I Got Nothin’: Songs of Absence, Loss, and Stasis
(5 Dylan covers, plus covers of Prince, The Kinks, Van Zandt and more)
I had planned to post a huge survey of new and upcoming tribute albums from the folkworld here in this space today, but after a week of bedside Zen, Sunday’s late-night sociopolitical rant, and a full-bore reentry into teaching and town business meetings, exhaustion seems to have caught up with me.
I’ll be working on that tribute post throughout the week, and hope to have it up on Sunday at the latest. But in the interest of deadlines, and because the ol’ brain is really not up to much more than yet another themed list, here’s a set of songs about nothin’.
- Jeffrey Foucault: Nothin’ (orig. Townes Van Zandt)
- Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Nothin’ (ibid.)
The Grammy may have gone to Plant and Krauss, and certainly, the tension between the whine of the electric guitar, the slow fiddle, the subtle string section, and the heartbeat drums makes for a powerful atmosphere. But Jeffrey Foucault’s soulful, solo acoustic cover is a dry, appropriately mournful classic too, which evokes the Van Zandt original without cutting into its own power.
- Silje Nergaard & Joerun Boegeberg: Nothing Compares 2 U (orig. Prince)
- Ben Taylor: Nothing Compares To You (ibid.)
- Dan Kelly: Nothing Compares To You (ibid.)
Love that soft plucked bass/guitar, sweet articulated vocals and the hushed jazzfolk setting from Shockadelica, a huge and diverse tribute compilation of nordic origin which you probably don’t have, as it was quickly suppressed by the man himself. Lucky we’re collectors here, eh? And yes, that’s James Taylor’s son with the sweet-voiced second, and a lovely uke and harmony cover from Dan Kelly & the Alpha Males which I’m pretty sure I got from Cover Freak at one point or another.
- Mark Lanegan: Nothin’ In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About That Girl (orig. The Kinks)
- Feist: Nothin’ In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About That Girl (ibid.)
- The Morning Benders: Nothin’ In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About That Girl (ibid.)
I posted the Mark Lanegan cover of this one back in August as part of a full set of Kinks covers; since then, I’ve rediscovered Feist’s sparse, live version, and bedroom coverfolk masters The Morning Benders have done the usual feature on Daytrotter, which added this late-night doozy of a fuzzed-out folk rock cover to their growing body of coversongs.
- Jimmy LaFave: Love Minus Zero/No Limit (orig. Bob Dylan)
- Eliza Gilkyson: Love Minus Zero/No Limit (ibid.)
- H. Burns: Love Minus Zero (ibid.)
“My love, she speaks like silence…” These three covers tend towards the slow and moody, though of the three, Texan Jimmy LaFave’s is probably the rawest, while H. Burns‘ is the most intimate. Still, Eliza Gilkyson’s produced version has a rhythm which carries the song forward majestically, with keyboard solo, slide and drumkit all supporting that twangy, syrupy voice.
- Biscuit Boys: You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (orig. Bob Dylan)
- Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova: You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (ibid.)
Gotta give Dylan credit for doing so much with nothin’ — I could do a whole set of Dylan covers with the words “nowhere”, “nothing”, “ain’t” and “zero” in ‘em if I had to. Here, defunct bluegrass band The Biscuit Boys go upbeat and harmonized, while cinematic odd couple Hansard and Irglova go for a more traditional approach with guitar, harmonica, Dylanesque wail and sparser harmonies.
- Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule: Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me (orig. Duke Ellington)
Twangfolk couple Curreri and Sproule have produced five sequential-year home-recorded free-for-download Valentine’s Duets cover albums; this week’s single-shot comes from their 2004 set.
Thanks, by the way, to all who helped push back against the recent anti-populist changes at HypeMachine. I’m happy to report that, since yesterday, the default view over there has been changed to one which features a single song from each blog each day. It’s not ideal, of course — the new system will not favor blogs which post multiple songs twice a week (ahem), and it’s going to hide many posts from Star Maker Machine — but it’s better than the alternative. HypeMachine gets subdued props for listening to their core readership, and for owning up to their vital role as a space for discovery, rather than re-creating and filtering the Top 100 status-quo.
But Ekko’s reminder today — that the true core of our readership should grow from mutual pass-alongs and hat-tips — is a good one. Those who depend on the business models of others to drive discovery are playing a risky game; keeping those bigger venues honest is only one small part of the work of bloggers, fans, and musicians invested in keeping the music world broad, rich, and ever-wonderful.
So thanks for the continued support. And please — if you like what you read here, like Autopsy IV says, help spread the word about us, and the blogs we link to, so we can all continue to help spread the word about the artists.
Category: Uncategorized
March 12th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Hey, BH ~
I also love the cover of You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash and Shawn Colvin… on the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration - I can send it to you if you’d like…
March 14th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
[...] On Influence and Coverage (New and Upcoming Tribute Albums from the Folkworld and Beyond)I Got Nothin’: Songs of Absence, Loss, and Stasis (5 Dylan covers, plus covers of Prince, The…When Hype Machine Drops the Little Guys, We All Lose: An Open Letter to Bloggers and Blog Readers [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
If you’re going “ultimate” Prince cover CDs, look no further than Dump’s “That Skinny Motherfucker with the High Voice.”
Yo La Tengo does Prince. What more do you want out of life?
Though Ween’s cover of “Shockadelica” is pretty incredible in its own right, too.
March 17th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I don’t know, CD — it’s hard to top a good 81 song cross-genre tribute compilation no matter where you turn. But I’ll give you the Ween, even if it would stick out like a sore bum here on a folkblog.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:54 am
That thing has 81 (?!?!?!?!) different tracks on it?
OK, now i guess i have to book a flight overseas and track that puppy down.