Cover Lay Down

Once again, we’re off to spend the weekend at the always amazing Joe Val Bluegrass Festival out at the Sheraton in Framingham, MA. This year’s lineup is stellar as always, with young sensation Sierra Hull, Steve Martin touring and recording companions the Steep Canyon Rangers, new Boston-based all-girl quintet Della Mae, long-time fave the Clare Lynch Band, and special guest spots from banjo master Bill Keith and folk singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards holding down a powerhouse three days of music.

We’ve covered most of these artists before, so instead of fishing for some new angle, in honor of our sixth consecutive year at the fest, I’m reviving our 2008 post on the topic, along with a much expanded set of covergrass to whet your whistle for the days ahead. Read on for some favorite covers from Joe Val mainstage performers past and present – and then pack up your mando, banjo, fiddle, dobro, guitar or bass and head on over to Joe Val!

In my heart, Bluegrass is the epitome of summer, calling up images of bare feet, hot sun, cold beer straight from the cooler, and warm outdoor nights pickin’ tentside in the camps. And in most audiences, the genre is grounded in the geography of the American South, where summer lingers long and lazy – both in the appalachian ranges which hold its old-timey roots, and in the country music of Grand Old Opryland which so supported its evolution.

But there’s plenty of good reasons why the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival – an annual mid-winter event which celebrates the surprisingly strong New England bluegrass community, previously featured here in 2008 – has won fan accolades and “best fest” awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association. Crammed into a turreted Sheraton Tara, its conference room workshops, lobby picking circles, and grand ballroom mainstage sets defy all expectations – and the Boston Bluegrass Union, who sponsor the event, deserve kudos for packing in enough time, energy and diversity to make for a grand and intimate experience.

Though it’s a strong festival in its own right, I tend to approach Joe Val as a preview tour for discovery, a guide for what not to miss come July as I make my annual pilgrimage to Grey Fox. And it works: without fail, each time I have attended, I have come away excited about a few new discoveries, and this year’s festival, which ended yesterday, was no exception.

In six years of regular attendance, Joe Val has introduced me to The Infamous Stringdusters, The Steeldrivers, Sierra Hull, The Steep Canyon Rangers, and a plethora of other stringbands, gospel quartets, and high tenor crooners both new and old. And unsurprisingly, many of these discoveries are driven by coverage – after all, the Bluegrass canon is chock full of old standards, and the genre itself is intimately tied to the performances and songcraft of a finite handful of individuals, from The Carter Family to Flatt and Scruggs, from The Stanley Brothers to founding father Bill Monroe himself.

An interlude: by most popular definitions, bluegrass isn’t folk music. Where modern singer-songwriter folk teeters on the edge of pop, rock, and blues, with the major exception of crossover artists Crooked Still and Allison Krauss and Union Station, today’s bluegrass bands find radioplay on the country end of the dial, if at all. And though there are certainly plenty of crossover alt-country and Americana musicians out there who are welcome at both bluegrass and folk festivals, most music festivals tend to be firmly either/or.

But as I’ve noted previously, folk and bluegrass have much in common. Both stem from the same early American folk tree; both depend heavily on the acoustic guitar; both use traditional forms of rhyme, verse structure, trope and storytelling in their lyrics and song structure. Wikipedia lists bluegrass as a form of country music, it’s true, but it also refers to it as a form of American roots music, or Americana – the category which encompasses the “folk” forms of American music.

Which is to say: we’re bluegrass fans here at Cover Lay Down. And though owning up to this has probably already lost me some hardcore folkies over the months since we started, I make no apologies for the bluegrass among the folk. The acoustic nature of the two forms, and their shared roots in African-American blues, British folk ballads, and appalachian music, makes for a clear commonality, even if the sounds are clearly different.

One significant distinction between bluegrass and modern folk music is the vastly different ways in which the two forms approach harmony. Where folk music performance tends to prioritize the singer-songwriter, both as vocalist and instrumentalist, the best bluegrass is about balance – between instruments, and among voices. The bluegrass sound is thus typified by close harmonies that span the range from high male tenor to bass, and a wide range of acoustic stringed instruments – typically bass, guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle – which echo that vocal range, and, through alternating-beat use of bass and percussive high-stringed chords, provide an equally rich, full sound.

Bluegrass gets a bad rap in the world of covers — all those anonymous session musicians cutting albums of Phish and Nine Inch Nails and Led Zeppelin covers just to pay the rent doesn’t help. But bluegrass music is much more than country music’s poor country cousin. The covers you’ll find featured in today’s post are the real deal, performed with love and respect. Even if you’re not usually the bluegrass type, I highly recommend giving them a try.

To those unschooled in the history of bluegrass music, the Framingham, MA, Sheraton might seem an especially odd choice for the International Bluegrass Music Association‘s 2006 Event of the Year. But the popular stereotype which casts bluegrass music as a form of southern music belies a rich and long-standing tradition of New England bluegrass. And remembering that Scots-Irish dance tunes and English ballads are but one of several primary influences on the bluegrass form does help one come to terms with the fact that the Sheraton is built like a giant Irish castle, and thus looks more like a venue for a jousting tournament than a site for a bluegrass festival.

Once you get over the strange dissonance between the snow-capped castle turrets outside and the sound of a thousand banjos, basses, high tenors and mandolins inside, The Joe Val Bluegrass Festival is a great gig. Incredibly, festival sponsor the Boston Bluegrass Association manages to successfully reproduce the feel of a great outdoor festival indoors in the dead of winter. The atmosphere is infectiously fun, from the ubiquitous hallway jam sessions to the ballroom mainstage to the conference rooms stuffed with product demos and instrumental workshops.

And the musical talent is out of this world. The Joe Val Festival, which celebrates the life of seminal 1960′s New England bluegrass mandolin player Joe Val, attracts a significant share of IBMA award winners, both old and new. As such, it’s a good way to whet one’s appetite for the cornucopia of summer festivals which pepper New England in the warmer months. And it’s a great vehicle for us to consider the place of bluegrass in the spectrum of American folk forms.

Today, we feature a select set of covers from the artists I’ve been lucky enough to see at Joe Val in the past six years. Together, they explore the surprisingly vast potential of the bluegrass sound, running the gamut from country singer-songwriter to gospel, from old-school to new school. It was a genuine pleasure to see them all, and it’s a genuine pleasure to share their work with you.

• Steep Canyon Rangers: Don’t Ease Me In (trad./arr. Grateful Dead)
  (from Lovin’ Pretty Women, 2007)

• The Grascals ft. Dolly Parton: Viva Las Vegas (orig. Elvis)
  (from The Grascals, 2005)

• The Infamous Stringdusters: In God’s Country (orig. U2)
  (from Things That Fly, 2010)

• Sierra Hull: The Hard Way (orig. Keith Urban)
  (from Secrets, 2008)

• Dry Branch Fire Squad: Rider on an Orphan Train (orig. David Massengill)
  (from Echoes of the Mountains, 2010)

• Tony Trischka w/ Noam Pikelny & Michael Daves: Run Mountain (trad.)
  (from Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular, 2007)

• David Parmley & Continental Divide: I’ve Got A Home In That Rock (trad.)
  (from Church House Hymns, 2007)

• Bluegrass Gospel Project: A Beautiful Life (trad.)
  (from Wander On, 2005)

• Miller’s Crossing: Lonesone, On’ry, and Mean (orig. Waylon Jennings)
  (from Adirondack Rail, 2005)

• Claire Lynch: If Wishes Were Horses (orig. Gretchen Peters)
  (from Silver and Gold, 1997)

• Seldom Scene: City of New Orleans (orig. Steve Goodman)
  (from Act 1, 1994)

• The SteelDrivers: Higher Than The Wall (orig. Patty Loveless)
  (from Live From The Station Inn, 2007)

• The Gibson Brothers: Somewhere Trouble Won’t Go (orig. Buddy & Julie Miller)
  (from Iron & Diamonds, 2008)

• Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen: July, You’re A Woman (orig. John Stewart)
  (from Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, 2010)

• April Hobart: Cornbread and Butterbeans (trad.)
  (from aprilhobart.com, unknown dates)

• Chasing Blue: Freeborn Man (orig. Jimmy Martin)
  (from The Whiskey and Wine EP, 2010)

• Della Mae: In The Pines (trad.)
  (from Acoustic EP, 2010)

As always, all album and artist links lead directly to band and artist websites, where albums can be purchased, tours can be charted, and fan appetites can be whetted. And if you live in New England, you might also be interested in knowing that the Boston Bluegrass Union, which sponsors the Joe Val Festival, puts on great shows throughout the year.