Cover Lay Down

Though I spend plenty of time at the foot of the stage, I don’t usually care much for live recordings: I prefer the perfection of the studio to the roar of the imaginary crowd, and poor sound quality bothers my ears. But every once in a while, when there’s a good engineer at the sound board, something truly special results. Such is the case with Red Molly‘s strong first full-length album Never Been To Vegas — which, when added to their four-song in-studio EP, is the sum total of their recordings.

And, with the exception of a few previously-sung notables by Red Molly dobro player Abbie Gardner, every single song on these albums is a coversong.

The three folksingers that comprise Red Molly — Gardner, bass player/mandolinist Carolann Solobelo, and banjo/guitarist Laurie MacAllister — met around covers, so it’s no surprise that their entire recorded output consists of them. Formed from the early morning remnants of a latenight songcircle high above the darkened mainstage of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the trio returned to the festival two years later to win the highly-competitive FRFF Emerging Artist showcase. (Full disclosure: I’m crew chief for the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival teen crew).

Since then, the girls of Red Molly have toured with the other 2006 showcase winners, opened for such luminaries as Jonathan Edwards and John Hammond, and come back to Falcon Ridge as featured performers, wowing crowds and winning admiration from fellow musicians with their sweet harmonies and full acoustic sound. Throughout, they’ve been playing covers — banking admiration for such time as they might return to either their own solo work, or a fuller existence as the rarest of American folk creatures: the folk group.

Mostly, Red Molly’s interpretations lean towards the Americana end of folk music — coverchoices include Gillian Welch, Hank Williams, and old traditional folk/gospel songs such as Darlin’ Corey and When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder. But regardless of subject, their tight crystal-clear harmonies and brightstringed musicianship bring each song forward as a gift to be shared, a glittering gospel.

Today we feature a trio of songs from the folktrio’s Never Been To Vegas, with kudos to engineer Dae Bennett for changing my mind about live recordings, even if this one turns out to have been recorded in a studio, not a coffeehouse. Don’t forget to check out the bonus songs below for a sweet pair of covers from their self-titled EP, and a wonderful version of You Gotta Move by Abbie and fellow 2006 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Showcase winner Pat Wictor.

• Red Molly, Caleb Meyer (orig. Gillian Welch)
• Red Molly, Coal Tattoo (orig. Billy Edd Wheeler)
• Red Molly, Blue Night (orig. Kirk McGee)

Support these fast-rising, red-wearin’ women by buying Red Molly, plus solo albums from Abbie, Laurie, and Carolann, from CD Baby via the Red Molly website. While you’re there, follow the link to pick up this year’s Naked Folk Calendar (the girls of Red Molly were the November 2006 pin-up); all calendar profits go towards health insurance for struggling folk musicians.

Today’s bonus coversongs:

• Red Molly wrings new life from old Elvis-covered chestnut Are You Lonesome Tonight…
• …and jams through Susan Werner’s Yellow House
• Abbie Gardner and Pat Wictor wail the doublesteel blues on You Gotta Move (orig. Mississippi Fred McDowell)
• Previously posted: Red Molly covers Patty Griffin

Just a quick between-post redirect to Covering The Mouse, where Kurtis is king of the obscure, the odd, and the occasionally awful Disney cover. My guestblog there today covers the Chieftains doing Winnie The Pooh; if you like Disney, or Irish jigs, I highly recommend a visit. (Why? Because we like you!)

Disney lovers may also have noted that yesterday’s kidsong post also includes bluegrass goddess Alison Krauss’ sweet cover of Baby Mine, originally from Dumbo. And our previous post about a certain ex-mouseketeer continues to get hits. So much Disneyfolk, so little time…

I’ve been a teacher for almost fifteen years, and a Daddy for five; I’m lucky to be able to live in a world where I can be with kids, and play. But other than a short period of time where my daughter’s favorite song was Andrew W.K.’s thrashpunk anthem She Is Beautiful, this means there’s a constant struggle in my house between what I like to call “that same damn circus record” and what the kids dismissively refer to as “Daddy’s music”.

But listen up, Dads (and Moms): when the kids demand more appropriate age-specific earcandy, we don’t really have to lose. In a world where an entire generation is trying to keep their cool in the face of diapers and snailspace trick or treating, you don’t have to listen to that pap that passed for kids music in the disco era. Or Barney songs. Or that awful, too-chipper CD of baby-fied classics your mother picked up at her local all-natural toy store (sorry, mom). There’s a brand new crop of kidsingers out there — a holy host, from Dan Zanes to a thousand younger artists — and they’re not afraid to get ‘em while they’re young.

For the indie and rock crowds, I suppose, this demand for “real” kidmusic does seem to have opened up a new niche market. But folk music has long carried the torch for the authentic in kidsong. My 1970s childhood was filled with acoustic guitar and rough-tinged voices on already-old records from Guthrie and Leadbelly, and newer acts from Peter, Paul, and Mary to Bill Staines. When folk music came back for the Fast Folk second wave, it brought along its sense of childlike wonder; the demand bought Grisman and Garcia and Taj Mahal a second round of folkfame, and made way for new acts, like the jamgrass-for-kids Trout Fishing in America.

Since then, as the new generation grows through its indie stages, our favorite streetwise musicians grow up and have kids of their own — and out come the guitars and the quiet, simple voices, calling up half-remembered favorites from a time when everything was simple and pure. Suddenly, everyone’s a folk singer.

Like ice cream comes in vanilla and chocolate, kids songs come in two primary flavors, the quiet and the silly — but there are infinite variations from creamy to nutty. Next week, maybe, we’ll get a case of the sillies, and need to shake it all out. Today, three generations of folksingers — oldtimers Bill Staines and Garcia/Grisman, fastfolker Shawn Colvin and bluegrass staple Alison Krauss, and a host of newer artists from the wide margins of modern folk — bring us a set of lullabies and resting songs for a quiet Sunday afternoon.

• The Be Good Tanyas, Oh Susanna (orig. Foster)
  Get Blue Horse. Because if americana rocks, and all the great indiefolk bands come from Canada, then Canadian americana has a coolness quotient of eleven point five.

• Jack Johnson, We Are Going To Be Friends (orig. White)
  It takes a special kind of genius to make the White Stripes accessible to kids. Johnson’s stellar acoustic interpretation of this tune is one of many golden moments on Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George.
• Elizabeth Mitchell and Daniel Littleton, You Are My Sunshine (orig. Davis)
  My favorite rendition of a favorite kidsong. Get Sing Along With Putamayo (or any of Mitchell and Littleton’s You Are My… series) for this and many other wonderful not-just-for-kids interpretations of classic kidsongs. Put in CD player. Sing along. Repeat at bedtime.
• Robert Skoro, Michael Row Your Boat Ashore (trad.)
  Skoro is an up-and-coming indieboy who has been compared favorably to the Shins; this mellow cut is from Down By The Riverside: An Album Benefiting Reuben Lindh Family Services. How come Minneapolis gets all the cool acts?
• Alison Krauss, Baby Mine (orig. Mrs. Jumbo)
  A little looser, a little deeper south: if the original was middle America, this one’s a train through a sleepy Georgia town, two in the morning and too hot to sleep. Off of A Hundred Years or More: A Collection.
• Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, A Shenandoah Lullaby (trad./Brahams)
  Mandolins and bedtime stars and a rough-voiced Garcia at the waning peak of his power segue into a slow, sleepy instrumental Brahams Lullaby with strings. Goodnight, sweetheart. Get Not For Kids Only.
• Rex Hobart, It’s Not Easy Being Green (orig. Kermit)
  All the cool dads are listening to recent Bloodshot Records indie-fave The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs for Bumpy Wagon Rides.
• Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (trad./Taylor)
  A wash of sound and a ticking backbeat from alt-star Maida and folkrocker Kreviazuk make this almost-pop cover sing. From the exquisite and highly recommended benefit series For The Kids; the just-released Vol. 3 includes kidsongs by Rosie Thomas/Damien Jurado, Mates of State, Of Montreal, Great Lake Swimmers, and other indie darlings.
• Shawn Colvin, Seal Lullaby (orig. Wilder/Kipling)
  Kipling’s gentle nightpoem plays exceptionally well as a piano ballad. Colvin’s Holiday Songs and Lullabies is sweet and subtle in December…and all year ’round.
• Bill Staines, Home on the Range (orig. Higley/Kelly)
  Oft-covered New England folk icon and 1975 National Yodeling Champion Bill Staines plays us a fireside classic. From American Lullaby: Folk, Country, Gospel and Old-Timey Bedtime Songs, which includes great covers and great originals from a cast of legends and Grammy winners.

Click on artist/album names to buy some incredible music for the young and the young at heart. And remember, kids: buying music from the artist’s preferred source gives you peace of mind so you can sleep like a baby.

Today, in our first of what promises to be a fine series of Folk Family Fridays, we bring you a family tree of Wainwrights: Loudon, Rufus, Martha, and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, proud and outstanding in their field. Keep an ear and eye open for upcoming posts on the Taylor/Simons, the Thompsons, three generations of Guthries, The Ungars, and anyone else we can connect by blood or marriage in less than six degrees.

Loudon Wainwright III met Kate McGarrigle in Greenwich Village in 1969; she and her sister were darlings of the Quebec folk scene; he was struggling to make a name for himself in the New York folk world. Their marriage didn’t last long, but happily for the folk canon, it produced both enough acrimony to provide fodder for their own songwriting for years to come, and future folk-musicians Rufus and Martha, who each went on to make made a name and a niche for themself by continuing the family tradition of using their music to blast out at their family.

(Sidenote: Loudon went on to marry Suzzy Roche of the Roche Sisters; their daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche has performed with Rufus and Loudon, and released some great covers herself. And commenter woolmanite rightly notes that Loudon’s sister Sloan is a folk-rocker, too. But we’d be here all night if I didn’t stick to the once-nuclear Wainwright/McGarrigle branch of the family tree. Another time, another post…)

If even Vanity Fair has told their story, what else is there to say about the Wainwrights? For starters, consider the potential in tracing not just lyrical roots and commonality among folk families, but in listening to their works sequentially to compare the way nurture and stylistic choice and random genetic mixes produce in some folk families a sort of common voice, while in other families, subsequent generations end up at different poles of the folk spectrum, even while their voices echo their roots, their families, and their genre.

The Wainwrights are a poster family for the latter case; unlike many folk families (see, for example, Arlo and Woody Guthrie), each one of the Canadian-American Wainwrights has their own defined musical style. Yes, there’s a faint hint of Kate and Anna’s breathy melodies in Martha’s airy intonation, Dad’s swallowed vowels and a touch of Mama Kate’s loose country melody in brother Rufus’ torch song approach. The playfulness of lyric and performance, a dominant trait, shine through both sides. But the torch song stylings Rufus favors are all his own, and though she styles herself folkpop, Martha’s a darling of the indie movement for a reason.

Of the four — we’ll count Kate and Anna as one — Rufus is the one who has truly made a name for himself as a coverartist. I posted his co-cover of King of the Road when we covered his co-conspirator and constant companion Teddy Thompson earlier, and live bootlegs of everything from Careless Whisper to his Judy Garland covers bob up to the blogsurface constantly. You’ve heard his Hallelujah, and so I’ve posted a different Leonard Cohen cover here.

But as with all true folksingers, the recorded output of each of these prolific singer-songwriters includes enough covers to keep listeners smiling and this post on track. Today, some especially bright gems from the immense coveroutput of a collective century of musical genepool genius. I’m especially enamoured of Loudon’s yelping bluegrass interpretation of the traditional Hand Me My Banjo Down. It puts Springsteen’s version to shame.

• Loudon Wainwright III and Tony Trischka, Hand Me My Banjo Down (trad.)

• Kate & Anna McGarrigle feat. L. Wainwright, Schooldays (orig. L. Wainwright III)
• Martha Wainwright, Bye Bye Blackbird (orig. Gene Austin)
• Martha Wainwright, Tower of Song (orig. Leonard Cohen)

• Rufus Wainwright feat. Kate McGarrigle, Lowlands Away (trad.)
• Rufus Wainwright, Harvest Moon (orig. Neil Young)
• Rufus Wainwright, Chelsea Hotel No. 2 (orig. Leonard Cohen)

Expect a few more Wainwright family songs as we approach the holidays; 2005 release The McGarrigle Christmas Hour was one of the finest Christmas albums from the folk camp since the millenium turned over. Maybe I’ll confront the Roche/Wainwright connection then — the Roche Sisters’ We Three Kings is a refreshing, crisp winterdisk, too.

In the meantime, instead of creating the world’s largest buy-these-discs paragraph, here’s a link to the webpages of each Wainwright/McGarrigle mentioned in today’s post:

• Purchase Rufus Wainwright tuneage and play it often
• Pick up Martha Wainwright and you’ll never put her down
• Louden up with 35 years of Loudon Wainwright III
• Revel in the sweet quirky harmonies (and bilingual website) of Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Today’s bonus songs are few but precious:

• Emmylou Harris covers Kate McGarrigle’s Going Back to Harlan
• Regina Spektor covers Chelsea Hotel No. 2

Stay tuned over the next few days for our first KidFolk coverpost (Garcia and Grisman! Alison Krauss! The Be Good Tanyas!) and yet another guest post over at Disney coverblog Covering The Mouse. Enjoy!