California folk pop singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham enjoys her covers, having released an EP full back in 2020. Her latest is a solo acoustic cover of Tina Turner‘s most covered song: “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”
Performed live for the Howard Stern Show, Cunningham’s version begins with her finger-picked guitar and nothing else. Though the tempo is nearly the same at first – a little slower in the verse – the vibe is entirely different. She slows down in the pre-chorus and the chorus, reinforcing how distinct it feels.
Cunningham’s vocal sounds almost rueful. There’s a feeling of liberation in Turner’s performance at times; sure, she’s not entirely happy about coming to this realization, but she knows she won’t get fooled again. Whereas Cunningham’s performance sounds like she’s come to this unhappy realization now it’s pure lament. That attitude fits the rest of the performance, as Cunningham performs it as a traditional folk song, there’s nothing peppy in in it.
Rufus Wainwright’s Folkocracy is a reminder of how different a context is the word folk, when there is that Atlantic Ocean dividing America and Europe. This album feels a very North American version, where, broadly, anything much with an acoustic guitar, and on the softer side of rock, fits the bill, with often a fair old slice of the older social commentators, Seeger, Guthrie et al, chucked in for good measure. In the UK, folk tends more to the trad. arr., in style if not necessarily sacrosanct in content, and of a devoutly Celtic or Anglo hue. Wainwright doesn’t totally ignore any particular aul’ country, but Folkocracy is full of nods, sometimes eccentric, to an early 60’s heyday of Kingston Trios, Peter Paul and Mary and that ilk, if with a few left field lurches into Broadway and Hollywood. At times it is astonishing, in a beguiling way, sometimes bewildering and sometimes just plain odd. But, overall, this album is impressive, if more on the side of to be admired more than loved, with a slew of guests adding their varied (and variable) flavors at several stages along the way.
