Chatham County Line – Sharing The Covers
Yep Roc – 8 March 2019
As the title might suggest, this is yet another case of a band either paying tribute to artists who have influenced them or putting their own spin on well-known songs. Here, the North Carolina quartet Chatham County Line bring their bluegrass sound to an eclectic collection of choices that, featured in their live sets over the years, range across genres and both familiar and lesser-known names.
They kick off with Wilco’s I Got You (At The End of the Century) from 1996’s Being There and, I have to say it probably wasn’t the strongest choice, the bluegrass treatment not really suiting the song’s riff-driven nature. They’re on more solid ground, however, with James Hunter’s People Gonna Talk, keeping the Sam Cooke feel but swapping out the original’s blue beat flavour for an Everlys close harmonies vibe (one that frequently resurfaces), keeping the 60s in motion for an itchy banjo-led run through jazz guitarist Johnny Smith’s 50s lounge instrumental Walk! Don’t Run (subsequently, a surf hit for The Ventures).
I doubt if many will be familiar with the name Hazel Houser, a 50s Oklahoma songwriter who specialised in country gospel, but you should know her song My Baby’s Gone, which won her the 1959 Best New Songwriter award from Country Music Association. First recorded by the Louvins, it’s been subsequently covered by such stellar names as Glen Campbell, Willie Nelson, Wanda Jackson, George Jones and even twice by Emmylou Harris, once with Rodney Crowell and a live version with Elvis Costello, the version here again summoning Everlys influences.
Though best known as an instrumental fingerpicking guitarist, Leo Kottke also had a modestly successful sideline as a blues singer and from his 1971 Mudlark album comes Bumblebee, retaining the blues feel but adding a hint of gospel. Again, it’s not one of the strongest cuts, but that’s more down to the song itself than the band’s treatment.
Nodding to old bluegrass legends, they rip it up through Carter Stanley’s Look What You’ve Done, bulk up the fiddle parts but otherwise tender a faithful reading of John Hartford’s mournful Tear Down The Grand Ole Opry.
With the exception of Walter Haynes and Hank Mills, who penned Del Reeves’ 1965 novelty hit Girl On The Billboard, and Alton Delmore, who wrote the piano-accompanied bluegrass spiritual Law Down My Old Guitar popularised by Doc Watson, the names on the second half the album will be more familiar. First up is Beck’s Think I’m In Love, the most recent song covered, with its water dripping plucked banjo backdrop and a Don and Phil vocal styling, proceeding with a harmonica-blowing slow walk through Tom Petty’s You Don’t Know How It Feels.
To the best of my knowledge, Watching The Wheels marks the first time John Lennon’s been given a bluegrass makeover and, taken at a slow almost slouching pace accompanied by mandolin and banjo and sung with a country warble, I have to say it works brilliantly. And if you have a Beatles, you have to have the Stones, the banjo bubbling away as they band gather around the backwoods still and slow down the original’s pace for a hillbilly stomp through The Last Time.
Like most such albums, this is really one for established fans who want to hear the boys having some self-indulgent fun with their influences rather than looking to attract new audiences, but, if you have an inclination for a little grass, and should you chance upon it while browsing the racks or surfing the web, you won’t be disappointed.