My Morning Jacket Archives

Guy Clark tribute #1; Ani DeFranco, Orbo & Longshots, Sons of Fathers enter chart

This One’s For Him, the outstanding double-CD tribute to Guy Clark, lands in the #1 spot this week after a steady run up the Americana Music radio airplay chart. You’ll find our review here.

New to the chart this week:

– At #17, the massive Chimes of Freedom tribute to Bob Dylan. The album, with a generation-spanning line-up of artists (Patti Smith, My Morning Jacket, Lucinda Williams, the Belle Brigade, Joan Baez and Jackson Browne among them) benefits Amnesty International.

– At #29, Ani DeFranco’s Which Side Are You On?

– At #32, Orbo and the Longshots’ Prairie Sun.

– At #37 , the self-titled album by Sons of Fathers

– At #38, Lincoln Durham’s The Shovel vs. The Howling Bones

And this note: The much-debated Grammy nominee Linda Chorney had one of the most-added albums on Americana music radio this week, with 10 stations picking up Emotional Jukebox.

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A tribute to John Prine

After years of tribute albums that tend to be purely celebratory, it’s nice to come across one that’s revelatory.

Cover John Prine? That’s a tall order. He’s a distinctive performer with an unconventional style and phrasing, and a voice that seems built for his songs. Yet there’s a freshness to Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows, thanks to respectful, but not too respectful performances by younger Americana/folk artists.

The goofy upbeat material works best, with Those Darlins’ charming “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian” and Drive-By Truckers’ rockabilly take on “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin” among the highlights. Particualrly intriguing is “Six O’Clock News” by Lambchop, the rendition most likely to alienate long-time Prine fans. It’s a dark and essentially spoken-word, but compelling.

Tied for clearly having the best time on the album: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band doing “Wedding Day in Funeralville” and the Avett Brothers on “Spanish Pipedream.”

Fans of My Morning Jacket, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Josh Ritter may well discover Prine through these artists’ cover versions. He’s truly a timeless artist and this CD reminds us of just how wry, engaging and consistent a songwriter he has been for almost four decades.