The award-winning duo Shovels & Rope have announced the surprise February 5th release of Busted Jukebox, Volume 3, (nicknamed Busted Juicebox) the latest instalment of their Busted Jukebox collaborative series. Busted Jukebox Vol. 1 (2015) and Vol. 2 (2017) featured the acclaimed duo (Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent) teaming up with an eclectic list of artists to record a series of cover songs with inspired new arrangements.
On Busted Jukebox, Volume 3, they invited artists who are also parents (hence the “Juicebox” and cover art) to record a selection of songs with children in mind. The album contains a diverse collection of not-so-obvious tracks that have significant meaning to their family. Hearst and Trent explain their choices and discuss each collaboration in a special Track By Track below.
On Busted Jukebox, Volume 3 Shovels & Rope is joined by Sharon Van Etten, M. Ward, The War and Treaty, John Paul White, members of Deer Tick, The Secret Sisters, The Felice Brothers, T. Hardy Morris and more.
Hear their rousing rendition of The Beach Boys’ “In My Room” featuring Sharon Van Etten in the accompanying video just released.
Trent used to listen to the original to help him fall asleep when he was a child. Once a parent, he and Hearst sang it for their daughter regularly when she got her own room. Apparently, they were not the only parents looking to the Brian Wilson classic for an assist. “My heart swelled when Cary Ann & Michael reached out to me to sing “In My Room” for their Busted Jukebox series,” says Van Etten. “As a mom, there are ‘go-to’ songs that help calm my son down and there are nights where I just sing the same song over and over. This is a song that is so personal to me, as we have listened to a lot of The Beach Boys music with our child and to share a sentiment of calm and exhaustion, sleep and frustration – this cover embodies it all. Means so much to have been asked by musician parents that are trying to figure it out in all this chaos as well. All we can do is keep doing what we love, sharing optimism and hope and supporting one another during these trying times.”
Busted Jukebox, Volume 3 Track by Track
“HUSH LITTLE BABY”
Most of the recording for this song was done in a hotel room in Australia a few years back. Cary was pregnant with our first child at the time and I think someone had asked us to do a version for a commercial or something and then they didn’t end up using it. We always really liked how it turned out but never really saw ourselves releasing it, unless of course we made a kid’s record so… – Michael Trent
“IN MY ROOM”
When I was a kid, I had bad nightmares and a lot of trouble sleeping. I decided to dig out my older brothers Walkman and try to listen to some music to help me get to sleep. I opened it up and it had a Beach Boys tape in it, and that music put me at ease in a way that nothing else could. I was mesmerized and fell asleep snuggled down safely in a nest of those harmonies, until the tape ran out and I’d have to flip it over and repeat the process, but it worked every time. We sang “In My Room” to our daughter every night for forever when she was first sleeping in her own room. Sharon Van Etten (who is a mom) was supposed to play at our High Water Festival this year before it was canceled due to Covid. We are huge fans of Sharon’s and thought, why not try to rope her into singing this Beach Boys song with us. She was kind enough to oblige and, oh man, she killed it. We created a pretty basic track of drums, bass, guitar, piano and probably some other stuff, and then she sang to that and then we added all the background vocals and extra production to her voice. The last instrument I put on there was a fuzz guitar which really blew it up and kind of put the whole thing into a new atmosphere. It’s always fun to mix different ingredients that don’t typically go together and get something that feels like a new flavor you haven’t tasted before. – Michael Trent
“WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD”
We were lucky enough to have John Paul White (who is a dad) join us for our 2019 fall tour. We totally fell in love with him as a person and as an artist. He played solo with just a guitar and it was sooo great. Our daughter has an illustrated children’s book of “What a Wonderful World” and it beautifully lays out how this song might be seen thru the eyes of a child or of a parent talking to a child about how wonderful and amazing the world can be if we look at it thru a lense of gratitude. The middle section is our daughter walking me thru some musical direction notes while I’m trying to figure out a part to play on the toy piano. In the end she says, “I’m doing the same thing Dad”, “I’m copying you Dad”. t explodes my heart into a million pieces for so many reasons. We thought it would be nice to keep this one pretty sparse instrumentally and just sing three-part harmony with John for most of the way thru. It makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. – Michael Trent
“YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE”
The Felice Brothers took us out on our 2nd tour ever, and we have so much love for them and their band. “You Are My Sunshine” is definitely one of those songs that’s got one foot in the light and one in the darkness and I think the recording here does a good job of capturing that feeling. It’s droney and stormy with little breaks of light here and there. Ian Felice (who is a dad) and James Felice added their voices, acoustic guitar and accordion and we all sing the choruses together, including our daughter Louie. We left it up to them which verses they wanted to sing and we applauded their decision to omit the I love you so much I’d kill you if you ever left me verses seeing that it’s a kid’s record and all. – Michael Trent
“CRY BABY”
We were doing this one on the road for a little with just the two of us and thought it’d be fun to work up a big, sound scaped rock ‘n’ roll version with a sort of an ELO meets CSNY dry, stacked vocal approach. We called up Deer Tick to see if they’d sing it with us and they said yes! Jon McCauley (who is a dad) and Dennis Ryan are both singing here and Cary and I stacked our voices onto theirs and we love how it turned out.
– Michael Trent
“MY LITTLE BUCKAROO”
When I was little, my father’s mother, “Mama Sam” sang this song to me. I loved the idea of a cowboy riding on fluffy clouds rounding up sweet dreams, and the idea that my dad was once a kid like me. I suspect she learned it from Slim Whitman or Bing Crosby. For me, it was the most personal contribution to the album and We were thrilled that M. Ward gave us his unmistakable voice for this particular song. We met Matthew Ward (who is a dad) at our High Water Festival in 2018. We remembered having a friendly chat about kids and music and thought of him for this song right out of the gate as we conceptualized this “record for people with kids”. – Cary Ann Hearst
“EVERYBODY HURTS”
We have been friendly with T. Hardy Morris (who is a dad) since his days in the Athens rock ‘n’ roll band Dead Confederate. I’ll never forget seeing their set at CMJ in 2007. Since then we have played gigs together, grown up and gotten married with kids in rock ‘n’ roll together and we have continued to love the music he puts out. We loved having him reprise fellow Athenian band REM’s classic song about not killing yourself – “Everybody Hurts”. How is this a kid’s song? Well, frankly its great advice. Every parent should basically recite these lyrics to their children a few times a year from the age of eleven to thirty as they reckon with the sadness that burdens so much of coming of age.
Cary Ann Hearst
Busted Jukebox, Volume 3 is available t pre-order on Friday, February 5th https://fanlink.to/BustedJukeboxVolume3
Photo Credit: Curtis Millard