Cover Lay Down

• Vol. 1: Popcovers
• Vol. 2: Folk Covers
• Vol. 3: Indie Covers

26 year old Frank Fairfield plays old mountain bluegrass and country blues standards solo on banjo, guitar and fiddle; he’s been compared to Mississippi John Hurt, and played sessions with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Robin Peckinold of the Fleet Foxes, who has hosted Frank as a sideman, calls him a man “born out of time,” and sure enough, his recent Daytrotter session, his late November KEXP performance of Cumberland Gap, and this lovely sepia-toned video of Nine Pound Hammer come across like timeless field recordings:

• Frank Fairfield: Bo Weevil (trad.)
• Frank Fairfield: When The Roses Bloom Again (orig. The Carter Family)
  (from a Daytrotter session, 2010)

Mack the Knife isn’t an American song by origin, to be sure; instead, it’s from Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera, which debuted in Berlin on the cusp of the last Great Depression. But its introduction to the American canon by both Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin in the mid-to-late fifties has made it a popular choice for coverage in a number of genres, enough to win a Grammy for Ella Fitzgerald, and to cause American Idol supervillain Simon Cowell to call it the best song ever written.

Here, on the B-side of his brand new 7″ Newspress Scare, young Vikesh Kapoor breathes new life into the tune, stripping it down to a backporch fingerpicking croon for a folk audience, with great results. And it’s a great introduction to Kapoor, an up-and-coming folk musician whose ear for traditional lyric structure and performance is so resonant with tradition, and whose day-laborer subjects seem so universal, that I spent almost an hour trying to find the “origin” of several of the original tunes on his MySpace page, most notably the delicious ballads Willy Robbins and Down By The River.

Kapoor has been compared to both Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and rightfully so, but he also reminds me of both Davey Graham and more contemporary folk artists Josh Ritter and Joshua James. Newspress Scare drops February ninth on Good People records, and will come with a Midwestern and East Coast tour; Bostonians in our reading audience should plan to catch Vikesh Kapoor at Democracy Center on the 11th for his hometown record release show.

• Vikesh Kapoor: Mack the Knife (orig. Brecht/Weill)
  (from Newspress Scare 7″, 2010)

If “non-repetitive pop” musician and trained ethnomusicologist Scott Alexander’s newest set of songs sound unpolished, it’s because after a sophomore effort with full production, he decided to release his follow-up with a more authentic, cheaper sound. The resulting money-themed 8-song album Scott Alexander Makes 7 or 8 Dollars includes a touch of guitar jangle, slippery one-take production, an interestingly experimental use of banjitar and other instruments, sweet silly lyrics, and a shaky bellow not unlike that of Jonathan Richman, with a hint of Nick Cave’s low, ragged vocal style.

But the cacophony works well, especially on the barebones acoustic Cure-esque Let’s Go Shopping, the fragile female-sung popfolk Penny Gumball, and this strange and ultimately broken-beauty cover. Sounds like he’d be worth catching live, too, and not just because Alexander makes a habit of baking fresh cookies for his audiences, not to mention giving them out free on the streets of his native Brooklyn. And though his songs are arguably anti-folk popsongs through and through, frankly, I had nowhere else to put this Neil Diamond cover this week.

• Scott Alexander: Forever in Blue Jeans (orig. Neil Diamond)
  (from Scott Alexander Makes 7 or 8 Dollars, 2010)

Finally, though we already wrote about local indie pubfolkers The Points North when their label Grinding Tapes released their excellent cover of Auld Lang Syne just in time for New Years, their newest free release - a great, fluid, and mystical lo-fi indiefolk breakdown of Dylan’s Girl from the North Country, which comes via popular blog Ryan’s Smashing Life - only reminds us that this is a band to watch closely. The tension is palpable, the arrangement exquisite, and the accordions, drums, guitar and voice combine to create a sense of distance and longing that utterly transforms the song. Nice work, guys; can’t wait for more.

• The Points North: Girl From The North Country (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (web release, 2010; more The Points North here)

Thanks for joining us here at Cover Lay Down for our New Artists, Old Songs Week, folks. We’ll return Wednesday with more featured artists, songs, and songbooks from the best of the folkworld.

In the meanwhile, as always, please remember that our goal here at CLD is not just to fill up your iPod, but to connect artists to fans, and vice versa, that music might continue to flow unabated and well-supported. If you like what you hear, please do the performers we feature the honor of following up on links and purchase opportunities.

Just discovered here, and too awesome not to share immediately.

You can pick up acoustic blues-bop folk artist Dan Mills‘ catchy, refreshing new album Fiction in Photographs free if you’re willing to recommend it to a friend. Betcha will, too, after this.

• Vol. 1: Popcovers
• Vol. 2: Folk Covers

We’ve wrangled a bit with the term “indie” here before, both in regards to its relationship with folk music, and as a source for coverage. Today, though, the term is merely a catch-all for coverage, loosely defined; after all, songsource being what it is, much modern music is neither folk nor fowl, neither pop nor pap, but that precious still-underground stuff which claims neither major label nor traditional affiliation.

We’ll have a tiny burst of American Popular Song come tomorrow, a fitting close to our thematic week. Let today be for those brave new and nu-acoustic souls covering the recent and the audiophilic, the rare and the undersung. Ladies and gentlemen: new artists, covering the indie world.

CLLCT is a growing online collective of musicians who give their music away - unlike, say, those small indie labels, which at least in theory have some profit margin in mind for all involved, or MySpace, which may be nominally a source for music, but feels less like a community every day. As you might expect, this means predominantly DIY music, from lo-fi bedroomy stuff to glitchy self-driven electronica, and a fair bit of collaboration from communally-minded musicians. A mixed bag, to say the least, but at least you know what you’re getting, and if you’ve got time to fritter - this IS the Internet, after all - it’s a fun, friendly place to pan for gold.

This recent Jonathan Richman tribute Baby, We Are Richman is a good example of what a collective like CLLCT can create: fluid in scope and contents, broad in tone and talent, it nonetheless brought me to the “cuddlecore ukulele folk pop” of Madeline Ava, whose lovely cover of I’m a Little Dinosaur went right to the top of my week’s playlist…immediately followed by her tender, hushed-yet-playful cover album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (except not really…), which is a full track-for-track solo uke-and-voice interpretation of exactly the Neutral Milk Hotel album you think it is. The title cut is clear and cute, and her Holland, 1945 makes for an especially sweet match ‘tween artist and song.

• Madeline Ava: I’m A Little Dinosaur (orig. Jonathan Richman)
• Madeline Ava: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (orig. Neutral Milk Hotel)
• Madeline Ava: Holland, 1945 (ibid.)

I rediscovered indie popsters Fanfarlo through inbox news of their upcoming iTunes Live Session EP; later, the cover I loved the most ended up on both new coverblog The Cover Lovers and, subsequently, the same Captain Obvious covers mixtape as the recently posted Rural Alberta Advantage cover of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. Which just goes to show you two things: like the other coverblogs in the sidebar to your right, both The Cover Lovers and Captain Obvious belong on your feedreader, and for all its evil unsharing DRM ways, sometimes, iTunes gets it right. Well, that, and “indie pop” at its acoustic best is another way of saying “sounds like folk to me”.

Blog darlings Fanfarlo provide a rich indiepop sound, with piano, fluid guitar, trumpet, pulsing strings, and harmonic goodness to spare; in production, they sound a bit like the more melodic, poppy side of Talking Heads or XTC, which is a fine thing indeed. But take away the studio, and they strip down beautifully. Their “live” cover of Tom Waits, which came out as part of their wonderfully-conceptualized advent calendar this past holiday season, provides a good sense of what that means without all the fanfare, plus a hint of Salvation Army band for good measure; other covers on the Fanfarlo video page, especially their recent “laptop sessions” take on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, pull back even farther towards folk, to great and lasting effect. And their Bonnie “Prince” Billy cover is a hidden pseudo-americana-folk gem, Wilco-esque and majestic, crescendoing from sultry to triumphant and back in turns, coming through the wires ragged and gleeful, as befits lyric and sentiment.

• Fanfarlo: A Minor Place (orig. Bonnie “Prince” Billy)
• Fanfarlo: In The Neighborhood (orig. Tom Waits)
• Fanfarlo: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (orig. Neutral Milk Hotel)

Three video-ready artists close out our short set tonight.


Kina Grannis’s version of Bon Iver’s Blood Bank doubles the falsetto-voiced tones of the original as a gorgeous harmonic choir over a forefront of strong singer-songwriter alto with more than a hint of Lori McKenna’s warm, welcoming tones. Her fireside Owl City cover is acoustic coffeehouse folkpop heaven; her most recent cover vid - a staircase-sung harmony trio take on a K’s Choice tune, sung with her sisters - is slow and rhythmic, a sleepsong of win.

Where did this girl come from? Oh, the usual: the LA-based YouTube megastar made a splash after winning a chance at network exposure during the Superbowl a few years back, and now rates hundreds of thousands of hits each time she posts a video. Grannis drops her debut, entitled Stairwells, on February 23; these - plus some lovely original self-released EPs, and a whole mess more delightful video coversongs from sources both classic and modern - certainly help fill the waiting void.

Indiepop artist Chantilly’s debut disc Caught Light may be a bit uneven, but it has some great moments, especially on those tracks with keys and a solid beat, where the Brooklyn singer-songwriter comes across as full-bore chartpop with a dollop of soul, like a melodically-minded R&B star, albeit with a delicate sliding-tone vocal that softens the blow just enough for an old folkie.

Unfortunately for the string-minded, the guitar-driven songs on her debut disc are a bit too busy, and her voice a bit too buried under all that production. But Chantilly sent along a She and Him cover, and a nice take-down of Lady Gaga, at my request for coversongs, and both come off much, much stronger without the production, which speaks well of both Chantilly’s potential, and of her live shows to come as she begins to promote her debut.

I know the latter tune, like the K’s Choice cover above, truly belongs in our first round of this theme, but Chantilly’s a late addition to my roster, and like her guilty-pleasure popsongs, her solo couch videos are just oh so irresistible.

Finally, we have Baltimore artist Paul Masson, whose rough-hewn in-studio Animal Collective cover graced both inbox and the virtual pages of Slowcoustic in the past few months. I’ll admit, this cover took a few tries to grow on me - but it says something that I kept coming back, and the strained voice and earnestness of this cover really does serve the song exquisitely. Masson’s new self-titled EP has been compared to Neil Young and Hank Williams, Sr., and I can hear ‘em both - in the guitar, in the voice, in the tenderness, and in the sorrow. Try his new EP out at MySpace; I think you’ll hear it, too.

Welcome back to New Artists, Old Songs Week - a dedicated series of genre-related posts in which we turn our ears and hearts to those still-emerging artists whose coversongs have come our way in the past few weeks and months.

We kicked off our theme week Sunday with a host of new popcovers; today we keep the ball rolling with some of the best new covers of traditional and post-revival folk to come down the proverbial pike in a good long while. Enjoy…and don’t forget to come back at week’s end for a New Artists, Old Songs indie covers extravaganza!

Boing Boing favorite Sophie Madeleine is hardly underground, but then, I’m sure there’s plenty of folkwatchers whose online habits don’t dovetail with the aggregator crowd. And Madeleine’s worth sharing, with a crushably sweet, warm vibrato of a voice that just floats over those high uke strings.

This pair of coversongs below - one folkcover, and one bonus Irving Berlin classic I just couldn’t resist - comprise half of the free four-song covers EP The Sidetrack Sessions, recorded over the last year but not released in mp3 form until the last weeks of 2009; since then, her full-length Love. Life. Ukulele. has become available in a beautiful red-vinyl-and-download collector’s edition, or as a pay-what-you-want download only, and it’s a wonderful record as well. The full-length has found its way to Boing Boing, too, but other than a “new music crush” mention on a Slowcoustic end-of-year guest post, made nary a splash on the music blogs. I’m proud to be among the first to correct this oversight.

• Sophie Madeleine: Don’t Think Twice (It’s All Right) (orig. Bob Dylan)
• Sophie Madeleine: I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (pop. multiple artists)
  (from The Sidetrack Sessions, 2009)

Like The Mercurials, who we featured several New Artists posts ago, Canadian folk/roots supergroup Bop Ensemble is a multi-generational trio, with two older established male artists taking on a younger female to fill out their sound, to great effect. In this case, Juno-winning folk legend Bill Bourne and Kerrville songwriting instructor Wyckham Porteous have joined forces with young female singer-bassist Jasmine Ohlhauser to create a full folk sound that rings with maturity, grit, and gentleness all at once, like a well- and warmly produced Tom Russell album, with shades of an acoustic Mark Knopfler session in the contrast between creaky voice and the lush sound of the guitars and bass.

Bop Ensemble’s debut Between Trains came out last summer, but it seems to have stayed underground until Keep The Coffee Coming found it just a week ago; thanks to Kat, I was in love by the end of the first verse of Buckets of Rain, and I think you’ll feel the same. Here’s the Dylan, and a fine take on a traditional spiritual for luck; head over to their MySpace page for a great low-slung Hot Tuna-esque cover of California Dreamin’, and some excellent originals to boot.

• Bop Ensemble: Buckets of Rain (orig. Bob Dylan)
• Bop Ensemble: Peace Like A River (trad.)
  (from Between Trains, 2009)

Berklee grad Laura Siersema comes from my neck of the woods, a fact we discovered by accident when engaging in the usual friendly artist-to-blogger exchange, but though hers is the kind of folk that I’ve often found a bit earnest, I’d still have shared this no matter where Laura lived. The slow, lush piano-driven popfolk production rings of mid-to-late Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, while Siersema’s deliberately and formally phrased pop vocal style shows a fine performer in full control of a delicate instrument.

Something about this Peter Paul & Mary cover, especially, begs to be put on repeat. Pick up Talon of the Blackwater, and sample more at MySpace.

• Laura Siersema: This Train (trad./pop. Peter Paul & Mary)
  (from Talon of the Blackwater, 2009)

New Americana artists The Steel Wheels hail from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and you can hear it; their management sent word along via email just today, so I can’t claim to have heard the whole album, but they’ve shared stages with the right folks for their sound - Over The Rhine, Carrie Newcomer, and Adrienne Young and Little Sadie among them. And if lead songwriter Trent Wagler’s prayerful reworking of old traditional mountain fiddle tune Red Wing is any indication, The Steel Wheels are certainly going places, with apt comparison to Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch, and other new primitives on the line between old timey folk and something raw, new, and bluegrassy.

Try the tracks, pick up their brand spankin’ new disc Red Wing for a delicious cover of Working on a Building and some powerfully performed and well-written originals, and make sure to check their tour schedule so you can catch Trent and company on their way to fame and glory.

• The Steel Wheels: Red Wing (trad./Trent Wagler)
  (from Red Wing, 2010)

• Trent Wagler & The Steel Wheels: Shady Grove (trad.)
  (from Blue Heaven, 2006)

• Trent Wagler & Jay Lapp: Darlin’ Cory (trad.)
  (from Adrienna Valentine, 2009)

I’ve been sitting on this John D. Loudermilk cover, which came to fruition on the soundtrack to the 2009 film Beautiful Kate, since before Coverfreak posted it last September, and I wish I could remember where it came from. No matter: it came up on the shuffle last week, startling me once again with its rough, sad delicacy, and I was so songstruck, I figured it was better late than never.

The cover features Tex Perkins, who isn’t new at all, and Megan Washington, who is still in her mid-twenties; Tex is the award-winning Australian composer and songwriter who crafted the soundtrack, and young Megan’s a jazz-turned-alt-country countrywoman herself who seems to be going place fast, with an end-of-year win at the inaugural Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition in Australia, and a playful acoustic cover of Ross Wilson’s 1989 tune Bed of Nails being used as the theme for the brand new ABC show Bed of Roses.

• Tex Perkins & Megan Washington: This Little Bird (orig. J. D. Loudermilk)
  (from the Beautiful Kate soundtrack, 2009)

• Megan Washington: Bed of Nails (orig. Ross Wilson)
  (as above; more Megan Washington here)

Finally: I made a big deal of saying that Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah wasn’t really Leonard Cohen’s anymore, and implied that it was terribly, problematically overcovered, way back when the deep-voiced poet was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But that hasn’t stopped newcomers from continuing to try it on for size. In the last few weeks alone, I’ve received or uncovered no less than three folk takes on the song, each with its own charms, though none rivals the truly great and transformative covers of John Cale and Jeff Buckley.

Here’s the smorgasbord, with notes aforehand: that Detroit pop-rock singer-songwriter Steve Acho, who isn’t usually a folk musician at all, owes as much to Billy Joel as he does to John Cale here; that The Blue Eyed Shark drags the tune down into a maudlin emofolk which I like, but may jar the senses of older folkies; and that Adrian Heath, whose lo-fi kitchen-taped performance leads off our set, will donate $1 to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort for every FREE download of his newest album Want To Want To, which is a nice way to try out some tunes and support a good cause all at once.

• Adrian Heath: Hallelujah (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (live, 2009)

• The Blue Eyed Shark: Hallelujah (ibid.)
  (unknown source)

• VIDEO: Steve Acho: Hallelujah (ibid.)

…and just for fun, because I was blown away by Matt Morris‘ duet with Justin Timberlake on the recent Haiti Benefit, here’s their cover of the classic Cohen composition, too. Newcomer Morris seems pretty authentic for an ex-Mouseketeer; his YouTube version of The Beatles’ Help isn’t bad, either. My new guilty pleasure, perhaps.





Speaking of Haiti: it’s worth reminding you all that our Summer09 FolkFest Covers Bootleg giveaway, which offers a full set of 17 exclusive live coverfolk tracks to all who donate to Cover Lay Down before February 17th, is still on. 20% of each donation will go to support Doctors Without Borders, a group which is still struggling to help the sick, the injured, and the malnourished in Haiti; 20% more will go to our local foodbank, which is struggling in this economy.

We’ve raised over forty bucks for these worthy charity organizations so far; won’t you show a little love, and donate to the cause?


Cover Lay Down exists first and foremost to help connect artists to fans. If you like what you hear, please do your part by following the links above to pursue purchase and other venues for support. Thanks!

Here’s how it works: become a brand-name niche-blogger, and people send you stuff. Most of it is way off topic; some of it is decent, but not ready for prime time. A bunch more has saturated the blogmarket so much already, there’s little point in posting it again. And a few songs just don’t tickle the fancy - after all, if every song worked for every blogger, you’d never know who to trust.

This week, in a series of genre-focused features (Top 40 rock and popsong covers today; folk covers, indie covers, and a few random oddities to follow as the week progresses), we turn our ears and hearts to the best of those emerging artists whose new works have come our way in the past few weeks and months. Though they remain under the radar, may these songs help these musicians claim their rightful places in the pantheon of modern music.


I found out about Kelley Ryan through a short review in Straight No Chaser, who called the one-time astroPuppees frontwoman’s solo debut Twist “the best female folk record of this short year” and compared it to the Indigo Girls, Linda Draper, and Mindy Smith. Intrigued, I promptly wrote off for the full album, only to discover that, if anything, SNC may have undersold Ryan’s subtle-yet-potent way with song and performance, missing equally valid comparisons with Janis Ian, Sandy Denny, Lisa Loeb and Kate Wolf.

Ryan, who has also been paying the bills collaborating with and selling songs to the likes of Marshall Crenshaw, aimed to make this record a true feminine folkpop manifesto, eschewing the masculine sounds of the electric guitar for warm loops and acoustic strings; the result is a masterstroke of femmefolk prowess, strong, seductive, and eminently accessible. This Beck cover is a perfect example: where the original evokes slow lazy summer, low and buzzing, Kelley’s cover is frozen winter incarnate, her beautifully clear voice, coupled with a slow electropop production, catching the song in crystalline ice without losing a whit of the power and beauty of the song itself.

Twist drops Feb 16, but until then, it is being sold digitally through Kelley Ryan’s website for just a single buck - so preview below, and then head on over for a great deal!

• Kelley Ryan: Lost Cause (orig. Beck)
  (from Twist, 2010)

I wish I could remember how I heard about Acoustic Americana fiddler and guitarist Sadie Compton, whose bright red dreadlocks and heavily tattooed punk-rocker’s skin seem completely counter to her Tennessean drawl and the timeless mountain sensibility of her performance. But a search of inbox and feedreader alike reveal nothing, and Sadie’s web presence is sadly out-of-date. I am forced to conclude that Sadie’s music dropped out of the sky, and be grateful for such gifts: clearly, the universe loves me.

Much of the music on Compton’s MySpace page is sparse and broken, a fine mix of fiddle-led cajun blues and old time Appalachian music reminiscent of an old Lomax field recording; listen with your eyes closed, and you can almost make out the ancient backporch countrywoman she channels through her music. But the lazy sixties folkpop sound of Compton’s Three Dog Night cover, complete with banjo and sweetly ragged harmonies, is an equally delightful antidote to the winter blues, while her Hank Williams cover just has to be heard to be believed. New album Black is the Color was supposed to be released last year, but I can find neither hide nor hair of evidence; if anyone out there can help me out here, I’d be eternally grateful.

• Sadie Compton: Shambala (orig. B. W. Stevenson; pop. Three Dog Night)
• Sadie Compton: Please Don’t Let Me Love You (orig. Hank Williams)
  (from Black is the Color, 2010)

Backwater-born Australian singer-songwriter Emily Barker has enjoyed a bit of press recently in the rest of the English-speaking word, thanks to the folks at the BBC, who selected a version of her song Nostalgia as the theme to the award-winning series Wallander. But Americans are notoriously slow to pick up on folk beyond our borders, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve just discovered this countryfolk chanteuse despite her long history in BBC-land, a record which includes several years touring and recording in the UK as part of folk group The Low Country, and her 2007 solo debut Photos.Fires.Fables., which provides a solid introduction to the able, twang-voiced songwriter, framing her performance as tender and wry, and reminiscent of fellow countrymen The Waifs.

Barker and her all-girl Aussie band The Red Clay Halo, who lend cello, fiddle, accordian, flute and four-part harmonies to Barker’s guitar-based singer-songwriter fare, originally recorded Nostalgia for their intimate 2008 group debut Despite The Snow, which led to opening slots for the likes of Jose Gonzalez, The Waifs, and Mary Gauthier. Since then, there’s not been much in the way of new recordings - the single for the new version of Nostalgia doesn’t come out until Feb. 8th - but their press kit included this gentle recent take on Neil Young’s Look Out For My Love, and it’s a wonderful showcase for Emily’s warbly alto and sensitive songwriting, and the band’s lush, modern take on the british tradfolk sound.

• Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo: Look Out For My Love (orig. Neil Young)
  (from Emily Barker’s Bandcamp Page, 2009)

Ghana-born, Ontario-based “Urban Folk” artist Kae Sun pulls from a vast cultural stew - a childhood in the church choir, his father’s soul records, traditional folk chants, and the reggae and hip-hop so prevalent on Ghana radio - emerging with an evolving hybrid sound that teeters exquisitely on the line between fluid worldbeat and intimate songwriter fare. This soulful cover falls more solidly on the acoustic side than the vast majority of his recent album Lion on a Leash, but the combination of reggaepop origin and subtle folk performance are lovely, and given Sun’s preference for acoustic performance, provide an apt entry for any folklistener willing to follow the thread to African continent and beyond.

• Kae Sun: Natural Mystic (orig. Bob Marley)
  (unknown source; more Kae Sun here)

Nominally an indie-rock band, The Rural Alberta Advantage - yes, they’re from Canada, too - are nevertheless a folk-minded bunch on paper, mining the experience of their own rural small-town upbringing to craft driving, guitar-heavy songs which play just fine as folk once the reverb fades a bit. 2008 debut Hometowns, which contains some great hipster dancetracks, was all over the blogs; this tune, which layers earnest alt-whine vocals over a play-it-straight Jose Gonzalez guitar-trance approach to a classic tongue-in-cheek cover favorite, was released as a B-side mid-January; I picked it up via Captain Obvious, whose January Covers Mixtape also includes a few tracks from past and recent posts on Cover Lay Down.

• The Rural Alberta Advantage: Eye of the Tiger (orig. Survivor)
  (from the Drain The Blood single, 2010)

Finally, eminently cute folk-uke-centered duo Shiny and the Spoon came together in 2008 after a chance meeting at a folk festival. Since then, the gleeful couple has gone on to record several YouTube videos, mostly covers, and most notably this playful cover of Aha classic Take on Me, which netted over 70,000 views in its first few months - and, like many surprise YouTube sensations, they’ve now moved on to record their first EP, hoping to cash in on the cute cachet. The EP will drop ASAP on CD Baby and iTunes; keep abreast of the news via their YouTube channel.

• Shiny and the Spoon: Take On Me (orig. Aha)
  (YouTube rip)

Want to hear more? As always, Cover Lay Down exists first and foremost to promote the spread and survival of folk music. If you like what you hear, follow links above to support the artists herein: buy the album, see the concert, and spread the word.

And don’t forget to return Tuesday night for the second installment in our New Artists, Old Songs Week extravaganza! Still to come: new takes on classic and revival-era folk songs, a whole slew of acoustic indiecovers, and a few surprises from the American Popular Songbook.

The mailbag is bursting with delight - so full, in fact, that I’ve decided that next week will be New Artists, Old Songs Week here at Cover Lay Down, featuring a whole host of new artists who have kindly sent along their demos, one-off tracks, and pre-releases in anticipation of greater recognition for the next generation. It is, as always, an honor to be able to share these folks with you; I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do, and pursue the links provided here to support their emerging talent.

While we compile and winnow the wonderful new voices that have come our way in the last several weeks, let’s clear the palate a bit by regrounding our ears in a few more familiar faces and thematically relevant songs which have popped up in the inbox alongside that cornucopia. Here, that means yet another installment of our popular (Re)Covered feature, with news, new songs, and newly-found tracks that have come our way, and should be coming your way, too, now that the new year has turned.


I finally managed to catch the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who we first featured back in April, 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, which 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, drops on February 16. Here’s two delightful cuts from the newest - the aforementioned Blu Cantrell cover, and a sweet, wry newly-recorded version of old stringband classic Cornbread and Butterbeans - plus a live cut to keep your feet moving in the meantime; for more, preorder 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: On The Road Again (trad.)
  (live, via MySpace)

Patty Griffin’s new album Downtown Church is a true blue Americana Gospel album, not folk, but I hardly care; despite my ambivalence about her overproduced sophomore release Flaming Red, which recently caused a minor inter-blogger firestorm over at Star Maker Machine, it’s no secret that Griffin is one of my favorite artists, having first featured in our pages way back in our first few weeks as a blog, and several times since. And Downtown Church’s dustbowl gospel is utterly amazing, in no small part because of Griffin’s achingly, hauntingly, drivingly beautiful approach to a series of gospel classics, not to mention stellar support from Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Jim Lauderdale, and a host of other powerhouse artists.

The result: a true gem of a new album that has the Americana world drooling in anticipation of what may well turn out to be the biggest release of the year. The NPR full-album stream disappeared yesterday upon the album’s release, but there’s a live concert over at No Depression tonight at 8:00 EST, full-length samples at Paste, and of course, you can and should buy the whole thing here. The whole damn thing comes with my strongest recommendation, but I really, really love the sparse piano and voice of final track All Creatures of Our God and King, and the power of the penultimate We Shall All Be Reunited, which, like Heavenly Day before it, has Grammy written all over it, especially now that an appropriate nomination category has been created.

• Patty Griffin: Waiting For My Child (orig. Sullivan Pugh)
• Patty Griffin: Move Up (trad.)
  (from Downtown Church, 2010)

• Patty Griffin w/ Mavis Staples: Waiting For My Child (ibid.)
  (from Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration, 2009)

The coverblogger code doesn’t usually consider a remade song a cover if it’s the same artist performing it - else we’d have to count pretty much every demo as an original, and every live performance an incident worthy of note. Wikipedia, however, seems to beg otherwise. And so just this once, I’m going to give honorable mention to the newest from Suzanne Vega, Close Up Vol 1: Love Songs, in which the once-ubiquitous singer-songwriter comes out of the shadows after years of living off residuals to put forth an utterly lovely album of acoustic versions of her own songbook - the first of four rounds of such self-coverage, if Vega’s press release is to be believed.

We featured Suzanne Vega in our first Mother’s Day post way back in ‘08, noting at the time that she had decided to focus on motherhood first and foremost after her daughter was born in 1994; it’s good to see her back in the studio, and though there’s a part of me that aches for a new set of songs, her early work is certainly strong enough to support reframing. So while you head over to her website to preorder, here’s a remade “original” from the newest, a pair of older Grateful Dead covers from Cover Freak’s least favorite album, and a few other takes on a personal favorite from the Suzanne Vega songbook for balance.

• Suzanne Vega: Gypsy
  (from Close Up Vol 1: Love Songs, 2010)

• Suzanne Vega: China Doll (orig. Grateful Dead)
• Suzanne Vega: Cassidy (ibid.)
  (from Deadicated, 1991)

• Grada: The Queen and the Soldier (orig. Suzanne Vega)
  (from Cloudy Day Navigation, 2007)

• Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts: The Queen and the Soldier (ibid.)
  (from Kate Rusby & Kathryn Roberts, 1995)

Looking past the horizon, I note that Carrie Rodriguez, who we first featured here upon release of her 2008 album She Ain’t Me, will be coming out with her first covers album in April, and on first listen, at least, it’s sounding like a practically perfect fiddle-driven Country-Americana Folkpop collection.

We’ll have more to say about this eventually, and a song to post, for sure, but I’ve been asked to keep the buzz and the songsharing on the down low until the date creeps closer. Still, Carrie’s currently on tour with Ben Sollee and Erin McKeown - a great choice of companions for the achingly sweet-voiced Rodriguez - and she’ll also be doing a few dates with Alejandro Escovedo and Los Lonely Boys in the next few, so if your town is on her touring schedule, make it a point to stop in to preview a track or two from the upcoming disc in a live setting.

• Carrie Rodriguez w/ Tim Easton: Cortez the Killer (orig. Neil Young)
  (from Like A Hurricane: A Tribute to Neil Young, 2007 [thanks, Arlene!])

Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features and songsets each Sunday and Wednesday. And remember, folks: February 1st marks the kick-off date for New Artists, Old Songs Week here at Cover Lay Down, so don’t forget to head on back with your ears handy for a first-rate set of covers from a solid crop of up-and-comers come Sunday.

Exploring the boundaries of folk is a challenge these days, not hardly because the word “folk” is so often abused by a growing bevy of slash-using promotors and artists trying to lay claim to the term and, by proxy, to the authenticity of its community and heritage - even as they offer up music which provides little in the way of respite or even recognizable folk characteristics for the weary folkophile.

Oh, sure, there’s elements of folk music in much of what passes by the modern blogwatcher. The influence of the sixties post-revivalists, for example, is evident in a large swath of the Contemporary Indiepop and Indie Rock world, from Sara McLachlan to Sara Bareilles, from Beck to Ben Harper, from Death Cab to Wilco; we’ve included songs by some of these artists before here on Cover Lay Down, and I expect that they’ll come up again.

But that’s primarily because there’s elements of folk in modern popular music, period. Writ large, it’s in the air. But as the 16-bar 3-chord song structure does not make Rock and Roll a subtype of the blues, neither is the occasional historical lens, a moralistic story lyric, or the inclusion of an acoustic stringed instrument sufficient to suddenly make a given band’s output a form of folk.


It is much rarer to find a band that does not use the term “folk”, yet comes across as obviously within the tradition. Such is Woodpigeon, an ersatz karass based around the guitar, voice, and songwriting of Mark Hamilton, a typically bearded indie lad whose website’s tongue-in-cheek philosophical statements include the ideas that “everything starts off as a rock opera” and “girl voices are instruments. Boy voices are sex objects.”

Nominally an indie pop collective, Woodpigeon’s sound is nevertheless delicately acoustic, and the group is prone to confessional narrative, if framed within definitively post-modern lyrics. Despite its size, the instrumentation is more bare-bones than bombastic, with participants in a given song often contributing little more than a subtle vocal or string drone layer. Though its studio work, most especially in brand-new release Die Stadt Muzikanten, often utilizes the echoey indiepop production values and brushbeats so typical of the genre, both off-record and on-, the group’s music is nonetheless environmentally-grounded and subtly constructed, less beat-oriented than lyrically and melodically driven. And though some of their choices for coverage speak to a clear love of Swedish popsong, others - including two Gordon Lightfoot covers, and a lovely recent take on Mother, Pink Floyd’s only political “folktune” - underscore their connection to the folkworld.

Calgary-based Woodpigeon is an oft-cited favorite of fellow Canadian and indie-lover Chromewaves; we owe Frank a great debt for sharing so much of their work over the past year or three, a good bit of which has included lo-fi off-album covers originally shared on the band’s website. He doesn’t call them folk, either, but I think you’ll hear what I do in this lovely collection.

• Woodpigeon: Asleep and Dreaming (orig. Magnetic Fields)
• Woodpigeon: You’re My Only Home (ibid.)

• Woodpigeon: I’m Not Saying (orig. Gordon Lightfoot)
• Woodpigeon: Summer Side of Life (ibid.)

• Woodpigeon: Lay All Your Love On Me (orig. Abba)

• Woodpigeon: Mother (orig. Pink Floyd)

• Woodpigeon: Say Say Say (orig. Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson)

• Woodpigeon: Lonely Kiss (orig. The Consonant C)

• Woodpigeon: Rambler Gambler (trad.)

• Woodpigeon: Aurora (live) (orig. Bjork)
• Woodpigeon: Aurora (demo) (ibid.)

Regular readers, take note: the vast majority of the above covers are available free on Woodpigeon’s website, making the usual track-by-track album listing essentially moot. For much, much more, head on over, download at will, and bookmark the site for upcoming new web-releases and dispatches.

Of course, Woodpigeon’s in-studio work is richer by far, and worth the bills. Purchase older LPs Songbook and Treasury Library Canada, plus a plethora of EPs, at your leisure, and definitely pick up Woodpigeon’s newest Die Stadt Muzikanten, which dropped just last week. Coverlovers, especially, should keep an ear open for new track Woodpigeon Vs. Eagleowl (Strength In Numbers), which uses Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down as a perfect springboard for the quintessential post-millennial indie grungepop number.


Cover Lay Down posts new features and coverfolk sets every Wednesday and Sunday, plus the occasional otherday. Coming soon: the mailbag is bursting with great new artists; we feast upon the best covers in the bunch.

Quebequois folk artist Kate McGarrigle, whose name will be forever entwined with that of her sister and performing partner Anna, passed yesterday after a long struggle with cancer.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle were performers first - taught to play the piano by nuns in their rural village, the singer-songwriters played the Montreal coffeehouse circuit in the sixties as part of The Mountain Four. But like so many artists before and after, it was their songwriting which paved the way for fame, especially after Linda Rondstadt not only recorded but named her album after Anna’s Heart Like A Wheel. From there, their curiously concrete-yet-intimate, oddly touching songs spread far and fast in the hands of others, from Emmylou Harris to Billy Bragg, leaving a wake of opportunity for their eponymous 1975 debut, and a lifetime canon of both French and English masterworks which I will always treasure, both in their original gorgeous harmonies and, as true folk songs, in coverage.

The McGarrigle legacy goes beyond songs and songbook, of course. The sisters’ multiple collaborations with family and friends, most notably personal favorites The McGarrigle Hour (1998) and its equally strong follow-up The McGarrigle Christmas Hour (2005), were warm and wise, calling to a long folk tradition of both family gospel hootenanny and intimate living room songsharing performed for the sheer communal joy of it. And though Kate’s children Rufus and Martha, who have both crafted wry and aching songs about their family life, carry the name of her ex-husband Loudon Wainwright III, through Rufus’ vocals, Martha’s ear for a sweet yet grounded lyric, and a pantheon of achingly personal songs from Kate, Anna, and Loudon himself, the life and lives that Kate brought to this earth will remain with us for decades to come.

Which is to say: although Kate’s loss leaves a hole in the heart of so many, she also leaves us with much beauty, wonder, comfort and fulfillment, through recordings, song, tribute and ancestry. And as we were blessed to have her with us, we are grateful for what she has left behind.

Here’s some favorites, from Kate & Anna, family and friends, to remember her by.

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Little Boxes (Petites Boites) (orig. Malvina Reynolds)

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Swimming Song (orig. Loudon Wainwright III)

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle w/ Rufus Wainwright: Schooldays (orig. Loudon Wainwright III)

• Rufus Wainwright ft. Dido: I Eat Dinner (orig. Kate McGarrigle)

• Martha Wainwright w/ Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Rebel Jesus (orig. Jackson Browne)

• Emmylou Harris w/ Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Skip Rope Song (orig. Jesse Winchester)

• Elvis Costello & Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Ommie Wise, Parts 1 & 2 (trad.)

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Sugar Baby (trad.)

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Gentle Annie (Stephen Foster)

• The McGarrigles, Wainwrights, and Friends: Hard Times Come Again No More (Stephen Foster)

Bonus tracks:

• The Coors: Heart Like A Wheel (orig. Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
• June Tabor: Heart Like A Wheel (ibid.)
• Billy Bragg: Heart Like A Wheel (ibid.)

We’re all about the music here at Cover Lay Down, and generally, that means promoting the artists themselves. But there are musicians everywhere, and pain runs rampant through the world.

So I’ve eschewed linkage today, although you absolutely should pick up the Kate & Anna McGarrigle catalog when you have a chance. Instead, for the short term, I’d like to ask that folks consider making a donation in Kate’s name - either to our own Haiti-and-then-some campaign, which sends 40% of all gifts to Doctors Without Borders and a local food bank, or to The Kate McGarrigle Fund, which goes to rare cancer research at the McGill University Health Care Foundation. Please give, if you can.

The news runs all night and all day: in the barber shop, at the proverbial watercooler, on the seldom-watched television that has always lurked in the corner of our living room. In class, I ask my students to search news sites and blogs, and report on all the ways that social media - the stuff of postmodern interconnection - serves our global awareness. At night, my daughter and I find Haiti on the map, and I explain: how the houses were poorly built, how the concrete fell on the people: look, there they are in photographs, hurt, orphaned, helpless, alone in the midst of everything fallen.

Over at Bottom of the Glass, Billy reminds us that Haiti “no more needs our love and attention and money now than they did two weeks ago”, and it’s true: the world has always needed us, both here and abroad. But it is just as true that as the last few survivors pass on in their dark undiscovered graves, there is a danger that we are already moving on, returning our attention to our smaller selves. Disasters focus our attention, but our attention is ever-more fleeting. Facebook status updates return to the trivial, our daily minutia more immediate than some distant civilization in ruins. Just four months after the Indonesian earthquake, as with so many other, older global hotspots of desperation, the wells of our still-needed support have run dry.

Remember the dead, and the damaged; the poor, and the hungry. Remember, too, the support we did not send: the money that would have strengthened those walls before the world shook in anger, and they fell. Commit to the dream: that one day, all children will join hands as sisters and brothers, and play together, and know each other, and not forget until it is too late.

Give of yourself, now and always, in your own community and abroad. For the world is always crumbling somewhere. And that somewhere is always all around us.

Across the world, musicians and artists from Arcade Fire and Amy Millan to rappers Flo Rida and Young Jeezy to Haitian-American musician Wyclef Jean have already begun their outpouring of support for Haiti. Inevitable yet no less appropriate or desperately relevant than the concerts for Katrina, the rallies for Tibet, the drives for the Asian tsunamis, the memorials for a post-9/11 New York, these events and fundraisers are nonetheless worth our attention.

If you have the power to give, then there is nothing gauche about seizing the moment that seems right for you. Find or organize your own local benefit. Donate to Paste. Download Adrian Heath’s new album. Head to NYC’s City Winery this Wednesday through the following Monday for a 4-night series of concert events starring Josh Ritter, the Swell Season, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Roseanne Cash, Vienna Teng, Yo La Tengo, and a whole host of other talent. Do it, and along with some great music, you’ll get that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from giving.

Myself, I’m committing 40% of every donation to Cover Lay Down for the next month to those who need it, both locally and abroad: half to our local food pantry, and half to Doctors Without Borders to support efforts in Haiti and beyond. As a gift-in-kind, all who donate through Cover Lay Down before Feb 17th will receive a bootleg mix of live covers from this past year’s Clearwater, Grey Fox, and Falcon Ridge Folk Festivals, with all tracks recorded by yours truly, and available nowhere else. Featured artists include Old Crow Medicine Show, Sarah Jarosz, Tim O’Brien, Crooked Still, Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry, Susan Werner, Stonehoney, and more. I think you’ll like it, and I’m honored to open up my personal archives for this excellent cause.


But in the end, it does not matter how we give. It matters that we give. And that we commit our life to giving, and to the memory of the fallen, if we are able.

More than ever before, we are living the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. We are all one people, and as such, we are beholden to each other to sustain the world. We have learned, each in our own way: remain silent and aloof, and the world will fall around us.

Here’s a short, somewhat random soundtrack for the occasion, with a little something for every one of us - both those who suffer, and those whose hands reach out to help.

• Emmerson Nogueira: Give A Little Bit (orig. Supertramp)
  (from Versão Acústica, 2009)
• Sarah Masen: Give A Little Bit (ibid.)
  (from The Dreamlife of Angels, 2001)

• Sara Watkins: Lord Won’t You Help Me (orig. Norman Blake)
  (from Sara Watkins, 2009)

• Susan Tedeschi: Lord Protect My Child (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Hope and Desire, 2005)

• Sara McLachlan: Dear God (orig. XTC)
  (from A Testimonial Dinner: The Songs of XTC, 1995)

• Steve Earle: No Place To Fall (orig. Townes Van Zandt)
  (from Townes, 2009)

• Cassandra Wilson: The Wind Cries Mary (orig. Jimi Hendrix)
  (from the Crossing Jordan soundtrack, 2003)

• The Corrs: Everybody Hurts (orig. REM)
  (from MTV Unplugged, 2000)

• Calexico: I Send My Love To You (orig. Will Oldham)
  (from I Am a Cold Rock I Am Dull Grass: Will Oldham Tribute, 2006)

• Alison Krauss: When You Say Nothing At All (orig. Keith Whitley)
  (from Now That I’ve Found You, 1995)

Click HERE to donate to Cover Lay Down / Doctors Without Borders / The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and receive your link to our exclusive live Summer ‘09 bootleg digital download. No minimum donation required - even a dollar makes a difference…

Tomorrow, January 14th, is my birthday - my third, in fact, since beginning the musical journey we call Cover Lay Down. Two years ago, in celebration, we featured covers of and from musicians who shared my birthday, a list that included Allen Toussaint, Dave Grohl, LL Cool J, and T-Bone Burnett. Last year, we gathered in covers of and from a set of artists born in 1973, and that was fun, too: it’s hard to feel old when you’re the same age as Andrew Bird, Rufus Wainwright, and other luminaries whose careers are still gathering steam.

As a set of bonus party favors, I’ve re-upped the songs on those old entries. But don’t click through just yet. Because this year, in an attempt to continue the trend, I’ve decided to step out of the pseudonym a bit to feature artists who share my name.

Oh, I know: you know me as boyhowdy, a convenient pseudonym whose murky origins involve a series of band rehearsals and my own high tendency towards ADHD distraction. But in the meatworld, I’m known as Joshua: an old testament name, and - according to Wikipedia - “a species of arborescent monocot native to North America”. Due to its biblical origins, it’s a popular name, especially among Jews - until recently one of the top five male names in the US, in fact - and as such, it’s no oddity to find several beloved artists in my collection who share it.

Surprisingly, there’s no English word for “someone who shares the same name as you” - namesake is close, but despite what Wiktionary claims, it technically only means “someone named after”. But though I’m not so self-centered as to believe that fave singer-songwriters Josh Ritter and Josh Radin were named after lil’ ol’ me, and am reasonably confident that I myself was not named after early Piedmont folk-bluesman Josh White, to share a name with someone is to share a special kind of connection. And happily, there’s a lovely word for this coincidental soul-connection in Spanish - tocayo - suggesting that other cultures, at least, recognize this nombrelationship as valid and meaningful.

No matter; we’re happy to take our linguistics where we find them here at Cover Lay Down. Y, convenientemente, mis tocayos se incluido muchos cantautores increíble. Here, then, are some of mis tocayos.


I was lucky enough to see Josh Ritter at the Green River Festival way back in 2003, before he graduated to the festival mainstage and beyond; I even plopped down next to him on the lawn to check out Redbird, with Erin McKeown alongside us both, once his set was finished. Ritter is a few years younger than I am, but he exploded onto the scene young, thanks in part to some attention from Glen Hansard, and a knack for backstory-rich songsmithing which resonated with audiences here and abroad; trivia buffs may also note that Ritter was recently married to Dawn Landes, whose gorgeous voice has been featured in these pages several times before as well, so clearly, the guy’s doin’ alright for himself.

These days, in fact, Ritter is huge; his recent Symphony Hall show was well-blogged, and it’s hard to imagine topping any show where the first Poet Laureate of the United States opens for you. But I’ll always think of him as the kid with the goofy grin, the slow vocal drawl, and a talent for earnest, down-to-earth lyrics and well-crafted love songs that ache with authentic adolescent longing. I’d been holding out for a full feature on the lad, but we dropped his great cover of Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel a few months ago, and today’s theme just wouldn’t be complete without a few favorites, so what the hell: here’s five.

• Josh Ritter w/ Blake Hazzard: Tonight You Belong To Me (pop. Patience and Prudence)
  (from Sweetheart: Love Songs, 2004)

• Josh Ritter: Blame It On The Tetons (orig. Modest Mouse)
  (from Girl In The War EP, 2006)

• Josh Ritter: Daddy’s Little Pumpkin (orig. John Prine)
  (from Live at the Record Exchange EP, 2007)

• Josh Ritter: Storm Windows (ibid.)
  (live at SXSW 2006; bootleg via MVYRadio)

• Josh Ritter: The River (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
  (live on the World Cafe, 2007)

I first heard of Aussie singer-songwriter Josh Pyke a few summers ago, thanks to an incredibly well-textured folkpop Kate Bush cover on No Man’s Woman, a collection of male Down Under artists covering their female counterparts’ signature tunes. Since then, Pyke has come out with a sophomore album that seems to have spawned several singles, but to be perfectly honest, I’m cribbing off Wikipedia here. It’s not just me, either: Pyke charts high back home, and he’s won several ARIA industry awards in the adult contemporary category in his native land, but although the streams on his website are deliciously McCartney-esque and soundtrack-ready, and despite regular airplay on “national youth broadcaster” Radio Triple J, which coverlovers know well for its ongoing series of cover challenges to the musicians they host, he seems to be relatively unknown in the States. Perhaps these two vastly different covers will help raise some well-deserved consciousness.

• Josh Pyke: Wuthering Heights (orig. Kate Bush)
  (from No Man’s Woman, 2007)
• Josh Pyke: The House At Pooh Corner (orig. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
  (from Triple J’s Like A Version 3, 2007)

Ohio-based singer-songwriter Joshua Radin is prone to that slow, delicate echo-and-hushfolk that tends to accompany those maudlin Scrubs montages in which Zach Braff’s character stares morosely into the distance; sure enough, he was one of the Grammy-winning Garden State soundtrack compiler and indie music champion’s proudest discoveries, and his list of television and movie soundtrack appearances puts most other, older folksingers to shame. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that: in his element, Radin is one of my favorite indiefolk artists, capturing the inner life of ache and winter longing in a low whisper and soaring, perceptive lyrics.

We featured (okay, buried) Radin’s totally emo pianofolk take on the Sesame Street theme a few months ago, and it seemed pretty popular. He also does a killer eighties cover. Here’s two, to prove it.

• Joshua Radin: Only You (orig. Yazoo)
  (live at Reg’s Coffeehouse, 2006)
• Joshua Radin: Girlfriend in a Coma (orig. The Smiths)
  (from First Between 3rd And 4th, 2004)

I wrote about mid-western alt-folk singer Joshua James recently in passing, and posted a newly-found tradcarol (Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel) from his holiday sampler to boot. But since then, I’ve been slowly falling in love with the empathy he wrings from his strained, half-broken tenor, most especially the way it wraps around the subtle banjo and guitar strains of his recent Daytrotter session. I don’t usually use Dylanesque as a compliment, but it fits perfectly here, especially in his rhythmic sense, and his tough treatment of tragedy; there’s shades of Neil Young’s darkness, too, though the voice is easier on the ears. And Paste loves him, but we’ll let you make your own call.

• Joshua James: Losing My Religion (orig. REM)
  (live at Daytrotter, 2009)
• Joshua James: Christmas in Prison (orig. John Prine)
  (from North Platte Records Xmas sampler Glory Glory Glory, 2009)
• Joshua James: Custom Concern (orig. Modest Mouse)
  (web exclusive, 2008)

Josh Rouse’s new album El Turista is due to drop in a few weeks, so he’s closer to the top of my mind - and my stacks - than most of the other folks on today’s list, if only because I really haven’t spent the time I should have to get into his good works. Partially, that’s because the harder-edged alt-country side of folk tends to get short shrift in my collection anyway, what with my preference for true-blue folk and pop harmonies. But it’s also because his cover work tends almost exclusively towards the slow and maudlin, while the rest of his songstyles range widely - which makes them easy to collect piecemeal, and a bit easier to rummage through outside of the usual old-school full-album format, but ironically, makes them a bit less cohesive as a full playlist altogether.

But what Rouse does, he does exceptionally well: his perfectly radiopop 2005 album Nashville, especially, has had its fair share of play and replay in my collection, both for its dreamy-to-alt-rocking diversity and its catchy guitar hooks; his quiet bedroom cover of The Clash, from a mag sampler released the same year, is a personal favorite. And the man is terribly prolific, with over a dozen albums in as many years, and more if you count the deliciously intimate ongoing self-released Bedroom Classics Closet Archives subscription series he’s been running off his website, which so far have included great live concert recordings, in-studio sets with string quartets, and the below Mother Love Bone cover.

• Josh Rouse: Straight To Hell (orig. The Clash)
  (from a Q Magazine Sampler, 2005)
• Josh Rouse: Chloe Dancer (orig. Mother Love Bone)
  (from Bedroom Classics Vol. 3, 2008)
• Josh Rouse: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (orig. The Smiths)
  (from Dressed Up Like Nebraska (out of print single), 1998)

Finally, turning back the clock a bit, my archives reveal a few old tracks from pre-revival folkie and “Singing Christian” Josh White which would have fit in just fine with last Sunday’s Subgenre Coverfolk feature on the Acoustic Blues. White spent the first wave of his career doing the blues gospel circuit, and it shows in his vocal mannerisms: there’s a bit of Nat King Cole or Sam Cooke’s croon here, coupled with the faintest post-transition crack and yodel. Laid over a barely audible laid-back acoustic guitar, it’s the real deal, sad with the fields, ready for the folk-world fame that never truly caught up to him before his 1969 passing, though his early years were thankfully flush.

• Josh White: The House of the Rising Sun (trad.)
• Josh White: Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out (orig. Bessie Smith)
  (from From New York to London: The Classic Recordings, 2002)

Thinking it’s time to give something back? Donations are always nice, but all I really want for my birthday is a comment and some good wishes. How ’bout it, folks?