Coming off her well received 2011 album Follow Me Down, Sarah Jarosz is squeezing in a mini-tour before returning to Boston to complete the 2nd half of her junior year at New England Conservatory. During her stop at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston, TX, the new face of Americana picked and strummed a handful of fantastic covers throughout her set. Continue reading »
Though Bob Dylan moved away from his role as a ‘protest singer’ long ago — we saw Another Side by his fourth album — his name will forever be associated with social activism. The international human rights organization Amnesty International rose out of the same turbulent era as Dylan, forming in 1961, the year Dylan recorded his first album. Fitting, then, that in celebration of their 50th birthday, Amnesty would call on artists to contribute their Dylan covers to the massive four disc set Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International. Continue reading »
The Avett Brothers are never ones to shy away from a cover or two. So it makes perfect sense that they’re contributing to the much-anticipated (and cumbersomely named) Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International. The collection of 75 (75!) Bob Dylan covers on four discs will be released tomorrow, so the Avetts stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week to promote the collection with their contribution, a cover of “One Too Many Mornings.” Continue reading »
When Seattle songwriter Robert Deeble begins his new cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells,” it sounds like it will be a typically theatrical, emotional, spiritual piano ballad. Nothing wrong there, but the song’s been done a million times like that already. Over the course of five minutes though, it gradually picks up speed, adding in a rock band, female vocalist, and the jazzy piano solo that pushes things to a new level. Continue reading »
Every year, interfaith suicide prevention charity To Write Love on Her Arms rounds up some of their many musician supporters for a fund- and awareness-raising concert in Orlando. Last week, Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional), David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), William Fitzsimmons, Noah and Abby Gundersen (The Courage), and Mariah McManus performed short sets, then came back out for the custom sing-along encore. As happens in 40% of such situations, they chose Bob Dylan/The Band’s “I Shall Be Released.” Continue reading »
In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
With a voice as natural as a hunk of dry bark and a guitar style so vivid you’ll swear you can hear the dust coming off the strings, M. Ward rose from Portland, Oregon, and settled down on back porches all across Americana. His warm, enduring melancholy and his playing ability has won him fandom not just from listeners, but from his peers, who seek him out for collaborations and tribute albums aplenty. With his work with Zooey Deschanel in She & Him, not to mention with Jim James and Conor Oberst in Monsters of Folk, Ward’s never been more visible, and yet his music still retains the earthy intimacy it had when he first started out. Continue reading »
Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International doesn’t come out for another month, but the massive four-disc tribute is available to stream below. We’re just making our way through it ourselves, but the Gaslight Anthem’s “Changing of the Guards” and Queens of the Stone Age‘s “Outlaw Blues” are early highlights. On the flip side, Ke$ha‘s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” is truly atrocious (though Miley Cyrus‘ “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” isn’t bad at all). For whatever reason, you can stream 60-second excerpts of the first two discs and the full songs for the second two. At 2+ hours of music, though, we think you’ll survive. Stream the album below, then tell us what the best/worst songs are in the comments. (via Facebook) Continue reading »
When we think back to this year, we might remember 2011 as the year that the whole concept of the “cover album” became more fluid, and not always for the better. Thanks to the increased prominence of sites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud, a cover album could be conceived, recorded, and shared in the space of a weekend. This didn’t necessarily lead to better cover albums, but it certainly led to more of them. They came in all formats – digital, CD, vinyl, and even cassette-only – and from all directions – labels, blogs, and even some magazines.
Which, we like to think, makes this list that much more helpful. In a year where the biggest single-artist cover album we got came from William Shatner, it proved a particular challenge to dig through the many obscure artists and assorted tributes and extract the gems. Gems there certainly were though, be they from newcomers making an impression with their favorite songs or old-timers honoring groups that influenced them decades ago. It may have taken a bit more work to find them, but the end result is as strong a selection as we’ve seen.
Continue to page 2 to read the list…
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