In this blog post is a song.
Play it.
Push the sideways triangle.
It’s a cover by When Particles Collide of ‘Angel from Montgomery’ and it may be a challenger for the best cover yet of that song or at least puts it in that conversation.
And believe me that’s saying a lot considering who has covered this John Prine classic:
- Bonnie Raitt (she has done duets of this song with Prine, Tracy Chapman, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and more.)
- Susan Tedeschi
- John Denver
- Cameo
- John Mayer
- Dave Matthews
- Ben Harper
- These are just a few who have covered it. The list goes on and on.
See what you think.
You, audience, are the first to hear this outside the inner circle. It’s a little different than Raitt’s famous version(s). It hits you with a little more force, urgency. It replaces melancholy and hopelessness with the beginnings of raw pain, and anger. For me the flies take on a bigger buzz.
There’s flies in the kitchen
I can hear all their buzzin’
And I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today
How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Come home in the evening
And have nothing to say
When Sasha sings the above, she spits out the last four lines and we suddenly wonder what the woman has done. The ambiguity in Prine’s poetry starts to melt away.
Give a little listen w headphones.
Back ground here: Earlier in these bloggies, I wrote about this great group When Particles Collide. I saw them several months ago, a husband-wife band, performing on the back porch of my basketball buddy Eric Stockman’s home here in the Birmingham area.
These 40-somethings from Maine had quit their day jobs and took WPC out on a 14-month U.S. tour. I picked up a record of theirs and loved their hard rocking style.
I wrote that I’d like to also hear some softer stuff, such as “Angel from Montgomery” cover of John Prine, which they had played in the back porch concert.
I requested the song from this band and like all good bands they played it. Not only played it, but recorded it and sent it to me. (I can’t swear to these time sequences, they may have already had this song recorded or plans to record it before I made the request about a month or so ago. But I like to think they fulfilled my request in the rock and roll tradition. And, as I have announced, they are coming out with an acoustic album , Eric tells me.
Learn more by going to WPC’s website.
To comment or weigh in on the best ‘Angel’ cover, click the blog title and scroll to the end.