Cover Lay Down

One of the primary reasons I focus on coversong here at Cover Lay Down is because I believe that covers are a great way to make the process of discovering new artists both comfortable and familiar. Most of the time, whether the organizing principle of a given post is the interpretive work of one singer-songwriter, or a single artists’ songbook, this means a focus on popular songs, and less popular artists performing them. After all, you don’t need me to introduce you to Bob Dylan, but you’re much less likely to have heard Angel Snow’s delicate, raw take on Dylan’s Meet Me in the Morning.

Today, this process bears wonderful fruit: a focus on the interpretive work of a married pair of singer-songwriters who I first encountered through their songs as covered by other artists. They’re known better as behind-the-scenes wizards from the country/roots-rock end of American folk music, but they’re great performers in their own right, and I think they deserve as much a chance to shine as their songs do. Ladies and Gentlemen: Buddy and Julie Miller.

Texan Julie Miller started singing at sixteen, releasing her first album in 1991; long-time Nashville session guitarist Buddy Miller met her on the road, and soon they were sharing both bed and band. But the singing-songwriting team of Buddy and Julie Miller was truly formed in 1995, when Julie co-wrote songs and contributed vocal talents for Buddy’s first solo effort Your Love And Other Lies. Two years later, critical accolades for the release of her major-label debut Blue Pony, which featured Buddy as producer and on multiple instruments, sealed their reputations in the folk and country worlds; since then, the two have become one of the most successful musical husband and wife teams you’ve never heard of.

You’ve almost definitely heard Buddy and Julie’s session work, though. Both are heavily in demand: Buddy for his production work, vocals, bass, and lead guitarplay, Julie for her vocal harmonies and writing. Between them, they’ve worked on over a hundred albums, in session with the likes of everyone from Frank Black and Jimmie Dale Gilmore to Mindy Smith and Patty Griffin. Buddy, who served in Emmylou Harris’ band for eight years, has earned accolades from bandmates Emmylou and Steve Earle, among others, for his guitarwork and his vocals; meanwhile, Julie’s vocal harmony has become the mark of a certain kind of promise for releases from predominantly female folk artists with a particular southern folk/country bent to their sound and their outlook.

But because session work is often invisible to the average listener, in name, at least, Buddy and Julie are probably better known for their work as interpreted by others. Their songs are unmistakable: rich with black and white old-testament imagery, catchy melodies, that particular form of desperate hope and strength common to regional music of proud but dirt-poor community, and a mountain gospel trope which fits well with the typical themes of post-folk country music. As other people’s hits and deep cuts, their music has helped bring fame and fortune to a huge set of artists from the country and folk worlds, from core country artists Lee Ann Womack (multiple tracks), The Dixie Chicks (Hole in My Head) and Brooks and Dunn (My Love Will Follow You) to countryfolk Emmylou Harris (All My Tears) and Hank Williams III (Lonesome for You), from Christian rockers Jars of Clay (All My Tears) to bluesman John Mayall (Dirty Water) to straight-up folk artists Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell (see bonus section below).

Though their co-billed album Buddy and Julie Miller was a 2001 Grammy Nominee for Best Contemporary Folk Album, Buddy and Julie Miller are lesser-known as performers in their own right outside the music community. The Millers spend more time on sidelines than center stage; as such, they sometimes come off as session players getting their big break in concert, but they have their moments. I saw them a few years ago at the Green River Festival: Buddy studious, ragged and white-haired, grinning as he hunched over the guitar like a sideman; Julie beside him, smiling, singing a bit too brashly for her voice, her confidence level somewhere between performing spouse and full-blown performer. But the music was memorable in its way — big and generous, skillfully and unpretentiously presented, clearly studied — and the songs catchy and fun in the particular manner of rock music sung by folk musicians.

Still, it’s the studio where these folks really shine as solo artists. By himself, Buddy Miller favors an electrified roots-rock sound, with skilled guitarwork that runs a full range from driving to atmospheric wail, while Julie leans towards more traditional southern-style singer-songwriter folk fare in the vein of Nanci Griffith or Caroline Herring, produced (by Buddy, mostly) in a folkpop vein. They work with each other, so though nominally some albums are hers, some his, there are usually bits of each of them in the songs. Together, they make a powerful team, both in the way their various talents come together as a single whole, and in the way Julie’s sometimes tentative vocals compliment Buddy’s rough southern voice — think a slightly lighter-weight Kasey Chambers with a more intelligible Steve Earle, and you’ve just about got it.

Here’s some of Buddy and Julie Miller’s best coverwork, both solo and with others, that you’ve never heard.

• Buddy Miller: With God On Our Side (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Universal United House of Prayer)

• Julie Miller: Face of Appalachia (orig. John Sebastian)
  (from Blue Pony*)
• Buddy and Julie Miller: Wallflower (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Buddy and Julie Miller*)
• Buddy and Julie Miller: Paper Thin (orig. John Hiatt)
  (from It’ll Come To You: The Songs of John Hiatt)
• The Rolling Creekdippers (Buddy and Julie Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Mark Olson, Victoria Williams): In My Hour of Darkness (orig. Gram Parsons)
  (from Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons)
• The Chieftains w/ Buddy and Julie Miller: Country Blues (trad.)
  (from Down The Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions)
• Cry, Cry, Cry w/ Buddy and Julie Miller and Jay Ungar: Green Pastures (trad.)
  (live at Mountain Stage, 1999)

*Look, the point here is to whet your appetite, so you’ll buy the stuff; ordinarily, I’d have links here and above to Buddy and Julie’s webstore, where you can pick up more of their fully autographed works direct from the source, without dropping most of the profit in the coffers of Big Music. But Buddy usually runs the store, and he’s currently on tour with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, so he can’t fill orders. And most of Julie’s old albums are out of print, while the Millers prepare a “best of the early years” CD.

My recommendation: pick up Universal United House of Prayer NOW, direct from the label, and let that be your turntable goodness for the summer. Then, when you want more, come back to the webstore in August…or head out to your local indie store, where they’ll be happy to order whatever they can find for you.

Want more? Of course you do. And given the high recognition factor for the Buddy and Julie Miller songbook, we’d be remiss in not offering you a look at some of their best songs as performed by others. Because the list was so exhaustive, though it was hard not to share Emmylou’s version of All My Tears, I’ve decided to focus on some of our favorite song interpreters in the folkworld: Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, and Lucy Kaplansky, the three folk artists who, together, comprised the short-lived folk supergroup Cry Cry Cry. Today’s bonus coversongs may be just the tip of a very big, very wonderful iceberg, but I think you’ll find them worthy. (Bonus points: see if you can make out Buddy on one of these covers!)

• Cry, Cry, Cry does By Way of Sorrow
• …and then does it again, live from Mountain Stage
• Richard Shindell takes on My Love Will Follow You
• Lucy Kaplansky covers…
  • …Julie Miller’s Broken Things
  • …Buddy Miller’s Hole in My Head
  • …Julie and Buddy Miller’s Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

I’m not exactly the patriotic type. I’ve been to more countries than states; I prefer solitude to mall culture. Heck, we don’t even have basic cable. But all power-hungry, commercial/corporate complex, bittersweet modernity aside, I believe in the ideals which frame the constant American dialogue with itself — including first and foremost the requirement that we keep talking, lest we abdicate our role as government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And I believe that, by definition, as music which speaks of and for a people, American folk music holds a particular place in that conversation which is America. Folk focuses that conversation, making it real and vivid, whether it is through the lens of policy critique or protest cry, the immigrant experience or the internal monologue of a singer-songwriter struggling to be free.

Checks and balances and a mechanism for self-correction; fireworks and barbecue, and the right to make dumb mistakes and have to live with ‘em. Losing love, and falling in it again. Finding hope, and being scared to dream one more time. It’s the American way, all of it — and it’s been that way since inception.

Which is to say: if I may sometimes work to change the policies of those in power, through sharing song or through town meeting politics, it is because I love this country. And I hope I never lose that fluttery feeling in my stomach when we come in for a landing at the international terminal, and I know that I am home.

So let other bloggers share patriotic song today. I’d rather take the country as it is: dialogic, complex, open about its faults and favors, and always looking for a better way. And if saying so means posting songs we have posted here before, then so be it — for these are, after all, timeless songs, with messages that bear repeating.

Happy Birthday, America. Long may your contradictions endear us to you. May you never lose hope. And may we never stop singing.

• Eva Cassidy, American Tune (orig. Paul Simon)
  (from American Tune; more Eva here)

• Melora Creager, American Girl (orig. Tom Petty)
  (from Perplexions; more Melora here)
• Danny Michel, Young Americans (orig. David Bowie)
  (from Loving the Alien; more Danny here)
• Ann Vriend, Rockin’ In The Free World (orig. Neil Young)
  (from When We Were Spies; more Ann here)
• Tony Furtado, Fortunate Son (orig. Creedence Clearwater Revival)
  (from Thirteen; more Tony here)
• Richard Shindell, Born in the U.S.A. (orig. Bruce Springsteen)
  (from South of Delia; more Richard here)
• Allison Crowe, Independence Day (orig. Ani DiFranco)
  (from Live at Wood Hall; more Allison here)

A long weekend of solo parenting while my wife headed off to Sonoma County for a long-overdue vacation has left me too exhausted for deep thought. Happily, thanks to reader emails, new releases and new discoveries, I’ve got plenty of material for yet another installment of our popular (Re)Covered series, wherein we recover songs that dropped through the cracks too late to make it into the posts where they belonged.

A few weeks back, when my laptop went kablooie, Jamie — host of the ever-miraculous coverblog Fong Songs — stepped in to save the day with a fascinating guest themepost on Boxing coversongs. Jamie is one of the good guys, and he’s been a great friend since we started Cover Lay Down, giving me an open invitation to share the occasional non-folk set of covers over at his place, and even encouraging his own readers to take advantage of our great promotion for artist-friendly music source Amie Street. So I was thrilled when his guest post turned out to be one of the most popular posts we’ve had here at Cover Lay Down. You guys have good taste.

As a tip of the hat to this fine coverblogging peer, here’s two more covers of that most obvious Simon and Garfunkel classic from a few great women on the edge of the folkworld: the slow but bright post-country popfolk of Deana Carter (with vocals from Paul Simon’s eldest son), and a surprisingly old-timey take from Emmylou Harris just dripping with tight countryfolk harmony.

• Deana Carter w/ Harper Simon, The Boxer (orig. Simon and Garfunkel)
• Emmylou Harris, The Boxer (ibid.)

Though our Subgenre Coverfolk feature on Freak Folk is long past, I continue to struggle with Freak Folk and its relationship to folk music writ large. I called it a subgenre when I blogged about it, but the lines around it remain fuzzy, and the question of whether this counts as folk or not remains too entwined with the new indie usurpation of the term “folk” for me to feel totally confident, even now, that I got it right.

Looking back, I think I agree that Iron and Wine probably doesn’t belong in the roster, despite critical clumping, though I continue to believe that Sufjan shares more sensibility with Devendra Banhart, both as a performer and as a composer, than, say, Vetiver, who tend towards the electronic end of things. But looking at my ever-growing roster of song, I would have no problem including both “chamber pop” singer Antony and the Johnsons and “dream-folk” singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler in any feature on Freak Folk as a subgenre of folk music if I was to post it today. In addition to sharing Banhart’s peculiar wavery lyrical delicacy, both go for a swim of sound which is mystical and grand and personal all at once. It’s eminently folk, and eminently authentic. Freak Folk may be hard to describe, but this music matches my sense of what it is.

• Antony and the Johnsons, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (orig. Bob Dylan)
• Marissa Nadler, Famous Blue Raincoat (orig. Leonard Cohen)
• Marissa Nadler, Cortez the Killer (orig. Neil Young)

In the comments section of what was otherwise a pretty thorough exploration-through-covers of the songs of Gillian Welch way back in January, several folks mentioned that Over the Rhine covers Orphan Girl live in concert. Having just become a fan of these post-folkers after hearing (and reviewing) their holiday album, I spent the next few months gathering in bootlegs, and — though the piano is a little heavy in spots — have come to the conclusion that the “official” version from their Live from Nowhere, Vol. 2 album remains the best recording of a great, fleshed-out anthemic approach to this song.

While we’re on the subject, how about another couple of covers of and from the mistress of the new “American Primitive” movement? It’s a little to the left of center, as folk goes, but I just love this americana/ alt-country cover of Look at Miss Ohio from newcomers The New Frontiers. And I’ve been looking for an excuse to post Welch’s dreamy cover of Townes Van Zandt’s Pancho and Lefty for ages, since it combines one of my favorite songs with one of my absolute famous performers. (PS: Gillian Welch’s entire catalog is newly available at Amie Street, too…)

• Over The Rhine, Orphan Girl (orig. Gillian Welch)
• The New Frontiers, Look at Miss Ohio (ibid.)
• Gillian Welch, Pancho and Lefty (orig. Townes van Zandt)

Finally, we’ve been slamming the feedreaders this week over at collaborative music blog Star Maker Machine with our Fifty States theme: I missed the Massachusetts connection, but was happy to provide a few great songs (originals and covers) for the likes of Rhode Island (Erin McKeown, Blossom Dearie, Jennifer O’Connor), North Dakota (Lyle Lovett), New Jersey (John Gorka, Cliff Eberhardt), and Virginia (Johnny Cash, Dave Alvin, and Crooked Still).

The planning process took me back to our Carolina Coverfolk series week; while I was there, I found I had missed a few great songs. I ended up choosing a favorite John Hartford song about North Carolina for Star Maker Machine. But since we’re looking back, here’s an old kidsong from North Carolina tradsong savior Doc Watson, and one more Sam Cooke cover from North Carolina emigrant James Taylor, that really shouldn’t have been missed….plus a bonus pair: local singer-songwriter and labor activist Tom Juravich with a true campfire folk cover of James Taylor’s Millworker, and a cover of Fire and Rain by alt-rock/pop/folk artist Dido, just because it made me totally rethink her musicianship.

• Doc Watson, My Grandfather’s Clock (trad.)
• James Taylor, Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha (orig. Sam Cooke)

• Dido, Fire and Rain (orig. James Taylor)
• Tom Juravich, Millworker (ibid.)

Cover Lay Down is proud to support music through raising awareness, but musicians can’t eat awareness. As such, all artist links above lead to websites and stores where you can buy music without having to support corporate cash cows that pay suits better than musicians. And if you’re planning on going digital, remember, folks: Amie Street is not only cheaper than most download sources, it gives back 70% of all profits to artists. Use the code coverlaydown when you sign up for Amie Street, and you’ll get three bucks towards your music purchase absolutely free!

Coming soon on Cover Lay Down: more folk covers of plenty more popstars, a tribute to my elder child (who turns six in a week and a half), something vaguely patriotic, and a few more single-track cover featurettes from some great new albums and artists which I just can’t seem to shake, and wouldn’t want to. And it’s only two more weeks until Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival!

Still here? Then P.S. and FYI, coverfans:

1. I don’t usually promote upcoming radio shows/podcasts, but the folks at The Waiting Room, a radio show out of Cardiff, Wales (UK), will feature three hours of Tom Waits covers on tonight’s broadcast. Their Drunk Covers series is generally good, with vast genre influences, and there’s been a spate of Waits covers around this year…so expect to hear some Tom Waits covertracks you’ve heard here in the last few months…and a whole bunch more you haven’t. The show is broadcast on ErrorFM, which can be heard everywhere; podcast available here on Thursday!

2. If you haven’t been to Covering the Mouse recently, now’s the time: friend and occasional reciprocal guest-poster Kurtis will be celebrating his one year bloggiversary this month, and to honor the occasion, he’s collecting votes on your favorite past posts for a midsummer review of the best and worst Disney covers. Make your mark: vote now!
3. I’m not thrilled about Doveman’s cover of the entire soundtrack to Footloose, but My Old Kentucky Blog seems okay with it. Maybe you’ll like it. It’s free…