Student grades are due tomorrow, but we went to church anyway - we had to sing, and anyway, after two years of semi-regular practice as a Unitarian Universalist, I have come to a place in my life where I find peace and solace in shared practice which starts and ends with love and service, togetherness and open-ended truths, and a shared commitment to social justice. Much of this is due to the particulars of our chosen worship setting. The UU church which we attend is in transition, with an interim minister who has my [...]
Bill Morrissey: Handsome Molly [ purchase ] Bill Morrissey: Birches [ purchase ] His songs were like Elmer Rising's pen and ink masterpieces--you could admire each confidently executed lyrical brushstroke and melodic twist on the finest of scales, and never diminish the overall impression of their honesty and truth. At the height of his powers, on 1989's Standing Eight, 1992's Inside and 1993's Night Train, each Bill Morrissey record contained [...]
I've been a Mark Erelli fan ever since I saw him on stage at the 1999 Green River Festival, just two years after his 3 a.m. discovery at a folk conference hotel room jam. I was thrilled by the release of 2001 breakthrough album Compass and Companion, which brought several singles to local folk-and-roots radio station WRSI thanks to their close connection with the Signature Sounds label. And since then, I've discovered multiple connections between us - among them, a love of coverage, a love for the history and natural imagery of New England, [...]
Two years ago, my annual visit to the folkfields produced a manifesto of sorts, anticipating and acknowledging the blur between old time, bluegrass, folk, and other american roots forms being performed by a rising crop of very young artists. Much of this came from the dual nature of my summer revelry: moving from Grey Fox Bluegrass to Falcon Ridge Folk allowed for a surprisingly consistent journey, and that which I saw in one site, I confirmed in the other. This year, though work and other obligations left me unable to attend Grey Fox, I [...]
We're home from the folkfields after a two-week hiatus, tanned, rested, and ready to explicate the current state of folk as represented by this year's mainstage and sidestage lineups and their accompanying buzz. While we gather our thoughts [and CDs] for our annual post-fest megapost, here's the best of what landed in the mailbox during our absence. With its tender mix of old-timey reconstructions, traditional tunes, original songs, and recorded field narratives, On The Brooklyn Road - an incredible new country roots album from [...]
The Cambridge music community is dazzling with the songs and voices of some of this country's finest independent musicians. The March 8th showcase features a beautiful sampler of sorts of the Cambridge area's most talented voices and musicians. This is a show for the most seasoned Camberville music fan as well as a newbie wanting to get a heaping dose of the best live music in the area. March 8th show will feature Dennis Brennan , Jess Tardy , Mark Erelli , Billy Beard , Jeese Dee , Zach Hickman and Margaret [...]
As we've alluded to in our recurring Covered in Kidfolk series, there's a growing universe of family-friendly music out there that doesn't suck, and a large portion of it seems to be centered around the American Northeast region which we call home. Not all of it is folk, of course - increasingly, alternative music, world music, and even rap have found a niche in the hands and ears of cool moms and dads, who continue to insist on healthy yet artistically mature songs which they can enjoy alongside their offspring. [...]
The days grow short enough to burn at both ends; it's dark when I wake, still dark when I leave for work, and dusk when I return. In today's rain, it was darker still: hard to find the school building in the thick, clouded air; dismal on the return trip, wind whipping wet leaves across my path as I crested the hill into the mist towards home. I'm hardly home, of course. Play rehearsals in the looming darkness of the local town hall take their toll, as do late [...]
It's a point of personal pride that in almost three years of existence, we've never missed a scheduled post here at Cover Lay Down. But tonight we're as close as we've ever come, thanks to the sudden, time-consuming duality of both long days in the classroom and long nights at rehearsals for our local community theater production - and the heat wave we're experiencing here in New England doesn't help. I had half a post written, but it looks like it's not going to make it out of draft form 'til Sunday. [...]
I first discovered Ontario-based singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn via 1987 singles collection Waiting For A Miracle, a double album set whose bright aboriginal cover art called to me from my father's record collection. Even to my untrained adolescent ears, the seventeen year songspan told a story of a potent guitarist and prolific artist who had slowly turned from sparse acoustic folk to something urban, electrified, and politicized. And though I found myself favoring the middle of the album for its contemporary, catchy pre-rock melodies and accessible yet spiritual imagery, his astute, often poignant observations [...]
We live in complicated times, in a complicated country. Oil gushes into our waters, and each day, I watch the hurricane news, waiting for the perfect storm that will lead to the destruction of the East Coast beaches in whose warm waves and on whose clinging sand I have spent so many summers. The New Orleans project which won our hearts in the months following Katrina is out of money, though it shimmers with hope on the new series from the folks who brought you The Wire . My inner city [...]
I don't sing my children to sleep as much as I used to. Now that they're older, and need more time to wind down after long days at school and play, bedtime has by necessity shifted to something more solo, wherein we read a story or two, kiss their brows, and then leave them to their own devices, letting them read or listen to audiobooks before they drowse into dreamland at their own pace. It's good to give our children the space to find their own rituals as they grow; important, as a [...]
Like a rain-swollen river, the late Spring rush of music from blogs, readers, labels, and other friendly pass-along sources continues unabated. The bounty is rich, and though we remain committed to bringing you only the best and brightest of the coverfolk world, there's more than enough gems to tempt the palate and confound our preference for tightly organized artist-centered features and themes. Happily, however, much of this month's flood calls us back to themes and artists previously covered in these pages. Which makes it high time for yet another edition of [...]
As folk critic Scott Alarik notes in his seminal 2004 essay compilation Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground , though the original American folk revival presented a plentiful mix of both female and male voices and songwriters, a quick "where are they now" look at the last few generations of folk artists reveals numerous women who went on to folkpop stardom - take, for example, eighties Fast Folk movement graduates Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin - with few male counterparts. In their stead, we find a set of male voices from that era [...]
Saturday was Record Store Day , and though we're off in Disney World - the least indie place in the known universe - it seemed nonetheless appropriate to ground today's program in our most album-oriented feature. Happily, there's a bunch of solid tribute albums lurking on the horizon, both in and out of the folkworld. June, especially, promises to be exciting, with a John Prine tribute and a tribute to the songs of Shel Silverstein scheduled to drop almost simultaneously. The Prine tribute is much more [...]
News of a new release from Jeffrey Foucault who is turning covers into a speciality, this time around he's teamed up to record an album of murder ballad duets with Mark Erelli , the albums due out in Europe on April 12th, you can pre-order in the UK at Fish Records - to tempt you there's a trio of tracks to download of this acoustic focussed records available at Jeffery's official website [...]
This song from Mark Erelli's new record Little Vigils is not really representative of the sound or the style of the record. But that's the case with just about every song on the record. There's no one sound or style that can sum up Little Vigils. On Little Vigils Mark is content to use different textures and tempos to convey different emotions on a wide range of songs. Whether it's the delicate twang of "August" or the deathly folk sounds of "Hemlock Grove" this record can simply not be pinned [...]
Our music library may be vast, but we've never claimed to be completists here at Cover Lay Down. There's always something missed or previously unheard, and always something new, too, released just in time to taunt us in the aftermath of a topical post. Serendipitous addenda come from fellow bloggers, readers, labels, artists and library visits into our welcoming ears and hands. From there, they make their way back to you via our (Re)Covered features, wherein we share new and newly-rediscovered songs that dropped into our laps just a bit [...]
Nur eine Stunde vom Bodensee, hinter den sieben Bergen, zwischen dem mächtigen Säntismassiv und den Gipfeln der Churfirsten eingebettet, liegt eine idyllische Märchenwelt. Stille, nur der Schnee knirscht leise unter den Schuhen, Spuren hinterlassen - sagenhaft zauberhaft. Mark Erelli - Snowed In Dolorean - Violence In The Snowy Fields Laura Veirs - Snow Camping
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Star Maker Machine
Keep the Coffee Coming
The Deli Magazine
Beat Surrender
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