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[miko2]

Today's Song: When Doves Cry by The Be Good Tanyas

The Be Good Tanyas are a three-woman folk/country/bluegrass group from Vancouver BC. They get classified as alt-country or americana or alt-bluegrass (aka "newgrass"). For some reason I've discovered a lot of similar bands in the last year, including Uncle Earl, The Wailin' Jennies, The Duhks, Crooked Still, and several others. Each has their own distinct sound, and all of them are good. The Be Good Tanyas feature a vocal delivery by Frazey Ford (pretty sure she's the main singer) that is kind of slurred, a half-drunk vocal approach that is very different from the smooth delivery of Aoife O'Donovan of Crooked Still, but is no less compelling. You can hear exactly what I'm talking about on their bluegrass-country cover of Prince's When Doves Cry, miles away from the original and yet just as listenable.

And, of course, I love unusual cover tunes. ^_^

The only cd of theirs that I have so far is Hello Love, their most recent. From that cd I'd probably say my favorite track is their cover of Neil Young's For The Turnstyles, but I also like What Are They Doing In Heaven and of course, When Doves Cry, which is their second most popular download on iTunes. Their first comes from an earlier cd, Blue Horse, which I may have to pick up at some point. It's an original tune called The Littlest Birds and there's a very nice video for it up on Youtube.

The Littlelest Birds

Another good video:

It's not happening

You can listen to some of their other stuff at their myspace page.