Cover Lay Down

Welcome back to New Artists, Old Songs Week - a dedicated series of genre-related posts in which we turn our ears and hearts to those still-emerging artists whose coversongs have come our way in the past few weeks and months.

We kicked off our theme week Sunday with a host of new popcovers; today we keep the ball rolling with some of the best new covers of traditional and post-revival folk to come down the proverbial pike in a good long while. Enjoy…and don’t forget to come back at week’s end for a New Artists, Old Songs indie covers extravaganza!

Boing Boing favorite Sophie Madeleine is hardly underground, but then, I’m sure there’s plenty of folkwatchers whose online habits don’t dovetail with the aggregator crowd. And Madeleine’s worth sharing, with a crushably sweet, warm vibrato of a voice that just floats over those high uke strings.

This pair of coversongs below - one folkcover, and one bonus Irving Berlin classic I just couldn’t resist - comprise half of the free four-song covers EP The Sidetrack Sessions, recorded over the last year but not released in mp3 form until the last weeks of 2009; since then, her full-length Love. Life. Ukulele. has become available in a beautiful red-vinyl-and-download collector’s edition, or as a pay-what-you-want download only, and it’s a wonderful record as well. The full-length has found its way to Boing Boing, too, but other than a “new music crush” mention on a Slowcoustic end-of-year guest post, made nary a splash on the music blogs. I’m proud to be among the first to correct this oversight.

• Sophie Madeleine: Don’t Think Twice (It’s All Right) (orig. Bob Dylan)
• Sophie Madeleine: I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (pop. multiple artists)
  (from The Sidetrack Sessions, 2009)

Like The Mercurials, who we featured several New Artists posts ago, Canadian folk/roots supergroup Bop Ensemble is a multi-generational trio, with two older established male artists taking on a younger female to fill out their sound, to great effect. In this case, Juno-winning folk legend Bill Bourne and Kerrville songwriting instructor Wyckham Porteous have joined forces with young female singer-bassist Jasmine Ohlhauser to create a full folk sound that rings with maturity, grit, and gentleness all at once, like a well- and warmly produced Tom Russell album, with shades of an acoustic Mark Knopfler session in the contrast between creaky voice and the lush sound of the guitars and bass.

Bop Ensemble’s debut Between Trains came out last summer, but it seems to have stayed underground until Keep The Coffee Coming found it just a week ago; thanks to Kat, I was in love by the end of the first verse of Buckets of Rain, and I think you’ll feel the same. Here’s the Dylan, and a fine take on a traditional spiritual for luck; head over to their MySpace page for a great low-slung Hot Tuna-esque cover of California Dreamin’, and some excellent originals to boot.

• Bop Ensemble: Buckets of Rain (orig. Bob Dylan)
• Bop Ensemble: Peace Like A River (trad.)
  (from Between Trains, 2009)

Berklee grad Laura Siersema comes from my neck of the woods, a fact we discovered by accident when engaging in the usual friendly artist-to-blogger exchange, but though hers is the kind of folk that I’ve often found a bit earnest, I’d still have shared this no matter where Laura lived. The slow, lush piano-driven popfolk production rings of mid-to-late Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, while Siersema’s deliberately and formally phrased pop vocal style shows a fine performer in full control of a delicate instrument.

Something about this Peter Paul & Mary cover, especially, begs to be put on repeat. Pick up Talon of the Blackwater, and sample more at MySpace.

• Laura Siersema: This Train (trad./pop. Peter Paul & Mary)
  (from Talon of the Blackwater, 2009)

New Americana artists The Steel Wheels hail from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and you can hear it; their management sent word along via email just today, so I can’t claim to have heard the whole album, but they’ve shared stages with the right folks for their sound - Over The Rhine, Carrie Newcomer, and Adrienne Young and Little Sadie among them. And if lead songwriter Trent Wagler’s prayerful reworking of old traditional mountain fiddle tune Red Wing is any indication, The Steel Wheels are certainly going places, with apt comparison to Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch, and other new primitives on the line between old timey folk and something raw, new, and bluegrassy.

Try the tracks, pick up their brand spankin’ new disc Red Wing for a delicious cover of Working on a Building and some powerfully performed and well-written originals, and make sure to check their tour schedule so you can catch Trent and company on their way to fame and glory.

• The Steel Wheels: Red Wing (trad./Trent Wagler)
  (from Red Wing, 2010)

• Trent Wagler & The Steel Wheels: Shady Grove (trad.)
  (from Blue Heaven, 2006)

• Trent Wagler & Jay Lapp: Darlin’ Cory (trad.)
  (from Adrienna Valentine, 2009)

I’ve been sitting on this John D. Loudermilk cover, which came to fruition on the soundtrack to the 2009 film Beautiful Kate, since before Coverfreak posted it last September, and I wish I could remember where it came from. No matter: it came up on the shuffle last week, startling me once again with its rough, sad delicacy, and I was so songstruck, I figured it was better late than never.

The cover features Tex Perkins, who isn’t new at all, and Megan Washington, who is still in her mid-twenties; Tex is the award-winning Australian composer and songwriter who crafted the soundtrack, and young Megan’s a jazz-turned-alt-country countrywoman herself who seems to be going place fast, with an end-of-year win at the inaugural Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition in Australia, and a playful acoustic cover of Ross Wilson’s 1989 tune Bed of Nails being used as the theme for the brand new ABC show Bed of Roses.

• Tex Perkins & Megan Washington: This Little Bird (orig. J. D. Loudermilk)
  (from the Beautiful Kate soundtrack, 2009)

• Megan Washington: Bed of Nails (orig. Ross Wilson)
  (as above; more Megan Washington here)

Finally: I made a big deal of saying that Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah wasn’t really Leonard Cohen’s anymore, and implied that it was terribly, problematically overcovered, way back when the deep-voiced poet was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But that hasn’t stopped newcomers from continuing to try it on for size. In the last few weeks alone, I’ve received or uncovered no less than three folk takes on the song, each with its own charms, though none rivals the truly great and transformative covers of John Cale and Jeff Buckley.

Here’s the smorgasbord, with notes aforehand: that Detroit pop-rock singer-songwriter Steve Acho, who isn’t usually a folk musician at all, owes as much to Billy Joel as he does to John Cale here; that The Blue Eyed Shark drags the tune down into a maudlin emofolk which I like, but may jar the senses of older folkies; and that Adrian Heath, whose lo-fi kitchen-taped performance leads off our set, will donate $1 to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort for every FREE download of his newest album Want To Want To, which is a nice way to try out some tunes and support a good cause all at once.

• Adrian Heath: Hallelujah (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (live, 2009)

• The Blue Eyed Shark: Hallelujah (ibid.)
  (unknown source)

• VIDEO: Steve Acho: Hallelujah (ibid.)

…and just for fun, because I was blown away by Matt Morris‘ duet with Justin Timberlake on the recent Haiti Benefit, here’s their cover of the classic Cohen composition, too. Newcomer Morris seems pretty authentic for an ex-Mouseketeer; his YouTube version of The Beatles’ Help isn’t bad, either. My new guilty pleasure, perhaps.





Speaking of Haiti: it’s worth reminding you all that our Summer09 FolkFest Covers Bootleg giveaway, which offers a full set of 17 exclusive live coverfolk tracks to all who donate to Cover Lay Down before February 17th, is still on. 20% of each donation will go to support Doctors Without Borders, a group which is still struggling to help the sick, the injured, and the malnourished in Haiti; 20% more will go to our local foodbank, which is struggling in this economy.

We’ve raised over forty bucks for these worthy charity organizations so far; won’t you show a little love, and donate to the cause?


Cover Lay Down exists first and foremost to help connect artists to fans. If you like what you hear, please do your part by following the links above to pursue purchase and other venues for support. Thanks!