Cover Lay Down

The tribute album is a relatively new phenomenon, historically speaking. After all, like all covers, the tribute is predicated on a model in which performing artists are thought of as both originators of and owners of song, a conceit which itself did not become common in modern culture until the cross-genre singer-songwriter movements of the fifties and sixties.

But where cover albums, through their very diversity, celebrate a spectrum of sonic influence on the cover artist, by acknowledging those musicians whose influence on culture and art go far beyond that of a single hit, tribute albums reinforce the very model of song as owned through performance. Tribute albums pay homage: the tribute album is a sign that the influence of a particular artist-as-originator has reached a kind of critical mass within a particular genre, or among a certain group of artists, or in the culture at large.

To record a tribute album is not to canonize, then, but to acknowledge that broad and long-lasting influence. Indeed, as a specialized subset of cover compilations, the tribute requires a full album’s worth of coverable song; as such, it re-establishes a body of familiar work, or of work worth re-imagining, thus reinforcing original artists’ familiarity and power.

This is not to say that tribute albums cannot function as a mechanism for cultural canonization, of course. In the last few decades, artists whose influence among a particular group of musicians is not yet recognized among a broader listenership, from Daniel Johnston to Mark Heard, increasingly merit tributes, especially in recognition of death or illness. But whether a tribute trades on popularity or seeks to spread it, the earnest tribute album has long been a way for artists to recognize their influences and peers, while at the same time grounding their own musicianship in a body of work, a history, a tapestry much larger than themselves.

Those horrible cross-genre tribute albums which merely ride the coattails of popularity to sell product have given the word “cover” a bad name, and I curse them in all their string-tribute anonymity. But a good tribute album is the cover lover’s bread and butter, a collection which serves to survey and reestablish all at once. And if the current crop of new and upcoming tribute albums are any indication, it’s going to be a very good year. Today, we survey some of the best of the bunch.


The project which would become Singing Through The Hard Times: A Tribute to Utah Phillips started life last year as a vehicle to defray medical expenses for folksinger Utah Phillips, who had been ill for some time. When the long-time union organizer, hobo, and storyteller died in May of last year, we did our own tribute here, and the project continued on as a vehicle to acknowledge his life and influence, with proceeds going directly to benefit Utah’s family.

Curated by fellow folksingers Dan Schatz and Kendall and Jacqui Morse, and released through Righteous Babe Records, the label started by Utah’s friend and fellow activist Ani DiFranco, the double CD is a fitting tribute and celebration, featuring three generations of folksingers whose music “springs from the same rich vein of the people’s history that Phillips chronicled throughout his life.” Many of these voices, such as Pete Seeger and Si Kahn, are torn and shaky after decades of hard roads and coffeehouse venues, and a few tracks sacrifice sweetness for emotive power, but overall, Singing Through The Hard Times is highly recommended, especially for celebrants, chroniclers, and members of the folkways crowd.

• Rosalie Sorrels: The Soldier’s Return (orig. Utah Phillips)
• Emma’s Revolution: Hymn Song (orig. Utah Phillips)

Longstanding staple of the curious intersection of blues, rock, country and R&B, and an originator of “Tex-Mex rock & roll”, Doug Sahm was an unknown to me until very recently, having grown up without much exposure to the roots world. But recent coverage over at Setting the Woods on Fire and The Adios Lounge, featuring Sahm solo and with Sir Douglas Quintet and the Grammy-winning Texas Tornados, has made me a convert. Even if I’m still not sure if this is folk, it counts as americana, I like it, and it’s too good not to share.

I’ve been sitting on the promo EP for Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm since Christmas, in fact, by label request. But though I haven’t heard the full album yet, nor heard much press about it elsewhere, Vanguard has been pushing their live SXSW tribute to Doug Sahm, which, like the album, will feature Sahm’s son Shawn and a holy host of others from the roots/americana world, so I’m going to assume that the deluge has started. Teaching, parenting, and the loss of stamina that accompanies encroaching middle age make SXSW attendance unrealistic at best for this old folkblogger, but as these great cuts from Dave Alvin and Alejandro Escovedo should demonstrate, the show, and the coming album, are both well worth the time and money for anyone with a penchant for rocking out to deep southern roots music.

• Dave Alvin: Dynamite Woman (orig. Doug Sahm)
• Alejandro Escovedo: Too Little Too Late (orig. Doug Sahm)

I know even less about Chris Gaffney, another southern roots rocker of similar cross-genre sound who died of liver cancer last April, though I do recognize his name and sound from his work as a member of the Hacienda Brothers, and know that he spent much of the last decade playing backup for Dave Alvin. But the roster of artists on his upcoming Yep Rock tribute A Man Of Somebody’s Dreams: A Tribute To The Songs Of Chris Gaffney is pretty similar to the Sahm tribute roster — both include Dave Alvin, Escovedo and Los Lobos; the Gaffney tribute will also feature Peter Case, James McMurtry, and even Calexico on the roster — so if the Sahm tribute sounds like it’s right up your alley, you’ll like this one, too.

The release date for A Man of Somebody’s Dreams — which, like the Utah Phillips tribute above, was started by fellow musicians as a mechanism for defraying medical expenses, only to become a posthumous tribute — has been pushed back to May since songs:illinois covered it in January, but in the interest of keeping the buzz going, here’s the twangy honky-tonk Robbie Fulks cover Craig originally shared.

• Robbie Fulks: King Of The Blues (orig. Chris Gaffney)

Meanwhile, over at naturalismo, host Tyler has been talking up an upcoming album of covers of Kath Bloom, a singer of delicate, fragile folkblues who recorded a half dozen albums in the late seventies before allowing herself to fade into obscurity and local community. Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute to the Songs of Kath Bloom, will be a double CD set, with the first disc covers, and the second originals; the paired set should serve as an especially powerful way to introduce fans to both the songs and the influence of this obscure ancestor of the freakfolk resurgence.

My letter to Chapter Music asking for a promo copy resulted in silence, but I’ve grown to trust naturalismo, who has since co-sponsored a short Kath Bloom tour on the West Coast in anticipation of an April 7 album release. Sweetheart of the Radio has a lovely Bill Callahan cover from the album, too, and a trio of older cuts for those who haven’t heard Bloom’s dreamy freakfolk originals. Though I’m eager to hear what the likes of Josephine Foster, Mark Kozelek, Bill Callahan and The Dodos are able to glean from Bloom’s catalog, the diversity and strange beauty of both the Meg Baird and Devendra Banhart covers here are a sweet foreshadowing.

• Meg Baird: There Was A Boy (orig. Kath Bloom)
• Devandra Banhart: Forget About Him (orig. Kath Bloom)

It’s been a while since the buzz started on Shoot the Moon Right Between the Eyes: Jeffrey Foucault Sings the Songs of John Prine, one in a long line of folk tributes from one singer-songwriter to another — but no compendium of the best folk tribute albums of early 2009 would be complete without celebrating this excellent tribute, released back in February.

Jeffrey Foucault’s genius in interpreting the songs of others was well-established by his work with singer-songwriter supergroup Redbird, and by the continued release of web-only outtakes such as the Townes Van Zandt cover we posted just this past week. But these priceless, powerful sessions, recorded late at night in the president’s office of an old bank over the course of a year, turn a catalog of well-chosen Prine classics and obscurities of power and despair into something a little less broken but perhaps a little more lonely. Here’s two, from the vault.

• Jeffrey Foucault: Storm Windows (orig. John Prine)
• Jeffrey Foucault: Billy The Bum (orig. John Prine)

Of course the biggest tribute news in the coversphere this week is the announcement that Steve Earle has recorded and will soon be releasing an album of Townes Van Zandt songs. It’s hardly a revelation to find Earle covering Van Zandt so deeply — after all, deservedly celebrated singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle got his name from dad Steve — but the streaming tracks on Steve’s MySpace page are solid, if a little formulaic. This Mornin’ I Am Born Again has a tracklist and links to two more preview streams, while Beat Surrender adds a few great Steve Earle covers.


Finally, right on the heels of Bruce Springsteen’s own YouTube coverproject, distant news comes to us of PLAY SOME POOL, SKIP SOME SCHOOL, ACT REAL COOL, a gigantic tribute to this iconic and oft-covered stalwart of truly american music from Where It’s At Is Where You Are. The track list isn’t available yet, and the only cuts out so far are a pair of “non-album singles”, whatever that means. But the reps assure me that the album will be about 1/3 folk of the indie persuasion. And if this frozen, fragile gypsyfolk take on I’m On Fire from brooklyn-based quintet The Snow is any indication, someone with a keen ear for good coverage is behind the helm.

• The Snow: I’m On Fire (orig. Bruce Springsteen)

Honorable mention here goes to Aquarium Drunkard’s wonderfully-produced collection RAM On L.A., which pays track-by-track tribute to Paul McCartney’s 1971 solo album RAM; the album, which features new bands from the LA scene, isn’t really folk per se, but has a local authenticity and charm all its own. And rumor has it there’s a Shel Silverstein tribute in the works out there, too, with star turns from Alison Krauss, Black Keys, Dr. Dog, Band of Horses, My Morning Jacket, and Andrew Bird.

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