Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Covered in Folk: Big Star
(Kathryn Williams, Son Volt, Evan Dando, Kelly Willis +10 more!)





Bloggers love Big Star. So much so, in fact, that mere mention of their names to a certain sort of audiophile is like a secret handshake, a wink and a nod that marks the listener as a well-informed, well-cultured aesthete of a particular underground substream which defined the modern musical map.

And deservedly so. Led by highly conflicted and conflicting personalities Alex Chilton & Chris Bell in the early seventies, the original incarnation of Big Star never had much mainstream success, perhaps because they were way ahead of their time, though label mismanagement and inter-band tensions certainly took their toll. Lineup changes had an effect, too: Bell left the band before Chilton and remaining band member Jody Stephens came back to record Third/Sister Lovers, a third and final masterpiece, and after that, the project pretty much petered out.

But thanks to mid-eighties back-catalog attention from both labels and the rising alt-rock movement, the post-British invasion proto alt-rock which Big Star produced during their short-lived first-wave career would go on to become a strong and heady influence for musicians and fans searching for a pound of powerpop truth in the lean rock decades which followed.


Singer-songwriters prone to pensive coverage love Big Star’s songbook, too. Short enough to fit in a thin box set, it is nonetheless chock full of easily learned, easily covered odes to timeless angst and adolescence, ranging from brooding acoustic ballads to powerful rockers.

The band’s underground cachet allows coverage to serve as a nod to smart listeners looking for an acknowledgement of the history of music which creates the time/space of performance and its corresponding experience. The songs themselves remain powerful enough to speak raw emotion in oft-hushed tones to anyone who might care to hear, regardless of familiarity with the original. It’s the ideal situation for covers, allowing the recreation of songs to serve as a community grounding for those that need it, while simultaneously providing a stage for just plumb good performance.

Which is not to say that it’s impossible to mess up a Big Star song. Only that there’s more than enough gems out there, and that we have the whole process — from the songwriters and original performances to the interconnected history which brings forth our experience of interpretation — to thank for it. We’ve posted a few of these before, and I’m certainly not the first to share most of ‘em, but for completeness’ sake, here’s the breathtaking best of a surprisingly large collection, from grungy electric folkrock to hard-edged alt-country to sparse and sultry singer-songwriter.

*You and Your Sister was a Chris Bell solo track, released as a b-side just a few months before Bell passed in a car crash at the age of 27 in December, 1978. It also featured Alex Chilton on backing vocals.


What with multiple Big Star reissues and compilations coming at us this year — most notably upcoming four-disk Rhino demos-and-all retrospective Keep The Eye On The Sky, which drops September 15 — I’m not the only one to pick up on the buzz. For more relatively recent blogger paeans, including links to a few more great Big Star covers, check out August tributes from Mainstream Isn’t So Bad and Aquarium Drunkard. And don’t forget to pick up 2006 tribute album Big Star, Small World if you’re up for some additional coverage of the late nineties post-grunge and Americana type.


Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features and sets Wednesdays, Sundays, and the very occasional otherday.

Category: Big Star, Covered in Folk

7 Responses to “Covered in Folk: Big Star
(Kathryn Williams, Son Volt, Evan Dando, Kelly Willis +10 more!)”

  1. jamie
    September 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 am

    yes, i love big star. can’t help it! wasn’t you and your sister technically chris bell’s single? whatever. still great! good post.
  2. alpo
    September 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 am

    Great post on some nice covers…still looking for “September Gurls” by the Searchers …I’ll send it along when I find it!
  3. nazz nomad
    September 2nd, 2009 at 9:34 am

    excellent ! thanks
  4. Jeff
    September 2nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    These guys were amazing. Some great versions here too; particularly like the slide guitar on the Kelly Willis track - really nice.

    I recently posted a version of El Goodo that i recorded in my home studio. Nothing fantastic, just me and an acoustic guitar (and a couple backing vocal tracks). Have a quick listen:

    http://theanimalsrunthefarm.blogspot.com/2009/07/ballad-of-el-goodo.html

    It’s a relatively new blog, but I’m working on it!

    Keep up the great work with your site, I love it.

    jeff.
  5. Berkeley Place » THAT LOOKS KINDA KOOL . . .
    September 3rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    [...] 1. I posted some Big Star covers a while back. Covered In Folk, the best blog that refused to trade links with me, outdid me. Here. [...]
  6. John Fry
    September 3rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    Thanks for a nice perspective on what we all did together so long ago. Of course Big Star was 4 piece for #1 Record, 3 for Radio City, and just Alex and Jody remaining for Third/Sister Lovers (the last being produced by Jim Dickinson who passed away about 2 weeks ago).

    I enjoyed being involved with these re-issues. (These meaning the Big Star box and the Rhino HandMade edition of Chris Bell’s solo material (Sept. 29), now 2 CDs, the second featuring alternate versions, mixes and previously unreleased material).

    I actually went back into the studio along with Adam Hill at Ardent to mix some tracks for both the box and Cosmos. I hope they prove enjoyable.
  7. Covered in Folk: Townes Van Zandt (Jeffrey Foucault, Guy Clark, Peter Mulvey, The Lemonheads + 6 more) — Cover Lay Down
    October 14th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    [...] in the same way that Big Star holds a special place in the hearts of a particular sort of blogger, there’s a high level of modern respect and celebration for the work of the soft-spoken Texas [...]

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