Saturday, August 8, 2009

Laura Love Covers
Steve Miller, Nirvana, Laura Nyro, Wayfaring Stranger, and more!





I picked up my first Laura Love album in the early nineties, and can’t for the life of me remember why. Nor can I remember what happened to it, though I still have the CD booklet for Pangaea — an especially regrettable turn of events, given the album’s lovely, sparse cover of Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, and the utter dearth of available downloadables from this and several other rarities from Love’s early career as an artist dancing on the edge of genre.

Pangaea may be long gone, but the eclectic afro-celtic sound which typifies bass player and vocalist Love’s recorded output has stuck with me through the years all the same. I’ve still got widely praised and equally out-of-print 1997 release Octaroon, its title a sly nod to Love’s multiracial background, and pass along its great solo cover of Nirvana’s Come As You Are on cover mixtapes whenever I can. And when a recent serendipitous trip to our local library turned up several other Laura Love albums, appropriately split between the rock and folk sections, I was reminded how much I enjoyed her distinctive style, both as a vocalist and folkrock bandleader, and the way she applies it to a vast spectrum of musical styles and genres.

Love hasn’t released anything new since 2007, when she turned her sights and sounds towards the bluegrass and African American spiritual canon, rediscovering herself as a neo-traditional grass tenor along the way. But though the music is centrally American in origin, as with her other work, NeGrass is eminently modern: worldbeat and wild, oft-danceable and generally joyous in tone, the funky bass-driven music supporting Laura Love’s unmistakable pure and lusty alto/tenor. Here’s a few from the in-print stacks.



As alluded to above, due to frequent label shifts, much of Laura Love’s early albums are hard to find, especially Pangaea, which is oft-cited as the definitive collector’s item. But her 1995 Putumayo collection offers a solid introduction to her early work, and her more recent work is consistently good, including several live concerts available through FestivalLink and the currently under-construction LiveBand. 1998 release Shum Ticky is an equally great ride, featuring two songs about her booty, and a surprisingly effective duet with Sir Mix-a-Lot. Get ‘em all here, with Laura’s blessing.


As an afterthought: Laura Love studio collaborator and touring companion Barbara Lamb — a performer and fiddle teacher who at the age of 14 taught an 11 year old Mark O’Connor how to play, and whose fiddle-playing has since graced the stages and records of the likes of Tony Trishka, Peter Rowan and Riders in the Sky — has just released Twisty Girl, a new digital album whose experimental, electrified tracks lean heavily on looped percussion and fiddle to create a surprisingly engaging sonic landscape; though the record is a significant departure from her earlier work, it’s hard to deny its raw, hypnotic charm.

Here’s a few covers from Lamb’s previous album, 2006 bluegrass outing Bootsy Met A Bank Robber, with a dollop of luck on her continued success as a solo artist pushing her own boundaries.



Cover Lay Down shares musings on music, community, and culture, framed around coverfolk sets from a broad variety of sources and local heroes, every Sunday and Wednesday. Coming soon: we hit the far reaches of Cape Cod, and sing surely of the sea.

Category: Laura Love

2 Responses to “Laura Love Covers
Steve Miller, Nirvana, Laura Nyro, Wayfaring Stranger, and more!”

  1. Peter Bromberg
    August 10th, 2009 at 11:26 am

    Pangaea is collectors item–who knew? I’ve loved this album since the day I bought it, after seeing Laura play live somewhere in Spokane, WA. Her version of “Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye” actually introduced me to Leonard Cohen — thanks Laura! — and for me still stands as one of the most beautiful cover songs ever recorded.

    In later years I picked up and enjoyed Helvetica Bold and Octoroon, but Pangaea remains my favorite–the one I regularly (if not often) throw on the cd player and transport myself back to the early 90’s and that feeling of optimism and possibility that one has in their early 20’s, listening to new music, in a new city, on a beautiful summer day.
  2. Cuidado
    August 11th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    Thanks so much for the introduction to Laura Love. She’s new to me and I like her a lot.

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