Bonny Light Horseman release cover of Tim Buckley's "Buzzin' Fly"
Bonny Light Horseman — the indie folk supergroup of Anais Mitchell (Hadestown), Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson, and indie rock everywhereman Josh Kaufman — released one of our favorite albums of the year so far with their self-titled debut, which combines original songs with drastically reworked versions of traditional folk songs, and they followed it earlier this month with a two-song single of non-album tracks from the same sessions. Back before the pandemic started (and before Bonny Light Horseman’s album was came out), they performed many of its songs at Newport Folk Festival 2019, and they also covered Tim Buckley‘s 1969 classic “Buzzin’ Fly” at that show too. Now, they’ve released a studio version of that cover.
“I first heard this song when I was in my early 20’s, on a mix cassette that my then girlfriend’s cool older brother made me,” Eric D. Johnson says. “I was instantly entranced – there was something so evocative about the arrangement, the transcendental and romantic lyrical imagery, and Buckley’s deeply soulful voice. I knew one of these days I’d cover it. Took me twenty-plus years to find the right situation to do it.”
“Josh and Anaïs (and the stellar assemblage of players on this recording) took this song in a new direction that made me fall in love with it all over again,” he continues. “Long live buzzin’ flies, ringing mountains, flowing rivers, and seabirds who knew your name!” Bonny Light Horseman’s version captures the charm of the original, but they really make it their own and make it fit right in with the songs on their album.
Proceeds from Bandcamp sales of the cover will benefit the band’s touring members and crew. You can purchase it for $1 at Bandcamp and stream it below.
In related news, Fruit Bats recently released a vinyl-only full-covers album of The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, and this week Eric gave a digital release to a second track from the album, “Hummer.” Listen to that below too.
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Must-Hear Folk Albums of 2020 So Far
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Reunions
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Neil Young – Homegrown
In a 1975 Rolling Stone interview, Neil called his long-shelved-and-now-finally-released album Homegrown "the darker side to Harvest." With more hindsight, he called it "the missing link between Harvest, Comes a Time, Old Ways and Harvest Moon" in Jimmy McDonough's 2002 Neil Young biography Shakey. Those albums are all on Neil's folkier, more acoustic side, and Homegrown is indeed cut from that cloth. As soon as you hear the opening of "Separate Ways," you're transported right back to the warmth of the Harvest era. It's of the same proto-slowcore variety of that album's opener "Out On the Weekend," but even more haunting and melancholic. Just 30 seconds in, and Homegrown already lives up to the description Neil gave Cameron Crowe of it 45 years ago.
That same mood carries over into second track "Try," which -- like "Separate Ways" -- features The Band's Levon Helm on drums, and Levon really managed to capture the bare-bones, slow-paced drumming style that these types of quietly revolutionary Neil Young songs always demanded. "Try" is also one of two songs on Homegrown with backing vocals by Emmylou Harris (the other being "Star of Bethlehem"), and her soaring voice makes for a truly lovely contrast with Neil's more somber delivery. And as melancholic as those songs are, they've got nothing on the melancholy of the entirely-solo cuts "Mexico" (voice and piano) and "Kansas" (voice, acoustic guitar, and harmonica), or on "White Line," which features Neil, his acoustic, and his harmonica joined only by some lead guitar by The Band's Robbie Robertson. It's on those breathtaking songs where you can really hear why Neil -- coming right off the release of On The Beach -- might have felt like he was digging himself into a hole of dour, depressive music. But all these years later -- now that Neil has cemented his legacy over and over again and proven to be an artist who can evolve and adapt with the times without losing his own uniqueness -- those songs feel like buried treasure, especially for fans who gravitate towards his most hushed material. Full review here.