Sunday, November 8, 2009

Tributaries, Redux:
New Tribute Albums and Cover Compilations, Fall/Winter 2009





Inevitably, a love of coverage leads to a constant, ever-vigilant search for thoughtful, well-crafted reinterpretation. I spend hours each week mining full albums for the hidden cover song, and scanning MySpace and email inbox for the promotional, the one-off acoustic in-studio radio track, and the otherwise unreleased singleton, and the endless discovery is eminently worth the pursuit.

But there’s no question that tribute albums are the cover lover’s bread and butter. I gather these things in like truffles, and hold a special place for them in my heart and in my archives; as regular readers have surely noted, more often than not, it is to tributes which I turn first when compiling single-songwriter coversets here on Cover Lay Down. And as I predicted way back in March, in our feature on the year’s first crop of tributes and cover compilations, it’s been an especially good year for such collections.

The trend towards full-album coverage seems to have its roots in an acceleration of culture which celebrates the now and the immediate, leaving room for well-grounded artists to correct those who would believe that everything is new by making explicit their connection to those who have formed and informed their sound and sensibility. Too, the slow and steady passing of a generation of songwriters creates an ongoing opportunity for celebration of such artists’ life and work. Couple this with the folk tendency to mine the past, resurrecting artists and influences on the verge of cultural extinction through reinterpretation, and the field becomes ripe for a cornucopia of tributes.


I should note, before we begin our review of this year’s folk Fall and Winter tribute releases, that I don’t generally go for end-of-year “best of” lists. Even if I did, with so many releases still impending, and so many just-discovered gems still soaking into my ears and brain, the first weekend in November seems far too early to declare a definitive top ten. But combine today’s post with our March feature, add other ‘09 features on 70s singer-songwriter tribute Before the Goldrush, Wears The Trouser’s Odetta tribute, Susan Werner’s Classics, and the tradfolk covers of Splice Today’s The Old Lonesome Sound, and there’s certainly a hierarchical set lurking here, waiting to be compiled. (Also good, though not eligible for consideration: Dark Was the Night, which featured a full album’s worth of covers among its 32 tracks.)

If you’ve got a favorite among these, or know of one we’ve missed, please let me know in the comments, so we can ensure a definitive list in December, where such things properly belong. In the meantime, here’s the best and brightest of this season’s harvest.



Not sure how so many of us missed The Mississippi Sheiks tribute Things About Comin’ My Way, released last month on Canadian indie label Black Hen Music. But this diverse roots-oriented celebration of the influential 1930s African-American country blues group is chock full of greatness, and it deserves to be shared. A broad set of well-loved artists, from folkies Bruce Cockburn, Danny Barnes and Geoff Muldaur to Jazz and Blues musicians such as Kelly Joe Phelps, Bill Frisell, John Hammond and Madeleine Peyroux, turn in strong interpretations of songs so familiar to the average audiophile, it may be surprising to discover that many of these are not traditional blues tunes, after all.

Here, the swampy, bluesy title track, and a great take on The Sheiks’ Sittin’ On Top of the World from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, to get you in the mood to purchase the album.



In my mind, The Village: A Celebration of the Music of Greenwich Village, which dropped last week on 429 Records, is a companion piece to Bleecker Street: Greenwich Village In The 60’s, a sadly out-of-print tribute album released a decade ago. Both feature an equally solid set of song covers from the contemporary singer-songwriter end of the folk spectrum; both are generally excellent, with a few oddities and weak spots, but overall well worth picking up in toto. Each, too, features a mix of artists who were alive during the heyday of the Village scene, and a scattering of newer inheritors of the folksinger mantle; in the case of The Village, this means strong tracks from Rickie Lee Jones, Shelby Lynne, and Mary Chapin Carpenter alongside relative newcomers The Duhks, Rachel Yamagata and Amos Lee.

The more recent of the pair is a wee bit heavier on the Dylan, but that never hurt nothin’. Tim Buckley covers on both albums remain standouts, lending credence to those who continue to celebrate the legacy of a man taken from the world far too early. It’s hard to top Lucinda Williams‘ mournful take on Positively 4th Street. And the newly-released John Oates cover of He Was a Friend of Mine comes on the heels of a recent announcement of a possible upcoming album of traditional folksong from the surprisingly versatile popstar. Here’s the lead track from The Village, and a second favorite to boot.



There was widespread anticipation this summer of the September release of Crayon Angel: A Tribute To The Music of Judee Sill, which resurrected the seventies sounds and songs of the rediscovered cult favorite, but as with so many blog-touted albums, the buzz seems to have faded quickly. Shame, that: one you get past exquisite opening tracks from frequent tribute-album carriers Ron Sexsmith and Beth Orton, the collection turns predominantly nu-folk, featuring undersung artists such as Bill Callahan, Marissa Nadler, and Meg Baird at their best, ranging from the delicately lo-fi, atmospheric sounds of Frida Hyvönen to the relaxed, back-countrified harmonies of The Bye Bye Blackbirds. And it’s all good.



Loudon Wainwright III’s double-disc High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project was released back in August, but it took this week’s rave NPR review from grandaddy pop reviewer Robert Christgau for me to find it. Again, not sure why this one hasn’t been getting better press: Wainwright’s characteristically pinched tenor is a perfect vehicle for these old-time bluegrass standards, and his banjoplay, filled out by the usual talented family and friends, captures the essence of Poole’s hillbilly sound exquisitely.

Poole was no songwriter; these songs are mostly standards, though most have come down to us indelibly stained with the wry humor and poignancy which Poole brought to his pickin’ and singin’. And technically, the set isn’t fully a tribute; the CD includes nine originals, mostly about Poole himself, among its 29 tracks. But the focus on Poole’s repertoire and sound certainly brings the project into the fold. Below, a grand romp through The Deal, with Chris Thile on background vocals and mando, and a gorgeous old-timey duet between Loudon and his daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche on an old gospel song which Charlie Poole never recorded but reportedly made a staple of his life shows. Both speak well for the project, and the love which Wainwright, Sr. has brought to it.



Finally, if I have less to say about countryfolk songstress Roseanne Cash’s recent collection The List, which captures her renditions of just a handful of the hundred songs daddy Johnny Cash told her to learn, it is only because major media outlets from Stereogum to the New York Times have so thoroughly covered the album. But I concur with the bulk of them: this is a gem of an album, which lends beauty and longing to traditional and well-known country tunes well worth learning and hearing. A pair of early favorites, to cap off today’s omnibus.



Honorable mention this week goes to Splice Today, who earlier this year brought us that incredible indiefolk tribute to traditional folksong, for their most recent project, the original compilation Baltimore Does Baltimore. The fully free downloadable album runs a broad musical spectrum from punk to synth-pop, making it ineligible for consideration in our own year’s end “best of” list, but there’s some wonderful indiefolk tracks on there, including the below tracks and a lovely, lo-fi folkpop Wye Oak take on a tune from the Baltimore club scene, and the download-by-song format makes it easy to pick and choose.



Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features each Wednesday and Sunday, plus the occasional otherday. Stay tuned later this week for some live tracks and an interview from tonight’s Caroline Herring and Chris Smither concert in Northampton.

Meanwhile, for more musing on the role of the tribute album as a phenomenon of culture and coverage, and a bunch of still-live tracks, head back to our first Tributaries post from March of this year.

Category: Tribute Albums

15 Responses to “Tributaries, Redux:
New Tribute Albums and Cover Compilations, Fall/Winter 2009”

  1. Quick scan of the net – blues musicians « Disconnected Thoughts of a McDonalds Worker
    November 8th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    [...] http://coverlaydown.com/2009/11/tributaries-redux/A broad set of well-loved artists, from folkies Bruce Cockburn, Danny Barnes and Geoff Muldaur to Jazz and Blues musicians such as Kelly Joe Phelps, Bill Frisell, John Hammond and Madeleine Peyroux, turn in strong interpretations of … [...]
  2. Jamie
    November 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    Nice find! I’m a fan of Ndidi Onukwulu (a local BC artist) but my few attempts to see her live have been stymied (cancelled show, then conflict with another gig). I’m almost certain the bluesy riffs in that track are being played by her collaborator Paul Pigat, also of the rockabilly band Cousin Harley. You’re right, I didn’t really know the Mississippi Sheiks but am plenty familiar with Sitting on Top of the World, which I always assumed was traditional, not an original!
  3. Owyn
    November 8th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Great mini-concert with Rosanne Cash at the WSJ Cafe.
    http://online.wsj.com/video-center/wsj-cafe.html

    Has anyone found a link to Cash’s full List yet. I looked when the album premiered on NPR and just checked again. Nada.
  4. Owyn
    November 8th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Ummm.
    http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/11/05/rosanne-cash-on-johnny-the-list-taylor-swift-and-playing-live-at-the-wsj-cafe-speakeasy-column/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
  5. Owyn
    November 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Got to stop meeting like this.

    Long Black Veil is actually a Lefty Frizzel cover.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Black_Veil_%28song%29
  6. boyhowdy
    November 8th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

    Saw the WSJ article and accompanying vids, Owen - nice, eh? I can’t find the full list, either - was surprised Roseanne didn’t use it as part of the promotion, though I suppose it would then make people annoyed about which ones she didn’t pick this time around.

    And if Long Black Veil is a Lefty Frisell, I claim confusion brought on by other artists — I’ve seen two in the past few weeks who introduced it as “traditional” before playing it.
  7. Owyn
    November 9th, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Yeah. Could be a moneymaker for her if she referrer linked to iTunes from the list.

    Or maybe she is afraid someone else will use the list to spin off their own compilation/covers. Who knows.
  8. muruch
    November 9th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

    I liked the Kath Bloom tribute best this year.
  9. bigstevie
    November 9th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

    Thanks!

    If you’re not all Charlie Poole’d out then there are 4 songs that didn’t make the double CD. They can be streamed or downloaded from the High Wide and Handsome site. I know you’ll love them!

    http://www.thecharliepooleproject.com/bonus.html
  10. boyhowdy
    November 10th, 2009 at 6:45 am

    @ Muruch: your comparison of the Sill tribute with the Kath Bloom tribute is right on, I think. & the high overlap of artists between the two tributes makes for a strong comparison.

    @ bigstevie: Thanks for passing those along. I actually saw ‘em, but didn’t post the bonus tracks initially because it wasn’t clear which were covers; any thoughts?
  11. bigstevie
    November 10th, 2009 at 7:39 pm

    Can’t help I’m afraid….I’ve no idea of their origins.
  12. FiL
    November 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Superb post, BH! Lots of great here to investigate.
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    November 15th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

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    April 3rd, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    [...] The full-court cover-press seems to be working: Coons is selling out venues on tour up and down the East Coast, and though I’m disappointed to have missed the chance to see him as he passed through Northampton recently, surely my loss is others’ gain. Recent gigs opening for John Oates - yes, really - who has recently begun to leverage his own success in the eighties towards a career as a solo folk musician grounded in the sounds of the early folk revivalists, provide an additional connection to this week’s theme, and merit a bonus track from Oates himself off a recently-featured tribute to the Greenwich Village scene. [...]
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