Archive for September 2014


Unity House Concerts presents: Meg Hutchinson
(October 18, 2014 @ UU Society of Greater Springfield)

September 28th, 2014 — 3:29pm



Cover Lay Down is proud to announce Unity House Concerts, a new folk-and-more music series hosted by yours truly and the Unitarian Universalist Society of Greater Springfield. Concerts will be held roughly two Saturdays a season in our own wooded sanctuary, and will feature a combination of well-beloved musicians and new folk voices committed to the UU Coffeehouse tradition of channeling the spirit of community through song.

This year we are excited to present a set of award-winning musicians from the Northeast, including Jean Rohe, Jay Mankita, The Gaslight Tinkers, and our first show of the season with Red House Records recording artist Meg Hutchinson on October 18th.


We originally went to Meg Hutchinson for healing, in the wake of a tornado that ravaged our rural New England town in 2011. Since then, after a great run that featured Mark Erelli, Mike + Ruthy, Danny Schmidt, The Sea The Sea, and more, the converted carriage house in which we hosted Meg has gone dark – but her songbook still resonates, making her an easy choice to kick off our new coffeehouse series in style.

Long lauded by critics and fans, Boston-based, Berkshires-born contemporary acoustic singer-songwriter Meg delivers music as powerful as it is gentle. A master of the introspective ballad, her albums have made the top 10 on US folk radio, and won her numerous songwriting awards in the US, Ireland and UK, including the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the Billboard Song Contest and prestigious competitions at Merlefest, NewSong, Kerrville, and Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. And her seasonal tour with Antje Duvekot, Anne Heaton, and Natalia Zukerman as Winterbloom has become a don’t-miss staple of the local scene.

Equally at home on piano or guitar, Meg’s pure alto is a potent carrier for her mood and message. Her influences include poet Mary Oliver, songwriters Greg Brown, Shawn Colvin, and Joni Mitchell, and mood maker David Gray, but her voice is all her own, with songs that yearn for inner peace, at once ecstatic and meditative, crafted around elegant and free-floating melodies that feel both modern and rooted. Her most recent album, Beyond That (2013), practically aches with songs – about coming home, transforming desire, and opening the heart for some greater purpose.

We are thrilled to have Meg Hutchinson opening our newest musical venture, setting the stage for what promises to be a vibrant, new, community-centered program at the UUSGS, and invite you to join us, too, if you’re local to Springfield, MA (just 30-40 minutes from Hartford and Northampton). To tempt and to celebrate, here’s a few favorite covers by Meg – including a gorgeous duet with frequent touring companion Antje Duvekot and a very special Townes Van Zandt cover recorded at her first of two visits to our previous house concert series.

    Antje Duvekot w/ Meg Hutchinson: Gypsy Life (orig. John Gorka)

    Edie Carey and Meg Hutchinson: Falling Slowly (orig. Glen Hansard)

1 comment » | Featured Artists, House Concerts, Meg Hutchinson

Banned Books Week: September 21-27, 2014
(songs by John Denver, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Kris Delmhorst & more!)

September 27th, 2014 — 9:44am



Before I discovered music, books were my salvation: a haven from the real world, where stories always resolved and heroes always played to type, except when they didn’t. And I still read voraciously, in long and shortform, genre fiction and non-fiction, though not so much as in middle school, when I would crouch secretive and sly on the carpet of my bedroom, squinting into the spellbound page by the light of the crack in the door.

My relationship with literature has diminished, albeit slightly. But it has also shifted quite a bit. For one thing, the words we read in the 21st century zip through space in memes and moments, making anything more than a skim and dash precious and rare. And although librarians have long held my deepest respect, now they are among my most valuable coworkers: the young guy with the hipster checks and the everpresent Starbucks cup who joined our school last year is my kind of guy, a true friend in a sea of stress, and I trust him intimately as a keeper of the words we cherish, watching as the graphic novel section under his thumb grows to take over the library like kudzu, and the students alongside.

Books are part and parcel of my livelihood, too. I got my start as a media specialist, working hand in hand with the library staff; I’ve weeded entire libraries down to nothing, and served my hours at the reference desk; I even spoke at the New England Association of School Librarians annual conference one year. I teach Communications, and media, and include the printed word as part and parcel of the new media package we explore; I teach English, too, some years, which means literature and language, and delving deep into more than a few of the books on the “perennially banned” list kept by the American Library Association, including 1984, Lord of the Flies, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and Sherman Alexi’s magnificent coming-of-age story The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

These titles are on the tip of my tongue today: it’s the last day of Banned Books Week, in which librarians, bookstores, publishers and readers around the world celebrate the printed word, and take a yearly stand for access to all, free from the bars of censorship and obscuration. So here’s a mixtape with a topical theme to honor the week gone by; interested literature buffs are also invited to check out our older Covered in Folk features Songs Inspired By Literature and Songs Inspired By Shakespeare.

I Write The Book: A Cover Lay Down Mixtape[zip!]

Cover Lay Down posts regularly with songs and summations at the intersection of coversongs and the folkways thanks to the generous support of readers like you. Coming soon: new cover EPs and LPs from labels and artists near and far, and a very special feature on a brand new concert series hosted by yours truly!

2 comments » | Mixtapes

Covered In Folk: Creedence Clearwater Revival
(with Arborea, Thea Gilmore, Todd Snider, M. Ward +8 more!)

September 21st, 2014 — 3:40pm



I’ve been away, and I’ll be gone again; it’s busy season, after all, for those who live by the school year. But the soundtrack of our lives is everpresent, and today, I’m thinking about Fall: the way the leaves turn first on the trees with sickness; how the papers pile up, drowning the better self I became in summer.

And then, out of the ether, the bittersweet autumnal comes through in a delicate new minor-key Creedence cover from fave nufolk duo Arborea, channelling my frustrations into focus. I renew my gratefulness for the sun, and turn towards it. I remember what music is for. And here we are.



We have a special affection for bands that rise to fame through coverage here at Cover Lay Down. And Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose first top 40 single was their 1968 recording of rockabilly singer Dale Hawkins’ Susie Q, and whose later covers of Motown hit I Heard It Through The Grapevine and traditional gospel song The Midnight Special charted as well, certainly fits the bill.

But to mistake CCR as a cover band is to miss the forest for the trees. Although CCR continued to cover and reinterpret blues, soul, and rock and roll standards throughout their career, the band truly made its name with their original songs, many of which hit the number 2 spot on the charts in the late sixties and early seventies, though none made it to number 1. These, in turn, came through the pen of composer and lyricist John Fogerty, whose knack for expressing the challenges and chagrins of his time through the band’s signature “swamp rock” musical style and a vivid politically-charged working-class narrative would ultimately fuel a solo career greatly dependent upon these older protest songs.

That CCR is remembered so well reveals a surprisingly strong legacy for such a short-lived band: after all, the young foursome, who had first begun playing together in junior high school, ultimately released and recorded just 7 studio albums in a high-density career before breaking up in 1972, just four years after the release of their self-titled debut.

But there’s no denying that their subsequent hits run rampant through modern culture, serving as staples of classic rock radio and as cinematic touchstones for the heady emotions of the Vietnam era. And so it has come to pass that both Creedence and its songbook represent a time and place in US culture that is ripe for both repetition and interpretation as long as war, poverty, and other issues of social justice remain at the forefront of our national conversation.

Interpretation is broad: stripped of its signature sound, the Creedence canon is flexible, indeed. Our favorite covers of the Creedence Clearwater Revival songbook range from weary to wanton, from torchsong to tirade, from delicate to divine. Join us in the listening room today as we explore the myriad ways artists in the folk, roots, bluegrass, altcountry and indie world have made these songs their own.

Creedence Clearwater Revival: A Covered In Folk Mixtape [zip!]

2 comments » | Covered In Folk, Creedence Clearwater Revival

     

↑ Back to top