Will Oldham Covers Woody Guthrie, Details Everly Brothers Tribute

Will Oldham Woody GuthrieBe it playing a police officer for R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” or horsing around at Zach Galifianakis’ farm during a Kanye West video shoot, you never know where Will Oldham might turn up next. This one comes as less of a surprise, but no less enigmatic in execution given the costume: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy performing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” wearing a crochet beard and mustache. The YouTube clip, apparently filmed off-the-cuff with his laptop camera, popped up on the site of a new project from PBS where anyone can submit their take for the crowd-sourced documentary. The audio distorts a bit, but Oldham’s take is lovely, and frankly it’s worth it just to watch him sing in the homemade getup.

In other news, the album cover (left) and tracklist for Bonnie’s new duets record with Dawn McCarthy arrived recently. We heard a preview from the sessions with non-album track “Christmas Eve Can Kill You” before the holidays. Here are the other Everly Brothers covers due on February 18th:

What the Brothers Sang Tracklist

01 “Breakdown”
02 “Empty Boxes”
03 “Milk Train”
04 “What Am I Living For”
05 “My Little Yellow Bird”
06 “Devoted To You”
07 “Somebody Help Me”
08 “So Sad”
09 “Omaha”
10 “It’s All Over”
11 “Poems, Prayers & Promises”
12 “Just What I Was Looking For”
13 “Kentucky”