Thoughts on music: Ghost Woman Blues

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Cover versions 2010/2011 - old music revisited

I'm sorry if this post is a bit on-the-fly. I was just about to turn in for the night when I noticed that someone (and thank-you) had ended up here while searching a Famous Web Search Engine for 'recent cover versions'. I have mentioned a few recently - the latest only a couple of hours ago- so I decided to mention [in the side bar only], Smoke Fairies cover version of the Neil Young song 'Alabama' and it available to stream for free here. There is something doing - cover versions are all the rage - and I intend to come back to a selection of them soon. My ambition would be to collate a list of a few choice ones, some less likely than others, from the last few years. Be that as it may Neil Young has cropped up at least twice very recently: Laura Marling covered 'The Needle and The Damage Done', also from the 1972 album 'Harvest', as the b-side to 7" 'Blues Run The Game', which is also a cover but an older one.

On the other hand it is not as venerable as 'Ghost Woman Blues' that has been revived, and righteously so, by The Low Anthem.

Here, as I was curious as to whether I had heard them correctly, are what I think is the lyric to 'Alabama'.

Alabama

Oh, Alabama
The devil fools with the best laid plan
Swing low Alabama

You got the spare change
You got to feel strange
And now the moment is all that it meant

Alabama, you got the weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh, Alabama
Banjos playing through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama

See the old folks tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo
Don't it take you down home?

Alabama, you got the weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh Alabama
Can I see you and shake your hand?
Make friends down in Alabama

I'm from a new land
I come to you and see all this ruin
What are you doing Alabama?
You got the rest of the union to help you along
What's going wrong?

Well I knew it was well in hand by the time I returned from EOTR 2010 almost exactly two months ago. It seems such a long time but now what I said then is finally to become reality.

Recorded in disused industrial premises in Providence, RI it is to be entitled Smart Flesh. The current release date on Nonesuch/Bella Union (in the UK) is February 21, 2011 and I for one can't wait. They played some of the putative tracks from it live at EOTR 2010 and, oh my God Charlie Darwin, they were so good once again!

Other recent and relevant posts:
The Pirates of Providence...Low Anthem @ EOTR 2010
While I'm on this general subject their cover of 'Ghost Woman Blues' (George Carter, 1929) is something of an ear-opener.

Further posts on New Music 2011:
Part 1 --- Esben and The Witch
Part 2 --- Yuck