Cover Lay Down CONTEST WEEK!
Contest #1: WIN Indie cover compilation Before the Goldrush
Due to an odd confluence of events and generosity, we hereby declare it CONTEST WEEK here at Cover Lay Down! As the week progresses, we’ll be offering several day passes and CD prizes from Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (July 16-19), AND a pair of weekend camping passes to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (July 23-26). The rules for each are simple — one entry per person, per contest — so don’t forget to come back and enter each as it comes.
Today’s kick-off contest comes courtesy of A Nest of Eggs, who has partnered with Teach for America to create Before the Goldrush, an incredible 26 track tribute to the singer-songwriters of the sixties and seventies.
Our original review of Before the Goldrush, first posted way back in January, is thorough and complimentary, but it’s worth noting that this incredible next-generation tribute album is still on rotation in my living room. And in a blogger’s household, it’s the very rare disk that sticks.
But Before the Goldrush is one of those albums all folk fans and coverlovers should own. From acoustic singer-songwriter folk to gentle indiepop and mellow alt-rock, the covers are almost universally perfect, treating old cultural standards inventively, respectfully, and with tenderness in turn. Just check out the tracklist:
My favorite part of the project? All proceeds go to Teach for America, an organization which recruits teachers from and to urban and rural areas in order to eliminate educational inequity. As a high school teacher in the inner city schools, I cannot think of a more appropriate way to kick off our contest week.
In the interests of supporting Teach for America, instead of sharing any more songs from the album, here’s a few non-album tracks from three of my favorite artists on Before the Goldrush:
- Pieta, Zoe, and Constance Brown: Ella Mae (orig. Greg Brown)
(from Going Driftless: A Tribute to Greg Brown, 2002) - Ana Egge: In the Backseat (orig. Arcade Fire)
(from Lazy Days, 2007) - William Fitzsimmons: King of Wishful Thinking (orig. Go West)
(live; more William Fitzsimmons)
Before the Goldrush is only available in digital-download format, but we’ve been given permission to give away a rare copy of the press-only CD — containing all mp3s and files for the project, plus beautiful cover art and liner notes.
For a chance to win this jewel-case promo copy of Before the Goldrush, leave a comment OR send an email with the subject “Before the Goldrush contest” letting me know which original song on this album has had the strongest impact on you.
We’ll pick winners for ALL contests at the end of the week.
Category: CONTESTS, Compilations & Tribute Albums
June 29th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I don’t know about impact, but “Songbird” is the one I probably sing along with most often, if that counts.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
“You can Close Your Eyes” - probably one of the most beautiful songs ever written
June 29th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I would say Today by Jefferson Airplane.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
“I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You” by Tom Waits is a particular favorite.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Little Green by Joni Mitchell by far. Blue was the first folk album that I fell in love with and it’s really changed the way I look at music.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
America, by Simon and Garfunkel — this was on the first album I ever got that was my decision to get. As an 8-year-old it was amazing to discover that there was a whole world of music out there besides the classical music I heard at home usually. Made my heart sing.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:19 am
I’ll go for ““I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You” by Tom Waits too.
It is not the best song in the list. Heart Of Gold would be my pick if I had to chose my real favorite, e.g. the song I’d give the best rating.
But “I Hope ” brings back memories of exactly 10 years ago, when I was out of a complex love affair and was feeling free as a bird. I had a short affair with another girl and hoped I wouldn’t fall in love with her, and then one month later I met my wife. During these months the whole Tom Waits discography was playing non stop on my stereo, and I bought all the early Asylum albums.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I’d have to go with the Beatles’ “Girl”. My first–and best– musical education was listening to my older brother’s Beatles LPs on my parents’ 1970s stereo in the very early ’80s. Changed me forever.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Definitely Into The Mystic for me, because another folky cover of the same (coincidentally, it was performed by Irish band The Frames, which features Glen Hansard of the Swell Season) was the first dance at my wedding.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Just Like A Woman is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, I have no more to add
June 30th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
One of my favorite Van Morrison is Into the Mystic. I first heard it when I was 16 years old, looking through his catalogue of music from his Astral Weeks era. I didn’t really hear it for a while. A few years back, when I first discovered this blog, I found a song by one of my favorite artist, Glen Hansard, that I couldn’t find anywhere else.. It was Brittney Spears.. Regardless, the version of Into the Mystic on this album is one of the most amazing. It shifts into Heyday, by the late, great Irish songwriter Mic Christopher and really shows how well Hansard and Marketa Irglova blend live. This track totally brings me up, no matter how down I may be.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I really like Will Fitzsimmons’ You can close your eyes. Not only is it a beautiful song, but given his rise to where he is. born from 2 blind parents, he endured adversity and found his gift of music.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I’ll have to with “Girl”, but with the cover by Jim Boggia, which I’ve had for several years. I can’t actually hear the original anymore with hearing his aching vocal.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:00 am
I first heard Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” when I was stuck in bed. I’d just had knee surgery and couldn’t move. I was reading things like On The Road and wishing I could go traveling.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am
It has to be Dylan’s “Just Like A Woman”. It came out at a confusing, transitional time of my life, that time when you aren’t quite a woman and not a little girl anymore.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:02 am
It had to be America. Simon and Garfunkel started a life long affair with harmonies and then Paul Simon. Paul opened a new world of music and literary references. S&G captured teenage alienation with “I am a rock” and finally, as a New Yorker, Paul Simon captures the sensibility, alienation of a city resident and life on the street.
Paul Simon ties into the history of rock music with Anthony and the Imperials and then the Everly Brothers style. He then brought me world music to my sensibility.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I love You Can Close Your Eyes, originally by James Taylor. I first heard it in junior high school and have sung it since then, now to my own children as a lullaby.
July 1st, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Boyhowdy, a tough task you’ve given us to pick just one from that list…especially for this Canadian girl when there’s so darn many canucks (Joni, Leonard, Neil, most of The Band and, geographically anyway, Jesse Winchester).
Mine has got to be Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold”. I was barely 16 and full of dreams and musical curiousity and teenage angst…..and here was this song that grabbed me and pulled me straight in from the first sound of that sad, sweet harmonica and that beat and the steel guitar and oh, that voice - so heartfelt and woeful and hopeful all at once. Never mind the harmonies of James Taylor and LInda Ronstadt. All these years later, I still love sliding the album out of its golden cover, setting it on the turntable and playing Side 1, Track 4 over and over and over again. Musical memory is, for me, the strongest and this song makes me 16 again in an instant…..
Listen to the piano/voice version on his Massey Hall Live 1971 cd release for a whole new take on what was merely a “work in progress” at the time. Simply stunning.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:44 pm
[...] CONTEST WEEK, Continued! Contest #2: Win passes and CDs from Grey Fox Bluegrass, July 16-19Cover Lay Down CONTEST WEEK! Contest #1: WIN Indie cover compilation Before the GoldrushR.I.P. Michael Jackson, the King of Pop (A reluctant tribute from a reluctant fan) *plus an MJ [...]
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:57 am
‘America’ easily. It’s the one song about my homeland that really strikes the right mood. And I associate it with the courting of my wife.
“Let us be lovers we’ll marry our fortunes together
I’ve got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for america…”
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:40 am
The original that’s had the most impact on me is Leonard Cohen’s Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye. Before I heard that song I was under the impression that his music was dour and depressing. But, that song proved that the opposite is the case: I now find his songs to be quite uplifting and often funny as well
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:56 am
@Carol
Got a link to “Luminato 2009: A Tribute to Neil Young’s ‘Live at Massey Hall’” CBC Concert on Demand.
http://covermesongs.blogspot.com/2009/07/michael-jackson-live-tribute.html
Link thanks to Fongsongs
http://fongsongs.blogspot.com/2009/07/canadian-cover-content-13-happy-canada.html
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 am
Twilight by the Band! Of all their great songs this one is their best IMO.
Its about a man growing old into his twilight years, learning from his past mistakes
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Oops.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090610young
July 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
[...] Cover Lay Down CONTEST WEEK! Contest #1: WIN Indie cover … [...]
July 5th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
[...] CONTEST WEEK, Continued! Contest #2: Win passes and CDs from Grey Fox Bluegrass, July 16-19Cover Lay Down CONTEST WEEK! Contest #1: WIN Indie cover compilation Before the GoldrushR.I.P. Michael Jackson, the King of Pop (A reluctant tribute from a reluctant fan) *plus an MJ [...]
July 5th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I’d have to say “Dear Boy”. I heard my brother’s copy of “RAM” over and over while I was still a tiny lad…it seeped into my soul.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I’m sure “Today” by Jefferson Airplane because I listened to Surrealistic Pillow on the way to school/work for over a year every morning.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
P.S. My entry is CD ONLY.
December 20th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
[...] — one to win Grey Fox Bluegrass day passes and some sweet bluegrass and cajun CDs, the other to win the Before the Goldrush tribute CD — have been successful, but there’s still plenty of chances left. The Grey Fox contest [...]