Grayson Capps delves deep into classic covers and ‘Old Weird America’.
Hailing from Alabama, Grayson Capps started his musical career at Tulane University forming The House Levellers and later a blues band Stavin’ Chain – who cut one album before disbanding.
Grayson made his solo album debut with ‘If You Knew My Mind’ in 2005 and followed it up ‘Wail & Ride’ a year later. He also had studio releases with the Lost Cause Minstrels and The Stumpknockers.
This set – a covers album is his seventh release – featuring solo numbers and tracks supported by Corky Hughes on electric guitar, bass and piano.
The set dives back in the history of American music with songs that were to form the repertoire of early 1960s folkies including Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Joan Baez and includes songs that the music critic and writer Greil Marcus once called ‘old weird America’.
Some of the tracks can be traced back to British folk songs and traditional American old-time songs that are in the DNA of Americana. Plus there as some surprises including covers of contemporary classics including Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Early Morning Rain’ (based on Elvis’ 1972 version); Randy Newman’s ‘Guilty’ of which Capps says: “It became the sordid truth of my life”; Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’; Jerry Jeff Walker 1970 song ‘Stoney’ (about his real-life travelling buddy H. R. Stonebrook) and ‘Moody River’ originally penned and released by country and rockabilly artist Chase Webster in 1961 which became a number one hit for Pat Boone in the same year and which was also covered at the time Kitty Wells, Johnny Burnette and later John Fogerty in 2008.
Pre-war old-time songs include ‘Columbus Stockade Blues’ first waxed by the duo Darby and Tarlton in 1927; ‘Barbara Allen’ a seventeenth-century English tragedy song which found its way into US folklore and was recorded by Joan Baez, the Everly Brothers – Dylan cites it as the basis for his ‘Girl From The North Country’; the broadside ballad ‘Old Maid’s Lament’ a song about one of number of married sisters who is still seeking husband; the Bo Carter/Lead Belly blues classic ‘Alberta’ (a staple of Eric Clapton’s live shows) and ‘Wreck On The Highway’ (aka ‘I Didn’t Hear Nobody Pray’) a stern lesson about drunk driving recorded by mill workers The Dixon Brothers in 1937 and covered Roy Acuff in 1942 (who claimed the song as his) and Bruce Springsteen on his 1980 album ‘The River’.
‘St. James Infirmary’ (or ‘Gambler’s Blues’) was recorded in the 1920 and 30s by jazz artists such as Fess Williams and His Orchestra, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and country star Jimmie Rodgers – as well as being a fixture in the repertoires of almost every British trad jazz band in the 1950s and 60s.
Capps also was influenced by the great Appalachian singer and guitarist Doc Watson and says: “One of the first artists I gravitated toward was Doc Watson. I first found my own voice by emulating him singing ‘Wake Up Little Maggie’. Recorded by Watson in 1975 – its history goes back to decades. He also covers the moonshiner’s song ‘Copper Kettle’ written by A. F. Beddoe in 1953 and later covered by Joan Baez, Tony Joe White and Dylan on his ‘Self Portrait’ album.
There is great homemade feel to this album, The set shows Grayson Capps has wide tastes and a detailed appreciation for some historic old-time and contemporary classic recordings.
