It’s coming on 2013, and for weeks, otherbloggers and tastemakers have been touting their 2012 picks, jostling to be the best and first match for your own preferences, inviting debate over position in the ranks. And once again, here I am, after weeks of archival digging and false starts, late out of the gate and still struggling with the sheer hubris of presenting my own Year In Review. As I noted last December atop our Best Coverfolk of 2011 feature, my reluctance to pass judgement isn’t a cop-out. I’m a relatively fickle listener, but I’m [...]
Seems like only weeks since our four-part series on the coverlover's bread and butter, the full tribute or covers album. But even before the usual spate of Xmas Coverfolk begins to tickle our fancy, the end of the year often brings delight in this category, and 2012 has been no exception, sending along a host of tight sets and sessions sure to warm the chilled heart of even the most jaded folkfan. Enjoy... The most potent and poignant version of Paul Simon's Duncan [...]
Ah, Madonna. Icon of my childhood, tormenter of my taste; a woman who gets little respect from the iconoclasts for her increasingly dated output, though she merits no small stature for her role as the Lady Gaga of our generation, reinventing herself for every tour and album, offering a plethora of feminist pathways in the process. To be fair, the original material girl is quite talented, in a multitude of arts and genres, and her ongoing insistence on both artistic and economic autonomy, which has made her the best-selling female recording artist of all [...]
We've got an unusually large post today, both to acknowledge a growing backlog of recent projects from familiar, beloved folk artists, and to make up for our recent vacation-driven absence from these pages. Read on for an unheard-of 20-track (Re)Covered set , focused around a plethora of new releases and recordings from singer-songwriters and bands previously featured on the Cover Lay Down radar screen... I've known of Halifax-based singer-songwriter Rose Cousins for years, though almost exclusively through her rich and ongoing collaboration with a number of local [...]
Before we were slaves in Egypt, we were Joseph's brothers and their wives, working at the right hand of a seemingly benevolent pharaoh. But as more modern freedom movements have reminded us over and over again, trust in institutions is a trust misplaced, for power shared unilaterally is power that can be withheld. 400 years and a dozen generations, and we find ourselves both enslaved and feared for our potential power as usurpers. And yet. Without Pharaoh's breeding program, we would not have become a people. Without the pressure of [...]
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. [...]
Though it falls on Columbus Day, Canadian Thanksgiving Day seems relatively untainted by the parallel history of white privilege and savagery which have come to typify the two American holidays with which it shares either date or name. Rather, though giving thanks in the territories is still partially grounded in the European exploration of territories and provinces, Thanksgiving Day in Canada was originally established as a harvest holiday, pure and simple, first as a natural extension of the human need to celebrate the cornucopia, and subsequently by proclamation, in 1957. My connection to Canadian Thanksgiving is familial: [...]
The elderchild and her smaller sister are growing up fast, as kids are wont to do. They don't need kidfolk so much anymore - are starting to make their own choices about music and listenability, and tend to prefer playfulness and performability to nuance or lyrical narrative, a trend which I suppose will linger until they hit their teens and begin to look for ways to identify themselves as "other". They play unattended, and wander the folk festival grounds on their own; they do musicals, as their parents do, and sing the songs around the house for [...]
News from North-of-the-border fave Reid Jamieson , whose tribute to the songs of 1969 found exclusive first-round coverage here on these pages back in March: it's Canada Day , and he's recorded a sweet upbeat cover of their national anthem in his signature countryfolk style. Take a minute and twenty out of your busy Friday schedule to celebrate, won't you? Reid Jamieson: O Canada Like it? There's plenty [...]
Reid Jamieson covers a ton of songs over at his website. Download songs by Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Crowded House, Bob Dylan, Harry Nilsson, and Peter Gabriel.
It's Spring, and that means rebirth: when the earth reemerges from the earth, covered in last year's leaves. When the morning is filled with brave still-chilled birds, proffering a soundtrack for our triumphant return. It's also school vacation, and that means our annual trip down to North Carolina's Outer Banks, where we join up with family members more typically spread far and wide across the country, enough to spill into two adjacent houses. In past years, as with most of our excursions to various and sundry parts of the world, [...]
Loving a musician can be sweet, indeed. Today's evidence: as a present for his wife's birthday, Cover Lay Down's favorite Canadian singer-songwriter Reid Jamieson cut her a full album's worth of hits from 1969, and the collection is a delight, full of sunshine and daisies, loose and light with love and affection. Says Carolyn: "Reid actually recorded these songs in secret - right under my nose - over the last 2 weeks when not at work, rehearsal or sleeping and eating. He even hid a new snare drum in [...]
I'm still here folks and I truly appreciate your patience. I'm crazy busy with moving into a new apartment this week plus a slew of other work, life and family things that just can't be ignored. Strangely enough I'm listening to more music (new and old) than I have in a long long while which of course makes me want to stop and write - well I think carrying my entire home six flights down and one flight up in 95 degree heat also contributes greatly to my desire to just stop and do nothing but write. Anyways I'm going [...]
You know what's tasty this time of year? Smooth, sweet and cool ice cream. I just had some - well a variation on the theme since I can't eat dairy- and it brought to mind another tasty item, cover songs. Since I'm still in too much of a food coma to finish off the post I had started earlier today I am instead sharing with you the musical equivalent of the huge serving of ice cream I just inhaled. These are the top picks from my recent covers acquisitions. So, eat up! I Love You Always [...]
Discovering under-the-radar singers who share my love of coverage is always a treat, especially when their website features a huge cache of free downloads. But far too often, I find, there's a reason why such cover-heavy collections remain undersung. Mere interpretative skill is nothing to sneeze at, to be sure - after all, there are some wonderful artists out there who have made a career of taking on the songs of one source or another. But our mandate here is to help you find your way to singer- songwriters through [...]
Though I consider myself a folk blogger first and foremost, as our masthead notes, coversong has its own appeal, both as kitsch and culture. And I make no apologies for the focus, nor do I regret the readership it brings. After all, even if just a few of you get hooked on a new song or artist each week, we all win in the process. Of course, it's worth noting that, as a coverblogger, I'm somewhat of an anomaly. The community of coverbloggers is a small one, and it tends [...]
My interest in Harry Nilsson came through coversong, most specifically 1995 covers album For The Love Of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson , which I picked up when it was new in order to gain access to otherwise-unavailable rarities from Marc Cohn, Aimee Mann, and a solid roster of other perfectly tuned oddities (like, say, Fred Schneider of the B-52s doing a pitch-perfect version of Coconut , or the infamous nasal harmonies of The Roches applied to a space-age Spaceman ). Purchasing the album was a revelation: here was a set of tunes that [...]
My interest in Harry Nilsson came through coversong, most specifically 1995 covers album For The Love Of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson , which I picked up when it was new in order to gain access to otherwise-unavailable rarities from Marc Cohn, Aimee Mann, and a solid roster of other perfectly tuned oddities (like, say, Fred Schneider of the B-52s doing a pitch-perfect version of Coconut , or the infamous nasal harmonies of The Roches applied to a space-age Spaceman ). Purchasing the album was a revelation: here was a set of tunes that [...]
Cover Lay Down
Cover Me
A Town Full of Losers
The World In A Paper Cup
MS MR- “Hurricane (CHVRCHES Remix)”
Lana Del Rey is the “Queen of Disaster” on New ‘Born To Die’ Leak
Dave Grohl to join The Rolling Stones in Anaheim tonight
