Ever wonder what happens to the artists who win Best New Artist at SXSW? If they're Caroline Herring , they release a strong second album and then disappear, putting their recording career on hold to focus on marriage and motherhood. Now, after a long hiatus, Herring returns to the forefront of the folkworld with Lantana , a stunning, intimate collection which I've already shortlisted as one of my top ten folk/roots/Americana albums of 2008. Taking time off for family is an especially risky move in today's music world, where momentum is king -- [...]
By most popular definitions, bluegrass isn't folk music. Where modern singer-songwriter folk teeters on the edge of pop, rock, and blues, today's bluegrass bands find radioplay on the country end of the dial, if at all. And though there are certainly plenty of crossover alt-country and Americana musicians out there who are welcome at both bluegrass and folk festivals, most music festivals tend to be firmly either/or. But as I've noted previously, folk and bluegrass have much in common. Both stem from the same early American [...]
I remember the night we drove everywhere just to find a place to commit ourselves to a future together. It was cold, like tonight is cold. It wasn't Valentine's Day. But it was love. Looking back, I can't believe it took me so long to accept that the feelings I had for you were real, and worth risking everything. All that time I thought I was too broken, too battered. All that time, I thought a fool like me didn't deserve a woman like [...]
I spent all morning trying to script a post about songs which struggle with the infinite and indescribably complex mysteries of love. The idea was to celebrate this complexity, and acknowledge as valid the stuff that often holds us back from putting a name to what we feel, lest we call it wrong and mess everything up. But every time I try to put words to love, things fall apart. Love's like that, I think. I guess that was the point, after all. Instead, in anticipation [...]
Thanks to email submissions, new releases and discoveries, and a newly-purchased CD repair kit, it's time for yet another edition of (Re)Covered , a monthly feature here on Cover Lay Down in which we recover a few songs that dropped through the cracks just a little too late to make it into the posts where they belonged. I saw Lucy Kaplansky last month at the UnCommon Coffeehouse with my father; as always, she turned in a wonderful, intimate set, including great covers [...]
The best seat at the Green River Festival is in the shade along the ridge by the side stage, watching the motionless kiteflyers staring at the outfield sky. Because every year, there's that one sidestage artist that comes out of nowhere, a voice and style fully formed, and -- where did HE come from? -- blows you away. You have no idea who you just missed at the main stage, and you don't care. Such was the year I discovered Jeffrey Foucault . Foucault (pronounced foo-kalt) is a scruffy, [...]
I've been holding off on Bob Dylan here at Cover Lay Down, unsure that I had anything to add to the existing cacaphony in the blogworld. But now that the fervor for the I'm Not There soundtrack been replaced by a reckless affection for the Moldy Peaches, it's time, I think. We begin our journey through the works of Dylan with one of his sweetest confessional ballads, Girl from the North Country . I've never been a [...]
Late Saturday night, a couple of weeks ago: my brother's in from out of town, and he's flipping through my iPod. We've always had vastly different ears for music, though we passed plenty back and forth through the years; he's looking, but he isn't seeing much he's in the mood for. Still, keeping a folk blog means finding commonality in strange places. As in: "Wait, how many folk covers of Pavement could there be?" Just enough, man. Just enough. [...]
I figured it would be fitting to end our contest week with a theme that would help us transition back from the countrified edge of folk. Thus: folk singers covering cowboy songs. Enjoy! Continuing our discussion from earlier this week: back when the world was acoustic, a guitar and a voice could travel a long way, from back porch to prairie campfire, and be different only by context, and the tone it lends. Since then, of course, our sense of genre has [...]
The good news is, thanks to a totally random process involving a five year old and 29 small pieces of paper, one of YOU has just won an autographed copy of Shelby Lynne's new Dusty Springfield tribute Just A Little Lovin' . Thanks to the fine folks at Filter for making this contest possible! The bad news is, due to someone else's confusion over who owns the copyright for a cover song (hint: it's the original songwriter), and quite probably a mistaken impression that the covers I posted on Sunday were actually from [...]
Just a few days left to win an autographed copy of Just A Little Lovin' , Shelby Lynne's new acoustic country tribute to the songs of Dusty Springfield! To tempt you a little more, today we're featuring a pair of older covers by this perpetually on-the-verge singer-songwriter, plus a matching set by her equally talented sister Allison Moorer. If Shelby Lynne was pure contemporary country, you'd not find her here on a coverblog devoted to folk music. [...]
No music today, folks...just a promise of what's to come. Singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne 's new album Just A Little Lovin' , a stripped-down acoustic set of covers of Dusty Springfield songs (plus one Dusty-esque original), comes out on January 29th, and I can't wait. Shelby was once pure Nashville Country, but she left that behind long before her 2001 Grammy for Best New Artist; her newest work floats a set of masterful vocals over acoustic guitar and piano, resulting in a sound comparable to the better, sparser works of Alison [...]
Hope no one minds two Covered in Folk features in the same week; in my other life I've got student grades to process and a new term starting up Thursday, so I needed something quick. Upcoming features include the coversong repertoires of some stellar voices from across the folk spectrum; in the meantime, here's a post I've been sitting on for a few weeks, ever since our feature on the solosongs of Paul Simon . You need me to say [...]
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. It saddens me how much Dr. King's I Have A Dream speech continues to resonate today. Sad, too, that so much of the rising generation thinks of today as just another day off. May these few still, small, unsatisfied voices in the wilderness remind us of how far we have come -- and how far we have yet [...]
Hope no one minds an early "Sunday" post this week; my brother and his wife are on their way in from Brooklyn for the long weekend, and I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. I'll have a short post up for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, if I can; in the meantime, enjoy today's feature on "American Primitive" folkartist Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings, the tenth post in our popular Covered in Folk series, where we pay tribute to the songwriting talents of a single artist. [...]
Brooklyn-based folkgrass band The Jones Street Boys released their first album, Overcome , back in October of 2007; since then, they've raised a couple of eyebrows on the americana and alt-country blogs, but not nearly enough. I heard them for the first time last week, but I'm not afraid to be late for the party when I've got such a great housewarming gift for all those out there who appreciate the No Depression end of modern folk music. At heart, The Jones Street Boys are a bluegrass band; their members [...]
It is my honor to share a birthday with a seminal hip hop balladeer, a grunge god, the hands-down master of New Orleans R&B songwriting, and the best soundtrack and pop-americana producer in the business. Since it was too hard to pick just one, instead of focusing on a single artist or genre today, I'm featuring some of my absolutely favorite covers of the work of LL Cool J, Dave Grohl, Allen Toussaint, and T-Bone Burnett, all of whom were born on January 14. If I didn't have an outlet for celebrating these [...]
I'm guest hosting over at Fong Songs again today, throwing down a feature on Pop Punk covers of folk songs while Fong heads off to Las Vegas for some culture. (I'd say more, but you know what they say about what happens in Vegas.) If your ears can take the hard stuff, join me at Fong Songs for the sweet non-folk sounds of The Lemonheads, Sonic Youth, P.J. Harvey, Dinosaur Jr., and a bunch of other 80s alt-punk rockers. Before you go, here's some earcandy, a [...]
Songsources are ever pouring forth new and unearthed sounds: the forgotten track, the new release, your own wonderful recommendations via email or post comments. Sometimes the perfect folksong pops onto the radar (or hits the blogosphere) and demands to be shared, no matter how after-the-fact. Today, our third installment of (Re)Covered , a regular feature in which we recover a few songs that dropped through the cracks just a little too late to make it into the posts where they belonged. Better late than never, I say. Thanks to [...]
It's been some week here at Cover Lay Down. Features on popular singer-songwriters Billy Bragg and Paul Simon brought us to the top of the charts at musicblog aggregator The Hype Machine and a linkback from New York magazine's Vulture blog. On Friday, almost 900 of you visited the site, a new record; download tracking shows that many of you came in for one song, but stuck around to try something new. Welcome, kudos, and thanks for validating our goals here at Cover Lay Down. But a slow [...]
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[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
