Cover Lay Down

What a month it’s been for coverfolk, with over a hundred newly-recorded live #coversfromhome posted on our Facebook page in just the last 30 days alone. Our cup runneth over, and we’re doing our part, hitting PayPal and Venmo links when we can to keep the music coming and the artists fed as the time of no touring continues; we hope you, too, are finding our daily shares fruitful and fulfilling, and doing your part to support the industry through sharing, commenting, and donating as you can.

But even as the inevitable trend towards live and lo-fi living room sets continues, so does the industry, in parallel. Artists shut into their homes are still releasing albums and other collections of studio-recorded music formally, even if they cannot tour to support their release. Paying for product, and passing it along, too, remains the very best way to support them. And with Bandcamp announcing that they will henceforth waive all profits on the first Friday of each month to support artists hit hard by the pandemic shift, there’s no better time than the present to purchase.

Today, then, we return to these virtual pages, to feature and celebrate the best studio recorded covers albums, tribute sets, and coverfolk singles that have crossed our ears since our last regular feature, way back in February. Read on for news of new releases from old friends and familiar voices – and as always, if you like what you hear, remember to do your part, as a patron and fan, to help keep the music, and the musicians, alive and thriving in a time of need.

We first featured Colorado singer-songwriter John Statz way back in 2012, and again several times afterwards, after a deep dive into his back catalog, subsequent release Tulsa, and a wonderful opening set for Jeffrey Foucault at Signature Sounds label-driven venue The Parlor Room up in Northampton revealed a few more great covers worth celebrating, and a tendency towards concrete comfort in both his songwriting and generally sparse, heartfelt performance that lingers long and serves the soul in equal measure. But nothing could have prepared us for the rich, resonant shift in sound that new album Early Riser, which drops Friday into an uncertain world, brings to the canon – and so we’re especially thrilled to be bringing forth an exclusive today, gifted by the artist himself, that typifies both his inimitable style and sensibility, and the mature cohesion of the album’s chosen production dynamic which supports it so well.

In short, Early Riser is a powerhouse: it should go far, if the new world of stay-at-home production can push it. Strong, well-calibrated arrangements and instrumentation – flush with Wurlitzer organ and pedal steel, steady drumbeats and high, distant trumpets, alto harmonies sweet and rich like an instrument up against Statz’ shaky head-voiced lyrics and lead – bring depth and balance, justifying the slow, treasured journey through verses and choruses hopeful and determined, straightforward and plainspoken, prescient as hell. Taken as a set, the album teeters on an unsettled edge of coming to terms with the world, with a stunning range and depth of emotion that collapses the lines between contemporary folk and bluesy country rock and true-blue soft Americana. And it aches with a poet’s soul as Statz struggles to simplify the world, and come to terms with the ways it challenges and holds us.

As with his previous recorded works, Early Riser includes a single cover. But where Frightened Rabbit’s Old Old Fashioned and Statz’ 2015 Radiohead waltz embedded themselves among the songwriting, offering tiny, simple comfort midway through solid sets, his take on Joni Mitchell’s Come In From The Cold is a coda steeped in longing, a long, slow build to nowhere just barely tenable at eight minutes, and deliberately so; a tease and a tension, just right for the age, and perfect for the album; a howl in the dark, leaving us safe and welcome in an unsettled world. The timing could not have been better, after all. Listen, and come in, too.

• John Statz: Come In From The Cold (orig. Joni Mitchell)

• John Statz: Old Old Fashioned (orig. Frightened Rabbit)
• John Statz: Motion Picture Soundtrack (orig. Radiohead)

It’s been a long time since we last heard from self-taught North Carolina native Jeremy Squires here at Cover Lay Down: seven years, to be exact, since he released the delicate, softly melodic pair of lo-fi coversongs which capstone new release A Collection of Covers, which hit the streets just as they were closing down, back in mid-March. But happily, the newer tracks on the collection fit right in with the songs that brought us in to begin with, the hipster heart only that much more fulfilled by a short EP-length set of emptiness. Here you’ll find Nirvana, Jason Molina, Pedro The Lion, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and more turned haunting and hollow, raw and sultry, just out of reach in range and reason, stripped-down and steeped in an artist’s history of depression and seclusion. The fragile heart is revealed, and tenderly offered, in tinkling bells and stand-up box piano and slow strummed guitar. Devastation is wrestled from songs that once shouted anger to the world. Each melancholy movement is more precious than the last, and oh so tenderly treated – offering equal evidence of scars and healing, even as they comfort and chill, delight and differentiate.

Rachael Kilgour is a familiar voice here on Cover Lay Down, thanks to an achingly gorgeous set of solo albums that mine the depths of the torn-out soul, with themes of divorce and reconciliation and a longing for a simpler life, and an upcoming project featuring songs for her father, revealing truth and tenderness in the mining of the broken heart’s desire, and it’s need to be free. And so we were initially wary, to note that Sound an Echo, the new Rachael Kilgour duo project with fiddler Sara Pajunen, is a singer-songwriter’s tradfolk pairing, with a debut album And We’ll All Go Together short but rich with songs so carefully constructed and arranged, they hardly shift when performed live on screen from Kilgour’s foyer, as we’ve seen and shared on Facebook.

But if the songs of this new project originally come from a different, more distant heart, their performance belies how deeply that heart becomes intertwined in the right hands and voices. Paired with Pajunen, whose voice is equally strong in harmony, the singer-songwriter’s turn towards the tradition is personal as anything, and deeper than one might expect, voicing reclamation of the very heartbeat that is folk music. This set of traditional American folk songs could have been a throw-away, but it isn’t, thanks to sparse arrangements, harmonic interplay between fiddle and plaintive voice, and the innate hope, humility, and sweetness that touches everything Kilgour performs. Instead, in the duo’s hands and voices, the tradition sings itself anew. No higher compliment, nor fate, can we offer, beyond the performance itself.

We spotted Lauren O’Connell here last month, when Bandcamp’s first round of artist supportive give-backs drove her to record and release a tiny collection of Quarantine Covers; since then, she’s added several new tracks to the collection of songs recorded solo in her home in California, and her recent take on That Thing You Do is especially dear, an apt tribute to songwriter Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne, who wrote the Academy Award-nominated song for the film of the same name way back in 1996, and was, sadly, one of the first artists to pass from the coronavirus.

But if regular readers recognize the name and voice, it’s for good reason: O’Connell has been a constant companion here, with slight, spare interpretations of Neil Young, Iris Dement, David Rawlings, Randy Newman, Oh Death, and more featuring frequently in our mixtapes and songwriter features, most of them sourced back to her first covers album, released just before we moved the blog to its current home. And so the slow release of singles leading up to the eventual release of not one but TWO new covers albums, comprised of songs mostly unheard by all but a few, recorded exclusively for Patreon over the years but spiffed up a bit in the studio afterwards, is a joyous promise, indeed – as is the split between, with the first album coming in a bit more acoustic, and the second featuring a set of songs totally transformed into perfect hipster folkpop, and beautifully, achingly fleshed out in the studio, over the course of the year gone by. Take a listen to the two released so far – a lovely Jeff Tweedy number, and a take on popular Big Star cover tune Thirteen that adds much to the canon – and then either join her Patreon page to access the albums now, or wait in sufferance as the songs drop one at a time, every two weeks, on all the usual platforms, until the eventual release of both Covers II and Covers III.

One-time Nickel Creek cofounder Sean Watkins was here recently, too, thanks to a beautiful early 2020 release with neotradfolkers The Bee Eaters featured in our February (Re)Covered roundup, complete with covers of Warren Zevon and Paul Simon that rang in the head for days after we first played ’em. But Watkins has been busy this year, and new release brother sister – a partnership of sound and songs recorded with sister Sara of Grammy-winning trio I’m With Her – has its own quirky charm: sibling voices in diverse settings, from the sparse and almost unadorned to the boogie-woogie fiddle-and-kick of barnburning closer Keep It Clean, a Watkins Family Hour drawn close and intimate as its title. Here, a video version recorded at fave YouTube cover house stories recently – not on the album, but worth the Green Day vibe transcribed into smallfolk – joins our favorite album cover, another Zevon song, this one sweet and aching in its simplicity, every note a masterpiece.

• The Watkins Family: Accidentally Like A Martyr (orig. Warren Zevon)

Finally, news of a different kind of project: free recordings for the taking, all covers of the same song, prompted and curated by one-time teen sensation and current activist and community rabblerouser Janis Ian (yes, THAT Janis Ian) in the early stages of our communal separation. The song is new, and the mechanism as much her style as the song itself; both sheet music and songbook are offered openly, with an offer that those who record it will also share their interpretation on her own page. And happily, the song itself – appropriately titled Better Times Will Come – isn’t bad, nor inappropriate for this sort of thing: catchy, open to broad interpretation; inspirational, without being too twee or unrealistic.

When we first caught wind of Better Times Will Come, we assumed it would attract an older crowd – this is, after all, Janis Ian, whose fame was greatest decades ago, at seventeen, though her respect among her peers has only grown as she has come into her own on the folk circuit more recently, decades past the restrictions of industry and youth. But the breadth of song and coverage that is emerging as the project takes flight speaks to that broader, deeper respect within the community, both for Ian herself, and her way with words and melody. As such, the almost twenty and counting coversingers of the song shared on the webpage now include not only John Gorka, Christine Lavin, and Cliff Eberhardt with Louise Mosrey, but Natalia Zuckerman, Casey Dreissen, and even Frank Turner, in a surprisingly upbeat take complete with tambourine and a high energy base and guitar strum we could not, in good conscience, choose not to share here, as well. Listen, and then head over to the Better Times Will Come project page, to download them all.

• Frank Turner: Better Times Will Come (orig. Janis Ian)
• Natalia Zuckerman: Better Times Will Come (ibid.)

Always ad-free and artist-centered, Cover Lay Down has been on the web since 2007, thanks to kind support from artists, promoters, and YOU.

So do your part: listen, and then follow links back to the sources we provide, to share your love with those who make this all happen. And though it should go without saying, as always, when you find what you love, please be a patron, too: buy the music, or the t-shirt, from artist-friendly sources like Bandcamp; donate to newly-formed artist support funds, join Patreons and Kickstarters, and follow Venmo and Paypal links to give back if you can, the better to keep the music flowing in these troubling times.

Yes, folk fans and cover lovers, we’re back in earnest after a slow set of tributes to the past, eager to take on the new and the novel. And where better to begin than with the truly familiar and beloved: folks we’ve heard before, like Anais Mitchell, Sean Watkins, and Sam Gleaves, and cherished; whose voices, songs, collaborations and song choices have long brought us comfort and hope in the long winter.

Today, then, in an attempt to return to normalcy, we turn to our (Re)Covered feature, in which we track recent developments in coverfolk and configuration from artists we’ve celebrated here on these pages before. Read on for new and noteworthy covers of Paul Simon, Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, Kate Wolf, Tom T Hall, Ola Belle Reed, and the British and Appalachian traditions. Stay tuned, as the year continues its climb towards Spring, for more news and notes from the convergence point of covers and folk. And, as always, if you like what you hear, click through to purchase from and support the musicians we feature, the better to guarantee the continued production and evolution of soul-touching music in a world too-often in need of its transformative power.

Thirteen years after their first break-up, Sean Watkins is unarguably the least well known of the three Nickel Creek co-founders; it’s hard to compete with the recent trajectories of sister Sara Watkins (whose folk collaborative I’m With Her with Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz just won a Grammy for Best American Roots Song of the year) and MacArthur Genius and NPR host Chris Thile. But even if it took him a little longer to reveal, Sean’s got a genial warmth and style all his own, and he’s found it in This Is Who We Are, his first time partnering exclusively with a band to make an entire album, and – according to press release – “the first solo record [he’s] made that fully embraces the folk/bluegrass/new acoustic sound embedded in [his] musical DNA.” It’s about time, and worth it: check out his tender, well-rounded treatments of the three covers nestled here – by Paul Simon, Warren Zevon, and Jackson Browne – among earnest originals, from ballad to barnburner.

Bonus points for that aforementioned band, founded by fiddler Tashina and cellist Tristan Clarridge, one-time sibling string section of equally-darling post-grass second wave band Crooked Still. We’ve featured The Bee Eaters here before, too, transforming the Beatles in our Double Dippers feature and, earlier, in a farewell of sorts to Crooked Still that included a cover from their very first album in 2011; we’re glad to see they’re still playing up a storm, lending zest and a newgrass sound to Sean’s guitar-driven arrangements, sweet harmony to his warm vocals, and an especially precious ring of hammered dulcimer heartbreak to the Zevon obscurity, thanks to third Bee Eaters member Simon Chrisman.

As a double-bonus, of sorts, be sure to check out two other new and closely kindred tracks before moving on: a pop cover, featuring Sean’s harmony and guitar work and sister Sara on vox and fiddle, which appears as the folkiest of three on fellow LA resident and Largo collective member Sondre Lerche‘s odd little Britney Spears tribute EP, released January first…and Sara’s own take on a Springsteen song from Born To Uke, an all-uke 2019 also-ran tribute album which features Will Kimbrough, Kai Welch, Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls, and a Weepies cover which placed on our top 50 of the year.

• Sean Watkins & The Bee Eaters: Suzie Lightning (orig. Warren Zevon)
• Sean Watkins & The Bee Eaters: Graceland (orig Paul Simon)

• Sondre Lerche: I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman (orig. Britney Spears)

• Sara Watkins: Thunder Road (orig Bruce Springsteen)

Astute readers may have noticed little fanfare about Bonny Light Horseman, whose namesake song appeared in our Year’s Best Coverfolk singles mix; those who range broadly round the indie outlets and folkblogs have surely already heard more. But we’re quite excited about the newly-dropped self-titled album from the new self-styled “astralfolk” supergroup formed by Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats and The Shins, and veteran multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaufman, who – as if they needed more pedigree – premiered live at Eaux Claires in 2018 at fest founder Bon Iver’s request. As the slow label-leak of pre-release tracks such as Jane, Jane and Deep In Love continued to demonstrate in the week leading up to last week’s release, something beautiful was coming our way; now that it has arrived, we can see that the entirety is stunning and sound, a potent, adept tribute to the traditional folk made new by those used to playing folk at the cutting edge.

Strategically, as Pitchfork aptly notes, the album is a revisitation, not a mere performance – as as such, authentically, inimitably folk, as only three such barrier-breakers could produce. Songs we’ve heard moving through the fairways of each folk revival break apart; versions merge, with new choruses added for the modern ear, and generally unsung lyrics and verses returned and traded out, making the overall effect a remix of tradition, confronting our sense of the ancient songbooks as stable and welcoming. Add in a rich musicality which yaws towards indiefolk strangeness – Deep In Love, especially, with its brush beats and hollow harmonics, is perfect for the crossover modalities of low-frequency indie-alternative college radio – and well-chosen methods of transformative performance, such as the decision to trade off verses between Mitchell and Johnson on Blackwaterside, which allows the maiden to speak for herself, and we’re sure this one will appear again at year’s end in our Best Tradfolk category.

• Bonny Light Horseman: Blackwaterside (trad.)
• Bonny Light Horseman: Jane, Jane (trad.)

We last featured Virginian tenor and clawhammer master Sam Gleaves in our New Artists series, way back in 2013; back then, at 19, the Blue Ridge wunderkind had two albums and several collaborations under his belt, and was already teaching and passing along fiddle tunes in pursuit of the old traditions. Now he’s back on our radar with Welcome as The Flowers In May, a duo album with Kentucky-born fiddler and long-time college-and-beyond collaborator Deborah Payne – and we’re thrilled to hear him, and both, in such fine and authentic form.

Though released in mid-December, Gleaves didn’t really start promoting his newest collaboration until early January, so it got lost a bit in the shuffle. It’s not a full covers album, either, with four sweet songs by Gleaves, and one by Payne, that fit in just fine among the tradition. No matter: the record rings true with mountain folk traditions, sweetly straddling the soft acoustic line between folk and its backcountry grassroots, rocking back and forth from fiddle instrumental to picked ballad with a rhythm and sway that is loose and laissez faire, intimate and gentle as a front porch in summer, thanks to stellar company from Michael Cleveland, Tim Lancaster, and Ruth McLain and gentle, no-frills arrangements straight out of the mountain foothills. Here’s two favorite tracks, alongside a bonus track or two from Sam’s last full-length, a 2017 collaboration with fellow Southwest Virginia native Tyler Hughes, and one from his mostly-originals 2015 solo album Ain’t We Brothers, which features collaborations with Tim O’Brien, Janis Ian, and Laurie Lewis, among others.

• Sam Gleaves and Deborah Payne: Pretty Saro (trad.)
• Sam Gleaves and Deborah Payne ft. Ruth McClain: Across The Great Divide (orig. Kate Wolf)

• Sam Gleaves and Tyler Hughes: I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew  (orig. Tom T. Hall)
• Sam Gleaves and Tyler Hughes: Tear Down The Fences (orig. Ola Belle Reed)

• Sam Gleaves: My Singing Bird (trad.)
  
  

Always ad-free and artist-centric, Cover Lay Down has been digging deep at the ethnographic intersection of folkways and coversong since 2007 thanks to the support of artists, labels, promoters, and YOU.

So do your part. Listen, deeply. Follow the threads. Purchase the music you love, and in doing so, support the arts and the artists in their struggle to thrive and survive.

And if, in the end, you’ve got goodwill to spare, and want to help keep the coverfolk flowing? Please, consider a contribution to Cover Lay Down. All gifts go directly to bandwidth and server costs; all donors receive undying praise, and a special blogger-curated gift mixtape of well-loved but otherwise unshared covers from 2018.

It’s been ten years exactly since we last drilled down deep into the Neil Young songbook here on Cover Lay Down, in a short feature introducing the transformative all-female American Laundromat double-disc for-charity tribute Cinnamon Girl, accompanied by several exclusive label-approved tracks from that record and a delicious set of similar delights from The Wailin’ Jennys, The Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Carrie Rodriguez, Elizabeth Mitchell, and more great folkwomen teetering on the well-traveled intersection of rock, pop, and folk.

A decade later, Cinnamon Girl remains a go-to exemplar in the world of coverage: a powerhouse indie collection, “a great and well-balanced listen from cover to cover”, and “the tribute album Neil Young has deserved for most of his long and prolific career.” Several of its covers, including Lori McKenna’s unadorned twangfolk The Needle And The Damage Done, The Watson Twins’ sweet Powderfinger, and Canadian duo Dala’s beautiful, wistful harmony takes on Ohio and A Man Needs A Maid, continue to stand out as true-blue favorites. And – since it is still available – we would be remiss in taking this opportunity to redirect you to it, that you, too, might revel in its femfolk-to-riot-grrl approach, and support Casting For Recovery, who aim to enhance the quality of life of women with breast cancer through a unique retreat program that combines breast cancer education and peer support with therapeutic fly fishing.

But just as the past must be celebrated, so, too, do our ears and hearts evolve. As listeners, our subjective evolution in that decade has brought us closer towards a subtle appreciation of the deconstructionist approach. As cultural explorers, we respect and recognize Young’s recent move to put his entire archive online for free – a move that will surely spark deep artistic exploration and new coverage going forward. As agents of discovery and spread, we celebrate the ongoing reclamation of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s prolific portfolio, even as we note its turn towards the trends and tropes of its next generation.

And so, today, we revisit the Neil Young songbook with a collection of covers recorded in the intervening decade that trend towards the broken and bent, and the mellow and melodic: an omnibus mix, coupling beloved recordings from folk, Americana, indie and roots artists with newfound delights from Bandcamp, YouTube, and other discovery spaces. May it stand as our solution for those who, like us, struggle to reconcile our distaste for the songwriter’s whine with our great respect and admiration for both the grit and elegance of his pen, and his vast catalog of poetic yet straightforward songs which continues to give voice “to the plight of the powerless and the disaffected in modern American culture.”

Neil Young, Covered In Folk (2008-2018)
* listen track-by-track, or download the whole mix here!

• Matthew & Jill Barber: Comes A Time (2016)
• Caitlin Canty: Unknown Legend (2015)
• Redbird: For The Turnstiles (2011)
• Scott Matthew: Harvest Moon (2013)
• Willis: Harvest (2011)
• Forest: Natural Beauty (2017)
• Liz Snyder: Out On The Weekend (2015)
• City and Colour: Cowgirl In The Sand (2017)
• Cassie Lopez: Mellow My Mind (2012)
• Eef Barzelay: Borrowed Tune (2015)
• Andrew Corradini: Human Highway (2015)
• Jeffrey Foucault: Albuquerque (2011)
• Annabelle Chvostek: Like A Hurricane (2016)
• Jodi Pederson: Rockin’ In The Free World (2013)
• Alex Vissia: Journey Through the Past (2014)
• Reid Jamieson: Winterlong (2012)
  
• Low Roar: Philadelphia (2013)
• Rebecca Loebe: Southern Man (2017)
• Molly Tuttle: Helpless (2016)
• Corey Huevel: Ohio (2012)
• Lowland Hum: Tell Me Why (2014)
• Alyssa Bonagura: Old Man (2013)
• Whitney and Thomas: Expecting To Fly (2012)
• Sam Amidon: The Needle and The Damage Done (2011)
• Rickie Lee Jones: Only Love Can Break Your Heart (2012)
• Matt Franklin: Sugar Mountain (2012)
• William Crighton: After The Goldrush (2017)
• Apey: Down By The River (2017)
• Grant Earl LaValley: Don’t Let It Bring You Down (2017)
• Sarah Jane Scouten & The Paperboys: Long May You Run (2017)
• John Earle Mainord: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (2016)
• Melanie Peterson: Wrecking Ball (2014)
• Lisa Loeb: Love Is A Rose (2008)
• Lauren O’Connell: Heart Of Gold (2014)
• Red Horse: I Am A Child (2010)
• orange cake mix: Little Wing (2008)
• Rinehart: Cortez The Killer (2013)
• The Washover Fans: Cinnamon Girl (2012)
• Marissa Nadler: Birds (2011)
• Mark Erelli & Jeffrey Foucault: Powderfinger (2010)
• Nils Lofgren: World On A String (2009)
• Landon AR Coleman: Down To The Wire (2011)
• Mumford & Sons: Dance Dance Dance (2010)
• Marty Pawlina: My My Hey Hey (2014)
• J. Tillman: Tonight’s The Night (2011)

Always ad-free and artist-centered, Cover Lay Down has been exploring the ethnographic intersection of coverage and folk roots on the web since 2007 thanks to the kind support of readers like you. If you like what you hear, click through to purchase albums and support the artists we love, the better to keep the music going in an age of micro-transactions. And, as always, if you wish to help us in our ongoing mission, we hope you’ll consider a donation to Cover Lay Down.

Yes, folk fans and coverlovers, we’re back in earnest after what has become a typically spare slide into Summer for a deep dig into the mailbox and social media sources that have accumulated over the past few months: a look at the recent work of artists we’ve celebrated here before today, and – later this week – a celebration of newcomers and new-to-us rising stars as they send forth their own coverage into the void.

Read on for new and noteworthy covers of Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Patty Griffin, Spin Doctors, the tradfolk canon, and a swansong performance from the dearly departed Jimmy LaFave. And, as always, if you like what you hear, click through to purchase from and support the musicians we feature, the better to guarantee the continued production and evolution of soul-touching music in a world too-often in need of its transformative power.

Regular readers know: we’re huge fans of prolific one-time Clem Snide frontman Eef Barzelay here at Cover Lay Down, featuring him back in 2011 with a mega-post on the artist’s journey, returning to him often for Best Of The Year mixtape standards from Jane’s Addiction to Elizabeth Cotten, Crowded House, The Shirelles and more. New two-track release Fan Chosen Covers (Songs We Hate), a shorter-than-average chapter an ongoing series of fan-selected favorites, offers a hazy, wistful and weary take on Breakfast At Tiffany’s that represents his best work as a lo-fi interpreter of the soul; the paired Spin Doctors cover takes a little longer to love, but it’s worth it for its playful, pensive rearrangement of a song stripped of its grief and anger.

Formed in the hills of our very favorite folk festival, Americana/Roots trio Red Molly worked their way from campfire trio to mainstage darlings via crowd support and collaboration, and that includes some from us, too. I once spent a memorable Sunday afternoon with bass-and-vocalist Laurie and fellow one-time mainstage maven Eliot Bronson under a tent with some cold beers, brainstorming songs for what would be the next Red Molly album before rushing towards mainstage for Falcon Ridge Folk Festival’s famous closing sing-along. And we’ve hosted Molly Venter and her husband Eben Pariser of Roosevelt Dime in our house concert series; I play Hold It All, the song she brought to the group in her first year, when I need to cry.

Most recently, we’ve contributed via Pledgemusic to the trio’s upcoming swan song set – a final Red Molly EP, and still in-process solo albums from each of the members currently active. And why not? We’re just suckers for fine three part harmonies here at Cover Lay Down – and for great covers, which run through the Red Molly recorded canon as a mighty river. And all pledgers, no matter what level, get the full set and setlist from a never-released two-set Red Molly show recorded right off the Freight & Salvage soundboard. Here’s a strong countrified contender for our 2017 Best Of The Year singles mix from One for All & All for One, that aforementioned EP, where two originals and equally potent covers of Lori McKenna, Cole Porter, and Julie Miller make for a sweet and worthy set overall – plus an older cover from Eben and Molly, just because we love it so.

• Red Molly: Rain (orig. Patty Griffin)
  (from One for All & All for One, 2017)

• Goodnight Moonshine: Fields of Gold (orig. Sting)
  (live via YouTube, 2014)

Newly-expanded into a foursome for their upcoming tour, folk act The Sea The Sea – who we’ve also hosted in concert twice as a duo – deftly reinvents within the sparse, airy side of modern percussive indie-folk, as heard and shown exquisitely in this live-take springboard cover of Dylan/Nico standard I’ll Keep It With Mine – a wonderful addition to a growing canon of deep, sensitive, sentimental songcraft from the newly-married friends who form the core of the band. Bonus points here for a very old but beloved take on Chris Smither’s No Love Today from Chuck E Costa himself, back in his pre-Mira days, recorded from alongside the soundboard by yours truly as part and parcel of hosting duties; be sure to check their tour schedule, especially if you live and around the CT/MA/NY region, to see how far he’s come with his beloved at his side.

The Sea The Sea: I’ll Keep It With Mine (orig. Bob Dylan)

Chuck E Costa: No Love Today (orig. Chris Smither)

One-time Uncle Earl fiddle-player Rayna Gellert‘s 2012 release Old Light: Songs from my Childhood & Other Gone Worlds stunned us so much, we named it The Year’s Best Mostly Covers Album, citing “how effectively Gellert packages and presents a perfectly-balanced mix of the traditional and the newly-penned in her triple-threat role as arranger, lead performer, and producer” and calling it “so unified in its timelessness, it’s often hard to tell which are the old tunes, and which the new.”

Now after a few appearances here (most recently for a sweet one-take tradfolk video with Kristen Andreassen that featured in this year’s Best Coverfolk Videos), the Appalachian stringband-trained songstress is back with Workin’s Too Hard, a tender-to-tempest seven track album that came out in January and has been sitting happily on our backburner and in rotation ever since. Disc-closer I’m Bound For The Promised Land, one of a pair of traditional numbers on the small but precious collection, is an apt exemplar of both her sound and her old-meets-new sensibility: a barn-burner blur of electric and acoustic strings, supported by a brisk train-chugging brush-and-kickdrum and forefronted by a vocal holler perfect for the prose and presence.

• Rayna Gellert: I’m Bound For The Promised Land (trad.)
  (from Workin’s Too Hard, 2017)

I was disappointed to miss seeing Katie Ferrara in person during our recent trip to California; the newcomer, who we first featured for her delightful cover of Jack Johnson’s Banana Pancakes in a flavorful mix shared during a spate of popsicle-making last July, busks and bar-hops regularly in and around her native LA, and broadcasts regularly from these venues, offering us an unusually clear and vibrant window into the evolving heart, soul, and work of a singer-songwriter on the rise as she refines her craft. This summer’s addition to her recorded output is a well-produced, subtly sensational, and eminently summery doozy of a Creedence cover, released just this week and easily sustaining our support; to offer yours, hit up a show or the usual social media spaces to download and purchase her convertible-top-down folk-pop powerhouse EP Dream Catcher.

Katie Ferrara: Hey Tonight (orig. Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Finally, in tribute: We first featured Texas/Oklahoma singer-songwriter stalwart Jimmy LaFave way back in January of 2012, celebrating his hoarse and tender way with a Dylan song, the Guthrie legacy, dustbowl peers Joe Ely and Townes Van Zandt, and more. At the time, we named our discovery a revelation “to the historically-grounded poetry and achingly vivid performance of… one of the most respected songwriters and interpreters in his field”; his take on Not Dark Yet, which we’ve reposted below alongside a favorite Jackson Browne cover released since that original round-up, remains in our top ten Dylan covers of all time, and I think you’ll hear why from the very first line.

Jimmy’s passing in May after a particularly short and poignant bout with cancer left behind a legacy of life and leavetaking covered exceptionally well by Lonestar Music Magazine in its most recent issue. His death is punctuated by much love from his peers in the crossover country/folk Red Dirt community and beyond, immeasurable sadness, a final tribute performance encore broadcast live on Facebook by fellow traveler Eliza Gilkyson that chills to the bone, and high hopes for an unusually powerful tribute set at this summer’s Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, where he was scheduled to headline; we’ll be sure to attend, and hope to see you there, too, in celebration of a live lived well in song and sadness.

• Jimmy LaFave: Not Dark Yet (orig. Bob Dylan)
  (from Cimarron Manifesto, 2007)

• Jimmy LaFave: For Everyman (orig. Jackson Browne)
  (from Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne, 2014)

Jimmy LaFave and Friends: Goodnight Irene (orig. Lead Belly)

Our ongoing (Re)Covered series finds us touting new and newly uncovered releases from folk, roots, bluegrass and acoustic artists previously celebrated here on Cover Lay Down. Today, we delve into the mailbag with news and new coverage from raspy crooners Jeffrey Foucault and Peter Mulvey, sweet soul mama Carrie Elkin, a country rock-ified Stray Birds, whispery indiefolk pairing Matt Minigell and Annabelle Lord-Patey, and still-rising stringband Parsonsfield taking on Dylan, Paul Simon, Teenage Fanclub, the Episcopalian hymnal and more!

Peter Mulvey has been a mainstay of this blog since its birth, thanks to a fondness for coverage and a tendency to transform rather than merely channel the goods. But in the last several years, his commitment to the political reality that he shares with his fans has grown strong and evident in his practice – the man rides his bike cross-county on tour, and his protest song Take Down This Flag has been adopted, adapted, and added to by hundreds of performers.

New album Are You Listening?, produced by and on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe label and due to drop late in March, is a perfect exemplar of the man’s continued prowess as a chronicler of the raw and real. Preorder here, and while you wait for its release, check out Mulvey’s recent EP Lift Every Voice, a perfect, politically-relevant timepiece with the aforementioned anthem at the forefront, released free to all who promise to donate to the social justice cause of their choice.

• Peter Mulvey: Lift Every Voice (hymn) [2017]

I’ve been holding on to this for a while, and now I’m thrilled to share what well may be the best Paul Simon cover this decade will see: Carrie Elkin‘s haunting, resonant take on American Tune, which simply aches with the pain and hope of an America still yawing into the void. We last saw Elkin in our 2010 couples round-up; seven years later, she and Danny Schmidt have just become first-time parents. The song, a teaser from Elkin’s aching Kickstarter-driven solo album The Penny Collector, named after Elkin’s father, who recently passed, is expected to emerge on March 10, and it’s a stunning set; we’re sure you’ll want to donate now, and help the album come to full fruition as it deserves, on the strength of this little taste.

• Carrie Elkin: American Tune (orig. Paul Simon) [2017]

In a very real way, Boston-based singer-songwriter and busker Mary Lou Lord serves as a sort of muse to this blog; she’s recommended some wonderful music over the years since I first wrote about her in 2008. Last year, she played our house concert series, and brought along daughter Annabelle Lord-Patey as an opener, who revealed herself as an artist just finding her voice; now, paired with young singer-songwriter Matt Minigell, another Lord find who graced our 2015 Year’s Best mixtape, Annabelle seems to have come into her own, with a tender, rhythmic lo-fi take on Teenage Fanclub that doesn’t just bring me back to my own moody adolescence – it helps me celebrate and make my peace with it. Kudos to the next generation, and thanks, Mary Lou, for continuing to bring it forth into the world.

• Annabelle Lord-Patey and Matt Minigell: If I Never See You Again (orig. Teenage Fanclub) [2017]

Somewhere in the shuffle of the holiday season we missed an eleventh-hour Christmas three-fer from Parsonsfield (previously Poor Old Shine), recorded live in our hometown stomping grounds and sent as a free exclusive to all “inbox sessions” subscribers by the potent, barnburning old-timey-meets-The-Band fivesome from just down the road apiece, who we first fell in love with in the aisles of Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. I’ve always thought a certain Joni Mitchell setting deserved year-round consideration; here’s the boys to prove River can last long past December.

• Parsonsfield: River (orig. Joni Mitchell) [2016]

We first took note of The Stray Birds when they were coming up on Falcon Ridge, too. Here’s the string-trio-and-then-some on this past year’s Decoration Day Sampler from Brooklyn-and-Nashville-based production house Mason Jar Music – an annual compilation which usually serves as frequent flyer in our year’s end round-up – with a take on Dylan that boasts an apt slipperiness in the voice and a funky, chunky arrangement: pitch-perfect folkband folk sure to thrill those who love the country comfort of Gillian Welch, Gram Parsons, Old Crow Medicine Show and more.

• The Stray Birds: Mississippi (orig. Bob Dylan) [2016]

Jeffrey Foucault‘s been featured here several times before: as a solo artist early in our incarnation; later as a songsmith and collaborator with Mulvey and now-spouse Kris Delmhorst. But his recent video covers are perfect, precise carriers of his craft: close your eyes, and you can still hear the rugged face bobbing in and out of the frame; the wringing, nuanced movement of body, hands and guitar barely contained by the margins of song and solace; the soothing sepia wash that ages the soul. No Depression recently named him one of six Roots Artists On The Verge, but as far as we’re concerned, Foucault is already a master, dusty with the roads of a thousand miles and more.

• Jeffrey Foucault: Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) (orig. Bob Dylan) [2017]

• Jeffrey Foucault: The Devil’s Real (orig. Chris Smither) [2016]

Always ad-free and artist-centric, Cover Lay Down has been making noise about music since 2007 thanks to the generous support of readers like you. Click here to help fund the continued promotion of authenticity and craft through coverage, and get our very own super-secret covers mix as our thanks!

Repost originally featured July 19, 2010. Dave, we miss you still.



Each year as schooldays fade into memory and the summer festival season grows close, my thoughts turn to Dave Carter. An up-and-coming singer-songwriter already well respected by critics and peers, Carter was on the road with his partner Tracy Grammer in the summer of 2002 when he was stricken down with a heart attack during an early morning run in the New England heat.

Their scheduled set at that day’s Green River Festival was taken over by Signature Sounds labelmate Mark Erelli with little fanfare. And the following weekend, at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Tracy took to the stage with determination, cementing Carter’s legacy with a mainstage tribute set performed with friends and folkfamily that, surely, would have made Dave smile.

I’d like to say that I was there, as so many friends were. But this series of events comes to me secondhand, eclipsed by the miracle of parenthood, and the uncertain, overwhelming future of its sudden and everpermanent arrival. For on the day of Dave Carter’s death, in a hospital just a few blocks from where he had planned to perform on that fateful day, my wife and I were walking into the same hot summer, our newly-born child cradled carefully in our arms.

It was the one and only year we’ve missed Falcon Ridge in fifteen years of continuous attendance – the field being no place for a week-old infant – but though I have no regrets in choosing personal joy over shared wake under the circumstances, I have long wished I could have been there for the celebration of Carter’s life which took place that summer on the ridge. Instead, I am left with faint memory and eternal song, his recorded catalog of Zen mysticism and gentle cowboy poetics a permanent fixture on my playlists, his warm voice and sublime vision a constant echo of what was and could have been.

Far be it from me to claim some special bond between Carter and myself, despite the proximity of life and death which we shared; I was only privileged enough to see Dave and Tracy once in concert, and now it is too late.

But Dave Carter lives in my heart, and in the hearts of those folk musicians I love. And why not? It’s not just that Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer spent the last two years of his life atop the american folk charts, thanks to top honors at Kerrville, Napa Valley, and other festivals following their kitchen-recorded, independently released debut When I Go (1998), and the subsequent success of Tanglewood Tree (2000) and Drum Hat Buddha (2001); it’s that they earned that recognition, through unparalleled songcraft, dedicated performance, and a grateful approach to the universe that lives on in his songs, and in her life.

Perhaps Joan Baez said it best, describing Carter’s songs as folkways-ready: “There is a special gift for writing songs that are available to other people, and Dave’s songs are very available to me. It’s a kind of genius, you know, and Dylan has the biggest case of it. But I hear it in Dave’s songs, too.” Listen, and you’ll hear it too.

• Diane Ziegler: Gentle Soldier Of My Soul
  (from Paintbrush, 2002)

• The Strangelings: Tanglewood Tree
  (from Season Of The Witch, 2007)

• Chris & Meredith Thompson: Tanglewood Tree
  (from Clearwater, 2002)

• Joan Baez: The Mountain
  (fan-only, from the KBOO Tribute to Dave Carter, 2002)

• Richard Shindell: The Mountain
  (from Not Far Now, 2009)

• Lucy Kaplansky: Cowboy Singer
  (from The Red Thread, 2004)

• Darryl Purpose: The River, Where She Sleeps
  (from A Crooked Line, 2001)

• Erik Balkey: Winter When She Goes
  (from Sanctuary Road, 2005)

• Priscilla Herdman: Gentle Arms of Eden
  (from The Road Home, 2003)

• Ellis Paul & Vance Gilbert: Gentle Arms Of Eden
  (from Side Of The Road, 2003)

• Pat Wictor: Gentle Arms of Eden
  (from Temporary Stay, 2003)

• Pat Wictor: When I Go
  (from Heaven Is So High…, 2006)

• The Kennedys: When I Go
  (from Stand, 2003)

• Jim Henry: Quickdraw Southpaw’s Last Hurrah
  (from One-Horse Town, 2005)

• Chris Smither: Crocodile Man
  (from Train Home, 2003)

• Full Frontal Folk: Cat Eyed Willie Claims His Lover
  (from Sweet Mystery Of Life, 2004)

• Mission Street Project: Gun Metal Eyes
  (from Liberty Tree, 2006)

• Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem: Farewell To Saint Delores
  (from Gambling Eden, 2003)

Tracy Grammer continues to perform the Dave Carter songbook, most often with local hero and master instrumentalist Jim Henry by her side. In 2005, she released Flower of Avalon, which included nine previously unrecorded songs written by Carter, and a single traditional tune that fits perfectly within the set.

Since then, Tracy has continued to perform and record, making a name for herself beyond that of Dave Carter’s partner and muse. But in many ways, her life continues to be as much a part of his legacy as his songs. Pick up her work, and theirs, at tracygrammer.com.

Our ongoing (Re)Covered series finds us touting new and newly uncovered releases from folk, roots, bluegrass and acoustic artists previously celebrated here on Cover Lay Down. Today, we delve into the mailbag with news and new coverage from “new primitive” songwriter Allysen Callery, tradfolk reinventionist Coty Hogue, orchestral folk artist Amber Rubarth, Vancouver crooner Rein Jamieson, YouTube fave Juliana Richer Daily, and beloved local folksinger and friend Mark Erelli taking on REM, Lorde, Prince, Gordon Lightfoot, Fleetwood Mac, Leonard Cohen, The 1975, the Appalachian canon and more!

Allysen Callery – a self-taught New England rising star and fingerpicker whose website proudly and accurately describes her oeuvre as “quiet music for a loud world” – first popped up on our radar in 2013, thanks to a “haunting recast” of one-time Single Song Sunday standard Long Black Veil that offered apt comparison to the very best of Sandy Denny. Since then, Callery’s star has continued to rise as her canon grows; her delicate will-o-the-wisp reinventions have featured in two consecutive year’s end “Best Of” mixtapes, we shared her recent, perfect take on Marissa Nadler in February of this year as part of our celebration of Volume 3 of Red Line Roots’ Locals Covering Locals series; we loved her tiny, precious 2014 UK folk radio session, and we’re working to get her in for a Unity House Concert soon. New CD The Song the Songbird Sings, with its ringing echoes of the 60’s British psychedelic folk revival, offers perfect proof of why we’re so thrilled to hear more, with tightly crafted, elegantly performed originals and a stunning Gordon Lightfoot cover that holds us close with dark urgency in a frozen wasteland.

• Allysen Callery: Sundown (orig. Gordon Lightfoot)
  (from The Song The Songbird Sings, 2016)

• Allysen Callery: Blackwaterslide (trad.)
  (from Folk Radio UK Session, 2014)

It’s been 4 years since we featured American roots singer-songwriter and banjo player Coty Hogue, a fave of Alice Gerrard and others in the neotrad countryfolk school, on the release of her live album When We Get To Shore, a mostly-covers-and-traditionals album performed in front of a studio audience with fellow Bellingham musicians Aaron Guest (vocals/guitar) and Kat Bula (fiddle/vocals); since then, she’s been pretty quiet, other than a few live-tracked solo YouTube releases well worth passing along. But Hogue is back with Flight, a brand new release featuring the same core trio of players plus guest appearances from Cover Lay Down fave bluegrass duo Molly Tuttle and John Mailander and IBMA multiple award winning bass player Missy Raines, and it’s a revelation, with intimate, lightly grassy takes on Fleetwood Mac and Lucinda Williams, a tight, joyous live sound, and a fine set of catchy, fluid compositions and arrangements perfect for a gentle morning pick-me-up porch session.

• Coty Hogue: Dreams (orig. Fleetwood Mac)
• Coty Hogue: Poor Ellen Smith (trad.)
  (from Flight, 2016)

• Coty Hogue: Royals (orig. Lorde)
• Coty Hogue: Gold Dust Woman (orig. Fleetwood Mac)
  (from Banjo Cover Project, 2013/2014)

Though still primarily known in and around his native Vancouver, singer-songwriter Reid Jamieson is a frequent flyer here at Cover Lay Down thanks to a grinning, gorgeous way with the songs of others and an especially prolific penchant towards interpretation: he’s previously published an album of Elvis songs and dozens of single-shot coverage tracks; in 2011, we offered his tribute to the songs of 1969, recorded for his wife’s birthday, as a release-day exclusive.

Reido’s newest homage Dear Leonard: The Cohen Collection takes on the songs of Leonard Cohen lovingly and gleefully, and we’ve been stuck on it since it dropped in March. Like most of his work, it is deceptively light; the intros hit like Caribbean elevator music, and Reido’s husky tenor is sweet and plaintive as always. But there’s a huge diversity here, and something truly triumphant about the brightening of sound in songs like Suzanne, which tingles with robust steel drum rhythms and spousal harmonies, the driving countrified romp of Tower Of Song, and Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, which gets turned on it’s ear, transforming the somber, pensive original into a bright and upbeat trainsong, chugging along light and lively with perfect layers of overdubbed harmony, gentle guitars and brushes. Elsewhere, ukes, brushes, and fiddle hold sway, adding flourishes and finishing touches to a sweet, sweet EP from somewhere under the sunniest of cowboy skies.

• Reid Jamieson: Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
• Reid Jamieson: Dance Me To The End Of Love
• Reid Jamieson: Tower Of Song (orig. Leonard Cohen)
  (from Dear Leonard: The Cohen Collection, 2016)

Amber Rubarth came to our attention via a 2011 collaboration with Threeds, an oboe trio whose mellow Little Feat cover still offers solace in our darkest days. Now, ten years into a career ready to explode, the award-winning small-town California-born, weary-yet-clear-voiced singer-songwriter comes back to us with Scribbled Folk Symphonies, a nuanced and richly orchestrated singer-songwriter’s tour de force, featuring apt and adept plucked string quartet urgencies under soaring-air vocals on REM standard Losing My Religion and self-effacing Elliott Smith fave I Didn’t Understand, and we’ve been hooked since its April release.

Rubarth is already crowdsourcing next album Wildflowers In The Graveyard, a slightly more conventional contemporary popfolk guitarslinger’s lyric-driven, high-production collection of songs written around the theme of renewal and ripe for a big autumn release; support it for previews and more. But first, check out her new covertracks plus* an older but no less warm and wonderful Carter Family cover below from Rubarth’s bandcamp sampler, and then purchase Scribbled Folk Symphonies to steep in an album that already stands as one of the great folk albums of 2016.

*tracks removed by label request

• Threeds ft. Paul Brill and Amber Rubarth: Roll Um Easy (orig. Little Feat)
  (from Unravelled, 2011)

Though our recent 15-track tribute to Prince made no claim to comprehensiveness, it would be even harder now; since the artist’s passing last month, musicians from across the artistic genre map have come forth to pay their own tribute, and several new favorites have emerged – including a fine live take on signature song Purple Rain from prolific Boston-based singer-songwriter Mark Erelli, recorded at a recent album-release party at Club Passim, and released via his long-standing and always-worth-checking Mp3 of the Month series. Add in a previous month’s live take on Blake Mills’ Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me, and you can see why we’re such big fans of Erelli, whose sideman work with Lori McKenna and Paula Cole and continued work as both a solo artist and a member of newgrass supergroup Barnstar! continue to earn him duly deserved accolades on and beyond the coffeehouse circuit, and whose new, clear-as-a-bell album For A Song is currently sweeping the folk charts on the strength of its stunning countryfolk title track.

• Mark Erelli: Purple Rain (orig. Prince)
• Mark Erelli: Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me (orig. Blake Mills)
  (from MP3 of the Month, 2016)

Finally, for the popfolk set: Upstate New Yorker and YouTube amateur Juliana Daily, whose versatile, sweet and intimate voice we’ve featured regularly on these pages, took top honors for Best Coverfolk Video Series in our 2015 round-up on the strength of a lovely set of living-room covers recorded in support of a Kickstarter album; here she is back again to prove her chops with an aching, wonderfully sparse one-guitar, multiple-voice take on an alt-rock tune-turned-ballad with Bryce Merritt that benefits from tight production, earnest performance, and a hint of whimsy.

We try to avoid revisiting feature posts so soon after their first iteration, and generally eschew dipping too often into the same thematic lens-setting. We’ve got wonderful new bluegrass, indiefolk, singer-songwriter singles and albums to celebrate, and video finds burning in our eyes and ears.

But a whirlwind weekend of family hospitalization as we struggle to find balance in the face of chronic children’s illnesses has left me still thinking about the past far too often, unable to focus on more than the here and now, and the how we got here.

I need to get away from the thinking, critical mind. I need something upbeat, something eminently freeing. I need comfort, and bittersweet understanding, that I might soak in myself. And I don’t want to have to think about it today, on the cusp on yet another workweek with the family split across the state: half of us in the hospital, half of us sleepwalking through our days, our hearts far, far down the turnpike.

But conveniently, in the two weeks since our giant feature on the Tom Petty songbook, covers of the Floridian roots rock giant have been coming out of the woodwork. And so, today, Cover Lay Down presents a few more: a list almost exclusively amateur in origin, sourced almost entirely from the world of streaming video, and almost all recorded in the last year or two.

Rest assured, coverfans: though not predominantly recorded by household names, today’s set contains no also-rans. Petty’s canon is broad and diverse, a wide river rich in silt and sediment; our working criteria for a second set of Tom Petty covers is steep, and these eminently make the cut. Stunning and sublime in turn, they represent a broad spectrum of gravitas and genre – powerful variations on a theme, in a mix comprising both some familiar songs distinctly different in interpretation from those posted previously, and a few songs previously uncovered and now brought to light and life.

Here you’ll find feel-good backporch and living room sessions (The Dead Pigeons’ stringband Listen To Her Heart; long-haired folk collective Andrew Leahey & The Homestead’s Walls; acoustic indiefolk quartet JJ and The Pillars with a holiday favorite), folk-to-funk variations (Hope & Social and Sam Airey’s incredible mashup of I Won’t Back Down with old spiritual I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free), piano-and-harmony pop balladry (Bloom’s Free Fallin’ and The Maine’s Wildflowers) and true-blue country rock ballads (Charles Kelley’s duet with Stevie Nicks on Southern Accents). The solo takes range wide, too, from the slippery honkytonk lounge reinvention of Dave Starke’s You Don’t Know How It Feels to amazingly beautiful and fluid live and in-studio covers like Jay Psaros’ Yer So Bad and Eli Noll’s Won’t Back Down to broken, distant, gravel-voiced takes from the likes of Ryan Bingham (Time to Get Going), Teitzi (A Face In The Crowd), and cult folk veteran Kath Bloom (Learning To Fly).

Together, they comprise a perfect companion to our original Tom Petty Covered In Folk feature, bringing our total coverage far past the half-century line, speaking loud and clear of Petty’s power and playability in the hands of the people. Download the newest set, and enjoy.

Covered In Folk: Tom Petty, Redux

• Jay Psaros: Yer So Bad [2015]

• Dave Starke: You Don’t Know How It Feels [2015]

• Teitzi: A Face In The Crowd [2016]

• Eli Noll: I Won’t Back Down [2013]

• Ryan Bingham: Time To Move On [2014]

• Bloom: Free Fallin’ [2015]

• Andrew Leahey & The Homestead: Walls [2014]

• The Dead Pigeons: Listen To Her Heart [2015]

• Elle Sara: Free Fallin’ [2015]

• Billy The Kid: The Waiting [2015]

• Matt The Electrician: It’ll All Work Out [2014]

• JJ and The Pillars: Christmas All Over Again [2014]

• Kath Bloom: Learning To Fly [2015]

• The Maine: Wildflowers [2015]

• Charles Kelley feat. Stevie Nicks: Southern Accents [2016]

• Hope & Social feat. Sam Airey: I Won’t Back Down [2012]

Ad-free and artist-friendly since 2007, Cover Lay Down delves deep into the modern folkways through the performance of popular song year-round thanks to the kindness of patrons like you. Give now to support our continuing mission, and receive an exclusive mix of unblogged coverfolk from 2014-2015.

Our regular (Re)Covered series finds us touting new and newly-discovered releases from well-loved folk, roots, bluegrass and acoustic artists previously celebrated here on Cover Lay Down. Today, we delve into the mailbag with news and new coverage from bluegrass stalwarts Eli West and Michael Daves, newly-minted Grammy winner Chris Stapleton and his singer-songwriter spouse Morgane, cello-folk experimentalists Chris Bell and Ben Sollee, and electro-coustic rock and roller Scott Warren taking on the songs of Lindsay Buckingham, Bill Monroe, Howlin’ Wolf, the American traditional canon and more!

We first featured acoustic roots rocker Scott Warren way back in 2009 in our New Artists, Old Songs series with his “gorgeously fluid, totally atmospheric cover” of America hit Sister Golden Hair, which closed out his 2009 solo album Quick Fix Bandage; his subsequent, delightfully fuzzed-out take on The Beatles’ Blackbird hit our Best of 2014 Singles session, too. Now Warren is back with a Lindsay Buckingham cover that’s just as sweet and tenderly-treated, from Good Love, a brand new disc that runs from full-bore guitar-driven rock and roll a la Elvis Costello and The Georgia Satellites to this gentle and still-gorgeous album-ender, and we couldn’t be happier to share it.

• Scott Warren: Trouble (orig. Lindsay Buckingham) [2016]

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

• Scott Warren: Blackbird (orig The Beatles) [2014]
• Scott Warren: Sister Golden Hair (orig. America) [2009]

Eli West first popped up on our radar as half of string-and-harmony duo Cahalen and Eli, who took the bluegrass world by storm a few years back with a pair of albums that renewed our interest in the close harmonies and stirring songcraft of progenitors like the Louvin Brothers. Now West is back with an unusual concept album, a solo debut fittingly titled The Both, featuring twelve tracks in total: six relatively obscure traditional folk songs arranged first as warm, surprisingly complex-yet-melodic lyric-and-harmony driven songs, and then again as wholly rearranged instrumentals, offering a side-by-side comparison that allows tune and tradition to step forward in turn. Featuring a veritable who’s who of modern cutting-edge neo-trad players, from ethnomusicologists Anna & Elizabeth to rising star Dori Freeman to jazzman-turned-bluegrass session player Bill Frisell, the album, which drops this week, presents Seattle-based guitarist and multi-instrumentalist West, who has also appeared with Jayme Stone’s recent folk projects and in sessions with Tony Furtado and Tim O’Brien, as a leader and collaborator atop his game.

• Eli West: If I Could Make You My Own (trad.)
• Eli West: Rainbow Midst Life’s Willows (trad.) [2016]

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

• Cahalen Morrison and Eli West: Green Pastures (trad.) [2014]

• Cahalen Morrison and Eli West: Loretta (orig. Townes Van Zandt) [2012]

Similar project parameters frame Orchids and Violence, a double-album release from Michael Daves, a high tenor stalwart of the same grassy scene based out of NYC who we first discovered at The Joe Val Bluegrass Fest a few years back and have since followed closely through pairings and collaborations with Chris Thile and others. Here, two full discs offer further side-by-side comparison of a set of mostly traditional bluegrass tracks, plus a take on Mother Love Bone track Stargazer just for the hell of it: the first collection recorded live in a 19th century church with well-known session players (bassist Mike Bub, violinist Brittany Haas, mandolinist Sarah Jarosz, and Punch Brothers banjo player Noam Pikelny), the second revisits those same songs with bass, drums, and electric guitar, mostly played by Daves, offering a raw, experimental rock approach to the same old-time material.

• Michael Daves: Pretty Polly (acoustic) (trad.)
• Michael Daves: Pretty Polly (electric) (trad.) [2016]

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

• Chris Thile & Michael Daves: Richmond Is a Hard Road to Travel (trad.) [2013]

Jamestown, NY singer-songwriter and sound engineer Christopher Bell has come a long, long way from the “whimsical re- and deconstruction” of cello, voice, and synthesized studio production which first brought him to our attention. Case in point: this kick-off track, a grungy take on Howlin’ Wolf classic Smokestack Lightning, which proves a harbinger of the gritty, dark sound that follows in versatile new album Rust, which was released back in September but just recently oozed its way onto our radar. Shades of blues, folk rock, and alt-country, shivers of gothic indie alternative, tar-bubbles of driving power rock, and echoes of anthemic metal balladry combine here for an unsettling ride through the psyche flavored with classical and modern instrumentation that smashes every expectation of genre adherence we might have brought to the table even as it delights at every turn. Shake, stir, and serve, hot or chilled.

• Christopher Bell: Smokestack Lightning (orig. Howlin’ Wolf) [2016]

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

• Christopher Bell: You Can Call Me Al (orig. Paul Simon) [2014]

• Christopher Bell: Pretty Thing (orig. Leah Arnold)
• Christopher Bell: A Letter To Violet Edison (orig. Be Brave Bold Robot) [2009]

Equally experimental cellist Ben Sollee goes spare on Montanada, a “mixtape” of carefully curated live recordings from a January tour of Big Sky Country alongside percussionist Jordan Ellis. A mixtape of songs, stories, and audience interactions as playful as its name, the collection includes a wonderfully revamped take on Paul Simon’s Obvious Child, which Sollee has covered before, and a sing-along nod to Bill Monroe which reminds us just how much the cello has transformed bluegrass music in the 21st century.

• Ben Sollee: Blue Moon Of Kentucky (orig. Bill Monroe)
• Ben Sollee: Obvious Child (orig. Paul Simon) [2016]

Previously on Cover Lay Down:

• Ben Sollee: Chocolate Jesus (orig. Tom Waits) [2013]

Finally, kudos to well-deserved Grammy winner Chris Stapleton, who we first featured here at Cover Lay Down way back in February of 2008 thanks to his formative work with bluegrass quintet The Steeldrivers. Stapleton has since moved on to the Country charts, but his collaborative work in the world of roots music continues with this amazingly gritty, sensual duet from Southern Family, a concept album featuring tracks by Shooter Jennings, Jason Isbell, Miranda Lambert and more due to drop mid-March on Low Country Sound. The interplay here between Chris and his wife Morgane, a country singer and songwriter of no small notability in her own right – she’s written number one hits for Carrie Underwood, and her pure vocals are often touted by Nashville insiders as the modern industry ideal – makes this track a perfect dark addition to our previously-compiled Single Song Sunday on You Are My Sunshine, exposing the dark underbelly of a song too often mistaken for a bright children’s ditty.



Ad-free and artist-friendly since 2007, Cover Lay Down features musings on the modern folkways through the performance of popular song year-round here and on Facebook thanks to the kindness of patrons like you. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for another installment of our New Artists, Old Songs feature and a second round of Tom Petty covers to top off our recent 40-song covers collection; give now to support our continuing mission, and receive an exclusive mix of otherwise-unblogged coverfolk from 2014-2015.

Thanks to a spate of collections, singles and deep cuts from a vast variety of folkslingers and roots-diggers, 2016 is gearing up to be a great year for coverage. Today, we delve into the mailbag with news of newly released material from folks featured here before, from the loose, percussive American roots music of four-piece bands Roosevelt Dime and Pesky J. Nixon to the tight string-driven stylings of indiefolk harpist Mikaela Davis, bluegrass prodigy Sierra Hull, and more!

We’ve been touting NYC-based “acoustic steamboat soul” quartet Roosevelt Dime since their very first Radiohead cover, featuring their most recent full-length Full Head Of Steam on the cusp of the 2014 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and noting that we’ve since befriended the boys after hosting them for beer, shade, tent-space and a campsite jam under the hot sun – and we’re still excited to find them continuing to stretch and grow at the intersection of Louisiana Jazz, bluegrass, folk, and old-school rhythm and blues. The raw energy of their new single-shot cover of Tom Petty classic American Girl, which seems to have become the in thing to cover on the banjo circuit, is just lovely, with a funky groove and a wonderful vision of America as old, timeless, and new.

Falcon Ridge favorites Pesky J. Nixon have grown and stretched since we debuted their all-covers Red Ducks album back in 2012, adding Kara Kulpa on mandolin and vocals to their already well-established, infectious, heavily percussive folk rock trio sound, and letting accordion player and keyboardist Jake Bush take a turn on lead vocals here and there alongside guitarist and singer Ethan Scott Baird. The result, as we heard last year on the Falcon Ridge stage as the foursome prepared for newly released second-round covers album Red Ducks, Vol. 2, represents both a rich expansion and a maturation for the Boston-based band, with songs such as album kick-off Let Me Down Easy, a driving, high energy romp from fellow folkscene traveler Raina Rose that plays as well in the studio as it does on stage, and potent, melodic takes on Ryan Adams, Jeffrey Foucault, Peter Gabriel, The Band, and undersung contemporaries John Elliot and Peter Bradley Adams standing out as gems among gems, earning “Red Ducks redux” our highest recommendation.

• Pesky J. Nixon: Americans In Corduroys (orig. Jeffrey Foucault)
• Pesky J. Nixon: Let Me Down Easy (orig. Raina Rose)
  (from Red Ducks, Vol. 2, 2016)

Long-time mandolin whiz Sierra Hull is reinventing herself as a singer-songwriter, and it’s a heck of a ride: new album Weighted Mind pulls out all the stops, echoing the transformation of Alison Krauss before her with banjomaster Bela Fleck on board as producer, a star-studded cast of studio greats (including Krauss, Abigail Washburn and Rhiannon Giddens on harmony), and stunning, introspective lyrics that get right to the longing heart. There’s only one cover here (Queen of Hearts, a traditional song which Hull discovered on an old Joan Baez album, which appears here coupled with an original instrumental), but it’s a perfectly representative sample: sweet, sultry, and soaring in performance; honest and harmonic, masterful and mature in arrangement. Here’s a live take of the song recorded last year on Prairie Home Companion to whet your whistle.

• Sierra Hull: Queen Of Hearts (trad.)
  (from Prairie Home Companion, 2015)

We discovered the first two volumes of Boston-based labor-of-love compilation project Locals Covering Locals back in January, just a bit too late to include it in our Best of 2015 features. But right out of the gate, Volume 3 of the series, which dropped just this week, is a strong contender for this year’s best, with an aching, fluid album-closer from Dietrich Strause, gentle new primitivism from local favorite Allysen Callery taking on the Marissa Nadler songbook, and a grungy folkrock take on one of Allysen’s songs by daughter Ava alongside, standing out in another well-mixed set of otherwise new-to-us songs and songwriters.

We first featured harpist Mikaela Davis via a pair of YouTube video covers in our New Artists, Old Songs series way back in our early days, when she was still a local college student. Last week’s re-release of these old favorites and a few more as a 4-song digital covers EP via Bandcamp comes as a wonderful treat for the coverhound, with delightfully precious, surprisingly robust atmospheric takes on The Kinks (David Watts), Sufjan Stevens (Casimir Pulaski Day), Elliott Smith (Twilight), and Cass McCombs (Meet Me Here At Dawn); taken together, the four tracks, originally recorded in and around 2011-2012, showcase a broad indie influence, and serve as apt harbingers of the more nuanced and layered psychedelic folk rock-meets-chamber pop sound that typifies her more recent work as a 23 year old touring pro coming soon to a city near you as she tours both East and West coasts this Spring opening for Marco Benevento.

Finally, in other rerelease news: ubiquitous American primitive revivalist Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who we last heard in January thanks to a strong pseudonymous appearance on last year’s 3-disc tribute to early American folk revivalist Shirley Collins, remains busy heading into the year, releasing a collection of songs originally recorded for John Peel’s BBC radio sessions that includes a potent 1994 cover of Prince song The Cross – a deconstruction of a soaring, spiritual original into something eerie, urgent, and broken that, despite its age, still sounds fresh as a daisy.

Ad-free and artist-friendly since 2007, Cover Lay Down features musings on the modern folkways through the performance of popular song year-round thanks to the kindness of patrons like you. Give now to support our continuing mission, and receive an exclusive 38-track mix of otherwise-unblogged coverfolk from 2014-2015.