Mar 212018
 

In Pick Five, great artists pick five cover songs that matter to them.

erika wennerstrom covers

For the third entry in our new “Pick Five” series – following Frank Turner and Emel Mathlouthi – we checked in with singer and songwriter Erika Wennerstrom. She is preparing to release her solo debut this Friday as her band Heartless Bastards takes an extended hiatus. Titled Sweet Unknown (where Wennerstrom is venturing after 15 years fronting the band), the album spotlights, as Consequence of Sound puts it, “the warm and bluesy instrument fans of Heartless Bastards have grown to love.” That instrument is, as anyone who has heard a single Heartless Bastards will know, her powerhouse vocals.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that the five covers she selected for us all feature powerful vocal performances. Powerful, though, in very different ways, ranging from Aretha Franklin’s gospel belt to Johnny Cash’s fragile whisper. Let’s turn it over to her: Continue reading »

Aug 012011
 

Bob Dylan released his version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” for the first time on 1971’s Greatest Hits Vol. II. This seems a shaky proposition indeed, releasing a new recording as a “hit,” but it in fact already was a hit…just not for him. The Byrds, Joan Baez, and Fred Holstein had all released versions of the song well before 1971, making it best-of material, even though no one outside of the Big Pink basement had ever heard him sing it. Continue reading »