
As we noted over the weekend in The Year's Best Coverfolk, Part 1: Tribute Albums and Cover Collections , it's been a good year for full-album coverage. Overall, though, despite the fact that, in terms of sheer mass, covers from tributes overwhelm singletons in my collection, what I've found this year is that a significant majority of the songs that lingered, and demanded overplay, came from a mixed bag of borderline genre albums and single shot coverfolk tracks, via the usual sources, from YouTube, Soundcloud, studio appearances, website and bandcamp singles, and more. [...]

Chris Kiehne has just released his newest album 'A Widower's Kind' via his Bandcamp page and as eluded to in the title of this post he is using material from the great Hank Williams. By his own admission he describes the project below: "A Widower’s Kind" is a collection of significantly-to-slightly modified Hank Williams songs. Some of my favorite Hank songs, and some of his most morbid. Mark de Wilde ( http://markdewilde.tumblr.com/ ) created the beautiful cover art. Hank supplied everything else. God rest his soul. [...]

Chris Kiehne's Pray For Daylight is a mesmerizing, almost-lost album full of exquisite harmonies (provided by the excellent Sonya Cotton ) and wispy threads of literate, Americana-tinged folk. It's an album that - despite its hard-luck history - has a freshness that speaks volumes about its talented creators and their passion for this project. At least, that's my take. Here's what Chris has to say: "It's about zombies and love and other gross stuff, and Sonya sings harmony through its entirety." Of course, there's more to that story...but how can you pass up zombies? [...]

Just wanted to let y'all know about an album that came out of nowhere (for me, not for him) and you all need a listen or two... Chris Kiehne just "released" the album Pray For Daylight and is giving it away absolutely free because he simply wants it to be heard. Well, I'm liking what I'm hearing. Chris Kiehne was part of the band The National Lights that released one of my favourite albums of 2007, "The Dead Will Walk, Dear" and when I heard from Chris, I was excited for new material. If you are [...]