial splash with a cover of Fleet Foxes on YouTube in 2008, and are now wowing the blogs with their own major label album.

• Adna: The Lion’s Roar (orig. First Aid Kit)

And finally, this just in: those who like their folk rootsy and countrified will be happy to learn that relatively new five-piece Southern California band The Far West, which formed in 2010 from the ashes of a myriad of other groups that just weren’t hitting the mark, just this minute sent me two amazing covers: a Guy Clark song recorded for Don’t Let The Sunshine Fool Ya: The Sin City Sings The Songs of Guy Clark, a brand new tribute set just being compiled over at Americana source-and-a-half Turnpiled, Junkstyled, and a wonderfully hazy, oozingly Parsons-esque country Americana waltz transformation of Roxy Music’s More Than This that quite literally blew my socks off when it hit the inbox.

Good thing I checked for last-minute entries just before I hit the publish button for today’s feature. The talent’s there in spades, but timing is still everything, guys – so here’s hoping a little extra luck keeps the momentum going. The No Depression crowd is going to LOVE this.

• The Far West: More Than This (orig. Roxy Music)
  (exclusive unreleased recording, 2012)

• The Far West: That Old Time Feeling (orig. Guy Clark)

Of course, Townes did indeed become famous, though partially posthumously, and surely not on the same scale as he envisioned in his nocturnal emissions. But as I’ve noted several times in these virtual pages, I discovered the work of the haunted cowboy troubadour late in life. As such, though it has been around for decades, this well-covered classic came to me first as a gift from Boston-based singer-songwriter Meg Hutchinson, who brought it to our 2009 house concert, in graceful recognition that her host was a coverfan and coverblogger.

Since then, the song has haunted me. Its apparitions include a recent live (albeit sadly unrecorded) house concert performance by Connecticut State Troubadour Chuck E. Costa’s newest duo project The Sea The Sea that folded the song into one of Costa’s originals, a found take from an Antje Duvekot live album featuring 2011 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase winner Chris O’Brien, several amazing studio versions from the likes of Carrie Rodriguez & Ben Kyle, Jennifer Parker, and others, and a video from a Robby Hecht and Liz Longley concert posted on YouTube just this month. And, taken together, these visitations remind me of why we bring multiple takes on the same song to the table, in our ongoing mission to understand just how much diverse beauty can be wrung from simple lyrics and melody.


That the versions I have encountered include both duets and solo takes is both atypical of coverage writ large and, in this case, unsurprising. For much like in the case of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, which was comprehensively and permanently redefined by Jeff Buckley, a definitive cover early in the song’s history has created two divergent paths of versioning, bifurcating our resultant coverage collection into two primary camps: those that cover the rough, solo Townes original, and those that take on the sweet harmonies which Don Williams and Emmylou Harris brought to their definitive 1981 Country duet.

Especially interesting is the effect that this split path has on the song’s meaning. For while the lyrics and melody – three simple chords, eminently singable – speak to a simple message of love asked for and gratefully given, in the original form, so long as we accept “the lady” of the penultimate verse as a sort of embodiment of love itself, and the second verse as a bedroom metaphor for how deeply and closely this love can manifest, there is room for the audience to see themselves as the subject of the song, the “other” to the narrator’s “I”.

The duet form of the song changes this. Where the solo take is universal, the duet clarifies and personifies the object, turning the love into something both more intimate and less inclusive, making it harder to broaden the message to the listening group, closing the gap between singers even as it closes us off from direct address. Gone is the plaintive, confessional ache, given freely and universally, projected outward, which typifies versions from solo singer-songwriters such as Hutchinson, country crooner Lyle Lovett, Georgia-based fiddler Jennifer Parker, ambient Vancouver-based folk artist Lance Odegard, surprisingly adept Britfolk artist Christina Kulukundis, clear-voiced UK acoustic blues picker Dave Sutherland, Townes contemporary Guy Clark, and others, even as they make the song their own. Instead, we find Robby Hecht and Jill Andrews turning into each other from the start, Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Kyle trading lush emotion, Alex Brumel and Janel Elizabeth warm and contemporary, Duvekot and O’Brien hushed and sparse in their duality.

And so the delivery becomes the key to this song’s meaning, in the end. And while full-band efforts, instrumentals, or full-blown genre transformations can transcend this duality – see, for example, the folk rock whisper of Dashboard Confessional’s three-part Americana, the bluegrass twang and borrowed Harris/Williams vocal trade-offs of Kasey Chambers family project The Dead Ringer Band, Enzo Garcia’s gentle banjo instrumental, Doc and Merle Watson’s madcap vinyl fingerpick, and the multiple vocal and instrumental layers down-home country stringband Swiftwater brings to their own rich take – only Swedish singer-songwriter Christian Kjellvander, by pulling the female harmonies far, far back, manages to straddle the two most typical forms of the song.

But put the versions together, and the breadth of our need, and its manifestations, become clear. Everybody hurts, sometimes; whether through invitation, participant-observation, or direct address, folk songs such as this speak to our heart’s ache, and calm us by channeling the storms of emotion that unite us in humanity. May the song serve, in every incidence, as balm and confirmation: that it is more than merely enough to ask, to stand, to give solace and shared sunrise, to receive it in turn. Indeed, it is all we have, and all we need.

• Meg Hutchinson: If I Needed You
  (live from Passim, 2008)
• Lance Odegard: If I Needed You
  (from Here, 2008)
• Christina Kulukundis: If I Needed You
  (from Introducing Townes Van Zandt via The Great Unknown, 2009)
• Lyle Lovett: If I Needed You
  (from Step Inside This House, 1998)
• Dave Sutherland: If I Needed You
  (from On The Waiting List, 2008)
• Guy Clark: If I Needed You
  (from Somedays The Song Writes You, 2009)
• Jennifer Parker: If I Needed You
  (from YouTube, 2010)

• Emmylou Harris & Don Williams: If I Needed You
  (from Cimmaron, 1981)
• Antje Duvekot w/ Chris O’Brien: If I Needed You
  (from Live From All Over The Place, 2011)
• Robby Hecht w/ Jill Andrews: If I Needed You
  (from Last of the Long Days, 2011)
• Carrie Rodriguez & Ben Kyle: If I Needed You
  (from We Still Love Our Country, 2011)
• Alex Brumel & Janel Elizabeth: If I Needed You
  (from The Mill Stone, 2009)

• Dead Ringer Band: If I Needed You
  (from Living In The Circle, 1997)
• Swiftwater: If I Needed You
  (from Patchwork Memories, 2008)
• Dashboard Confessional: If I Needed You
  (from The Wire Tapes, Vol. 1, 2007 [tour only])

• Christian Kjellvander: If I Needed You
  (from Mission Hall Sessions, 2008)
• Enzo Garcia: If I Needed You
  (from Words, 2000)
• Doc & Merle Watson: If I Needed You
  (from Here & Now, 1973)

• Download all 18 tracks in one easy-to-manage zip file!

Thanks to generous support and donations from readers like you, this ad-free, artist-centric folk blog celebrates artists and songs through coverage on the web every Sunday and Wednesday or thereabouts, with bonus tracks and feature previews posted on our companion site, the Cover Lay Down Facebook page, throughout the week. Got a suggestion for a song or version we missed? Leave a comment below!

Like many artists who poured their body and soul into the industry, Zevon had his demons. The measured success of 1978 album Excitable Boy was followed by a descent into drug abuse and alcoholism, several failed relationships, and, eventually, the loss of his major label support after his ability to produce more hits turned out to be unreliable. The resultant stripped-back sound he brought on tour through much of the nineties was as much a function of his inability to pay for a full band as it was an attempt to strip bare the songs he had written. His posthumous Grammys were merited, for sure: The Wind is a potent album, and a contemporary folk gem. But it’s hard to argue that his path was clear, or his talent always evident, in every note, or indeed every album.

Still, Zevon was a storyteller of the first order, and stories told well make for powerful folk narrative: Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner, for example, is a murder ballad plain and simple, modern in language but timeless in melody and sentiment, and Naomi Bedford’s recent version of the song evokes its traditional structure and trope quite well; Mohammed’s Radio is political but childlike in its observations, as cryptic and direct as a Dylan opus, and The Matthew Show’s slow folk rock is apt. His work in collaboration with Jackson Browne, who co-wrote Shawn Colvin hit cover Tenderness On The Block, is legendary and worthy of its acclaim. And his existential pop hit Werewolves of London, though more often covered as a sort of gleefully crashing bar band encore – and here given the live polka treatment by The Garbonzos – is actually quite a potent commentary on the trappings of fame and fortune.

Sure, most of the coverage one can find comes from the same two or three albums which represented the peak of his career, even if it comes in diverse measures, from the avant electro-folk echoes of Ivory Library to Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz’ country ballad Carmelita, from Freddie White coming on like the Irish Greg Brown in a low, mellow take on Accidentally Like A Martyr to the oddly gentle slide guitar occasional Zevon co-conspirator David Lindley brings to violent oddity Play It All Night Long. But it’s his late-career singles, the tender, wistful Don’t Let Us Get Sick and the sparse couplets and plaintive repeated refrain of Keep Me In Your Heart For A While, written when he was already dying of cancer, that catch in my heart. It takes a true adept to look death in the face and head into the studio. That such tenderness resulted is a stunning testament to Warren Zevon’s life and craft.

• Naomi Bedford: Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner
  (from Tales from the Weeping Willow, 2011)

• Freddie White: Accidentally Like A Martyr
  (from Four Days In May, 2004)

• The Matthew Show: Mohammed’s Radio
  (from Hurry Home Early: The Songs of Warren Zevon, 2005)

• Jill Sobule: Don’t Let Us Get Sick
  (from Enjoy Every Sandwich: The Songs of Warren Zevon, 2004)

• Ivory Library: Excitable Boy
  (from Aleatory Music, 1987)

• Adam Duritz: Carmelita
  (from The I-10 Chronicles, 2000)

• Gale Mead: Keep Me In Your Heart
  (from Common Good, 2008)

• The Garbonzos: Werewolves Of London
  (from The Garbonzos at the Venice Cafe, 2010)

• Shawn Colvin: Tenderness On The Block
  (from Fat City, 1992)

• David Lindley & Hani Naser: Play It All Night Long
  (from Live In Tokyo, 1994)

But strip away all the production, the drummer, keys, and bass, and the essential musical prowess of the Bluhms is laid bare. Their harmony work on Nikki’s recent solo release Driftwood is stunning, highly recommended for those willing to take a chance on some serious CMT-caliber county and 70′s era rock. And their recent EP Duets, which came out towards the end of 2011, is Americana pure and simple, clear as a bell, sparse and tender with just voices and guitar, easily able to hold a candle to the work of Graham and Emmylou, Carter and Cash, Joni and James, and other singing country couples that came before them. Beautiful stuff, folks. Get the whole thing before you move on.

For bonus fun, as we noted on our facebook page earlier this week, Tim, Nikki, and the rest of the Gramblers have a habit of recording covers in the van between gigs. I’ve included a pair of favorites below – those following our Facebook page will recognize their delightful Buddy Holly cover – but follow the YouTube trail for a whole mess more, including some utterly adorable, sweet and intimate takes on everyone from the Allman Brothers, James Taylor, and The Grateful Dead to Bobby McFerrin, Whitney Houston, and Funkadelic.

• Tim & Nikki Bluhm: You’re Running Wild (orig. Louvin Brothers)
• Tim & Nikki Bluhm: Reno, Nevada (orig. Richard Farina)
  (from Duets, 2011)

• Nikki Bluhm & The Gramblers: Everyday (orig. Buddy Holly)

• Nikki Bluhm & The Gramblers: Material Girl (orig. Madonna)

Why is UK folk experimentalist Jim Moray on the radar? Because last week, a fan sent me the Fleetwood Mac cover from Moray’s brand new album Skulk, and I was smitten immediately by the juxtaposition of epic echoes and driving banjo, and the beautiful, unresolved tension these two bare elements create. It was tough to round up details with Wikipedia down, but from what I could tell, the thirty-something British folk singer is a big name across the pond, well respected by his peers and his homeland critics, who has won major awards and placed high on the UK folk festival circuit for his prolific output and prodigious sound over the past decade. And for moment there, I began to wonder why I hadn’t heard his work before.

That the name didn’t really ring a bell is likely both a comment on how challenging it is for British folk musicians to break into the American soundscape, where the word folk isn’t always applied to the heavier, more produced sound that Moray sometimes favors in his other role as a producer for both his own work and for bands such as Oysterband. But it also likely a function of Moray’s own musical journey in his single decade as a recording artist, one typified by an almost impatient willingness to experiment with various sounds from one record to the next, from the electronic soundscapes of his early work to his self-titled mid-millennial orchestral album to more recent explorations of world music instrumentation and – oddly – a folk/dubstep collaboration as grimy as it sounds.

Once I made the connection between the name and his earlier sonic incarnations, of course, it turned out I had a couple of bonus tracks lurking in the archives: an XTC cover which reminds us strongly of the modern neotrad British folkscene lightly hybridized with indiepop and a New Orleans Jazz coda, a haunting trad-to-electrofolk mashup of Early One Morning from his bedroom-recorded 2003 full-length debut, and an oddly ragged barrelhouse cover of Drive My Car that I dug up on Rubber Folk, a 2005 British Beatles tribute that has never failed to please. Taking them as a set shows just how much this new track, with its crystal clear production and hollow, sparse-yet-frenetic soundscape, represents a new direction for Moray, a still-evolving musician who – while well-known in his native England – deserves as much international attention as we can spark, and then some.

But Skulk is also a dozen albums in one: utterly, sprawlingly gorgeous, with softer folk ballads in aching voice, pop sensibility in sunnier sultry cuts, and jazz elements in hidden corners – Kate Rusby and Sandy Denny in one turn, Nickel Creek in another, Imogen Heap and James Blunt in the next. So stream it. Get it. You’re welcome.

• Jim Moray: Big Love (orig. Fleetwood Mac)
  (from Skulk, 2012)

• Jim Moray: All You Pretty Girls (orig. XTC)
  (from Low Culture, 2008)

• Jim Moray: Drive My Car (orig The Beatles)
  (from Rubber Folk, 2005)

• Jim Moray: Early One Morning (trad.)
  (from Sweet England, 2003)

LaFave isn’t a melodic performer: that inimitable voice is broken and pained, and that’s part of its charm and its power. Though his work includes several hard-driving, full-band albums that, stylistically, mix rock, folk, rockabilly, and country, in his most potent output he tends towards the countryfolk ballad, wringing emotion like water from every line through a unique combination of inflection, strum pulse, and nuance, even when covering songs that are predominantly metered or rock-rhythmic in the original.

But unlike many singer-songwriters who regularly incorporate other artists’ songs into their sets, LaFave’s coverage is narrowly defined, predominantly focused upon a small set of influential artists who, like him, address pain and loneliness through simple melody, wailing vocals, and stark, poetic dustbowl lyricism. In many ways, this makes him a sort of performing ethnomusicologist, one whose study of Dylan, Guthrie, and other early, seminal members of the folk revival and their influence is a natural extension of his own work. To steep in his original songcraft is to steep in the history of a region and its cultural influence; to listen to LaFave’s coverage in this context lends credence to and layers new potential onto how we understand his own songwriting.


LaFave lives this connection to history thoroughly, wearing his influences proudly, including covers on almost every album, and throughout his sets. Indeed, his coverage of Dylan is legendary: LaFave includes a Dylan song on almost every album, and released a full dozen on the powerful two-disc set Trail in 1999; I posted a six-song set of these back in the summer of 2010, claiming “the man covers Dylan better than anybody”, and after a year thick with Dylan coverage, I stand by that assessment.

Over a three-decade career, he’s taken on a range of artists, too, from Donovan to Freddie King, from Springsteen to Big Bill Broonzy. But LaFave claims Woody Guthrie as his musical hero, and, indeed, it is his deep work in and among the songs and songwriters of the Guthrie tradition, guiding the Guthrie legacy, which is perhaps most significant to understanding his particular craft. He has performed at every single Woody Guthrie Folk Festival since its inaugural in 1998 and now belongs to its board of directors, founded and produced the 2003 nation tour of tribute show Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway with fellow Red Dirt folk musicians such as Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and Kevin Welch, and no less than Nora Guthrie, daughter and guiding star behind the continued legacy of Woody, asked him to speak and perform at the ceremony inducting Woody into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

This approach to coverage and to artistic connection is more intimate, more substantive, and arguably more genuine than the pop coverage we often feature here on this blog. It is worthy of respect, and of celebration, both for the music it generates in him, and for the way in which it ties LaFave to the larger folkstream, making his own work a continuation of the legacies of others, a guiding star for his peers in the modern movement, and a defining legacy in its own right. Here, take a listen to the result – just the tip of a huge iceberg of coverage, and a body of work that includes over a dozen albums of merit – and I think you’ll hear that Jimmy LaFave, more than most, represents the pinnacle of what Cover Lay Down promises.

• Jimmy LaFave: Oklahoma Hills (orig. Woody Guthrie)
• Jimmy LaFave, Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Ellis Paul, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion: This Train Is Bound For Glory (orig. Woody Guthrie)
  (from Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway, 2008)

• Jimmy LaFave and Eliza Gilkyson: Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) (orig. Woody Guthrie)
  (live from Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, 2010)

• Jimmy LaFave: Catch The Wind (orig. Donovan)
  (from Cimarron Manifesto, 2007)

• Jimmy LaFave: I’ll Be Here In The Morning (orig. Townes Van Zandt)
  (from Viva! Terlingua! Nuevo!: Songs of Luckenbach Texas, 2006)

• Jimmy LaFave: San Francisco (orig. Scott McKenzie)
  (from Texoma, 2001)

• Jimmy LaFave: Early Summer Rain (orig. Kevin Welch)
• Jimmy LaFave: Because The Wind (orig. Joe Ely)
  (from Live Mini Acoustic Album 1994 [out of print], 1994)

• Jimmy LaFave: If You Were A Bluebird (orig. Butch Hancock)
  (live from Kerry’s Farm, Tahora, NZ, 1993)

• Jimmy LaFave: Walk Away Renee (orig. The Left Banke)
  (live at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas, TX, 2009)

• Jimmy LaFave: Valentine’s Day (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
• Jimmy LaFave: Key To The Highway (orig. Big Bill Broonzy)
• Jimmy LaFave: Have You Ever Loved A Woman (orig. Freddie King)
• Jimmy Lafave: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Trail, 1999)

• Jimmy LaFave: Shelter From The Storm (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Austin Skyline, 1992)
• Jimmy LaFave: Buckets of Rain (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Road Novel, 1997)
• Jimmy LaFave: Love Minus Zero/No Limit (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (live from Folk Radio WUMB, 2004)
• Jimmy LaFave: Not Dark Yet (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from A Nod To Bob 2, 2011)

• Jimmy LaFave: Lorena (trad.)
  (from Dark River (Songs of the Civil War Era), 2011)

PS: want more coverfolk throughout your week, including bonus finds and previews of upcoming features? Why not subscribe to our facebook page?

Ever had it happen twice in a 24 hour period?

I didn’t go looking for Noah and Abby Gundersen; they simply showed up on the radar unannounced, first in an omnibus post over at Songs For The Day, which led me to a heavenly, almost-a capella four-part take on Helplessly Hoping recorded, gloriously, in a freaking cathedral, and then tonight, alongside a few familiar and beloved faces (David Bazan! William Fitzsimmons!), in this passalong from Kirsten via Chad.

A little delving turned up a spotty half-decade of delicate indiefolk flirtations from the young pair, who have been playing together since he was 15 and she was 12, with and without siblings and other friends, under various names, in the Pacific Northwest. Of these, I’m loving some of the more recent YouTube videos out there, most especially the sparse and acoustic stuff. But I’m utterly floored by both last year’s Family, and by 2009 release Saints and Liars – two EPs built upon Noah’s songwriting, but which also feature Abby on violin and sibling vox – and plan to spend the next few days steeping in them, reveling in the intimate echoes of Fleet Foxes, Ryan Adams, and more which emanate from my speakers like overheard angels.

Check out the whole Cathedral series, and both EPs, to fall in love for yourself. But first, watch and listen in to the wholly stunning videos that made me so sure these were the voices who would be haunting my days and nights for the coming months, warming my heart in this finally snow-capped winter.


The Gundersen Family: Helplessly Hoping (orig. CSNY)

David Bazan, Chris Carrabba, William Fitzimmons, Noah & Abby Gundersen:
I Shall Be Released (orig. Bob Dylan)

Noah & Abby Gundersen: Let It Die (orig. Feist)

Abby & Noah Gundersen: How My Heart Behaves (orig. Feist)

PS: want more coverfolk throughout your week, including bonus finds and previews of upcoming features? Why not subscribe to our facebook page…where recent posts include a delicate, sparse cover of David Rawling’s Bells of Harlem by Lisa Hannigan and James Vincent McMorrow, Frazey Ford of the Be Good Tanyas covering Dylan, Bryan John Appleby covering Paul Simon on the most recent Fuel/Friends Chapel Session, and a link to a full two-hour concert of Bill Morrissey covers from Mark Erelli, John Gorka, Anais Mitchell, Cliff Eberhardt, and more!

Five albums in, John Statz is still a relative newcomer to the field, and we seemed to have missed his most recent full-band disc, a rockin’ alt-country collection from 2010 aptly titled Ghost Town. But his newest album Old Fashioned represents a shift in sensibility for the itinerant singer-songwriter, from his earlier, grittier solo work to a richly produced dustbowl Americana, one that comes with all the right recommendations, from production house to distributor to studio session musicians. And if we’re eager to spread the word, it’s because this album is the best thing we’ve heard so far this year: thick with the ringing tones of the American heartland, graceful in execution and delivery, and perfectly, exquisitely folk, in the same vein as generations of wandering troubadours before him.

The Frightened Rabbit cover below is a Cover Lay Down exclusive, the title cut and sole non-original from this upcoming Yer Bird release, which starts accepting preorders tomorrow; though we’ve been asked to stick to streaming only, like the album itself, the song is such great and yearningly heartfelt singer-songwriter Americana, we just couldn’t resist sharing it the moment permissions came through the wires. Bonus points to John for the successful Kickstarter campaign which funded the recording and mixing, for the warm, gorgeously layered production provided by session sideman extraordinaire Bo Ramsey, whose previous projects with Lucinda Williams and Greg and Pieta Brown have already captured our hearts, and for Pieta’s harmonies throughout the record. (NB: Pieta’s new release Mercury, which hit in the waning hours of 2011, makes a great companion to Old Fashioned.)

• John Statz: Old Old Fashioned (orig. Frightened Rabbit)

  (from Old Fashioned, 2012)

• John Statz: Chelsea Hotel #2 (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from An Evening With John Statz, 2008)

• John Statz: Can The Circle Be Unbroken (orig. Carter Family)
  (from Our Love Was Made For Canada, 2007)

I loved Charlie Parr’s piece on last year’s Vic Chesnutt tribute, and found plenty to like about Eastmont Syrup, an EP-sized collaboration with The Black Twig Pickers released with little fanfare and less recognition in the midst of 2011. And so I am thrilled to discover Keep Your Hands On The Plow, his impending album of traditional gospel classics, recorded at home with wife Emily, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low, and Four Mile Portage, a Duluth-based string trio.

Despite the relatively large list of sidemen, the songs here are sparse and heartfelt, with the right balance of ragged gospel blues harmonies and well-crafted hill-and-holler fiddle and fingerpicking bound to tempt those who find their heart in the modern neo-trad work of Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Low Anthem while still touching a nerve in lovers of the Louvin Brothers, Dave Van Ronk, Leo Kottke, and more. And though it ranges from haunting to bouncy and upbeat – East Virginia Blues, especially, is awash in eerie layers that compliment Parr’s torn voice; Blessed Be Thy Name opens with perfectly gentle two-part bluegrass harmony, catching my heart full-bore – the album as a whole is consistent and strong, sure to go a long way towards continuing to bring the acoustic singer-songwriter and song interpreter the recognition he deserves after a decade on the circuit.

• Charlie Parr: When First Unto This Country (trad.)
• Charlie Parr: All The Good Times Are Past And Gone (trad.)
  (from Keep Your Hands On The Plow, 2012)

• Charlie Parr: Rabbit Box (orig. Vic Chesnutt)
  (from Minnesota Remembers Vic Chesnutt, 2011)

• Charlie Parr: Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down (trad.)
  (from When The Devil Goes Blind, 2010)

• Charlie Parr: God Moves On The Water (trad.)
  (from Roustabout, 2008)

• Charlie Parr & The Black Twig Pickers: Jesus On The Mainline (trad.)
  (unknown source)

Aching to hear Miley Cyrus take on You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go? How about aging rockstar Bryan Ferry tackling Bob Dylan’s Dream?

Yeah, me neither.

New Dylan tribute album Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International is as unwieldy as its name: too big to work as a set, too broad to appeal to any single listener. Trust me, there is no reason why anyone should want to hear sleazy popstar Ke$ha cover Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, especially when she refers to her performance as “a suicide note to the love of my life and to my former life”; putting her version right up against the same song from the Kronos Quartet as a two-part finale to disc three of the 80-song compendium is mere sonic trickery, suggesting that this album is more about trying to market to everyone than it is about trying to create a listenable package.

But living in a digital world means never having to lift the needle. And of the 4 CDs involved here, there’s at least an album’s worth of great newly-recorded folk-and-then-some tracks, from Taj Mahal to Thea Gilmore, from Joan Baez to The Gaslight Anthem, from Jackson Browne’s take on Love Minus Zero to the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ amazing cover of relative obscurity Political World. Brett Dennen’s high tenor rasp seems perfect for You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, and the first and last discs, especially, show some promise, with strong coverage from Dierks Bentley, Michael Franti, Mark Knopfler, Billy Bragg, Zee Avi, We Are Augustine, and Lucinda Williams in the mix. Here’s hoping the producers allow single-song download via the usual sources when the whole thing drops in digital and physical form on January 24th; if not, the $25 price is almost worth it even if you’re going to be throwing away half the tracks. In the meanwhile, here’s three favorites that appear in slightly different form in the collection.

• Thea Gilmore: I’ll Remember You (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (web subscription release, May 2011)

• Adele: Make You Feel My Love (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from 19, 2008)

• Dierks Bentley: Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Up On The Ridge, 2010)

Still to come in January: A new five-song Martin Sexton EP, also due on the 24th, will contain a bouncy jamfolk cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth; the cover isn’t available yet, though the amazon snippet is tantalizing, but you can see & hear the title track on YouTube, and it’s decidedly a contemporary folk piece, with just enough twang to suit. Why an EP, you ask? “These songs are relevant today and I didn’t want to wait to release a full-length album,” Sexton explains in his press release. “And in a down economy, we’re getting new music to people for the price of a soy latte.”

And due on the 31st, at least according to Direct Current’s always-comprehensive release calendar: a delicate, jazz-ballad-y, sparsely done pianopop album of Steely Dan covers from two Swedish singers recorded six years ago but finally getting the US rerelease it deserves. Seriously. Called Fire In The Hole: Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist Sing Steely Dan, the collection – originally self-released in 2006, now coming out through Zip Records – is a bit syrupy in spots, but sure to please fans of Tori Amos, Sara Barielles, Norah Jones, and other mistresses of the form. This relatively ancient video take on Rose Darling from an ’06 TV appearance is delightful pianofolk, speaking well of the whole shebang; the mp3s are from the album.

• Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist: Rose Darling (orig. Steely Dan)
• Sara Isaksson and Rebecka Tornqvist: Barrytown (orig. Steely Dan)
  (from Fire In The Hole: Sing Steely Dan, 2012 [rerelease])