Cover Wars: Ophelia Edition

Animal Liberation Orchestra: This California band had the honor of recording a studio rendition of Ophelia for the 2007 tribute Endless Highway – The Music of The Band. Source: 12-31-2006

Keller Williams & The WMD’s: I think we’ve got Keith Moseley on lead vocals with Keller supplying the harmonies on this one. What’s not especially clear is where the horn synth horns are coming from. Keller’s guitar maybe? Source: 3-1-2008

Punch Brothers: It would appear this video was recorded while this outfit was named Chris Thile & the How To Grow A Band before changing their name. Regardless of nomenclature, fantastic harmonies in this bluegrass rendition.

Ryan Montbleau Band: I’ve only been able to catch a portion of a festival set from these guys. I look forward to seeing a full headlining show because every time they are featured in Cover Wars I am left very impressed. Take a listen to the middle dixieland section for a quick vocal quote of Hello My Baby. Source: 11-17-2006

Tea Leaf Green: TLG has played this a handful of times. In a bit of Cover Wars cross-pollination, the majority of the renditions have also featured ALO’s bass player Steve Adams filling-in. Source: 5-8-2008

USTORM (featuring Brendan Bayliss & Jennifer Hartswick): This performance here is by far the slowest of this week’s contenders, which makes sense as the rotating lineup seems pretty ummm…loose by the time this second set starts. There was a lot of personnel changing around during this benefit…onstage for the Ophelia in addition to Bayliss & Hartswick was Aron Magner, Kris Myers, Josh Quinlan & Ryan Stasik. Umphrey’s McGee has also played Ophelia three times. They debuted it on 12-31-2004 with a horn section and it has been played twice since sans brass. Source: 3-31-2007 Part I, Part II, Part III

Vince Gill: There’s a lot of talk about Mavericks these days, but lost in the shuffle are two of my favorite Mavericks: Mel Gibson and Vince Gill, who make up parts of the 1994 movie by the same name. Wait, they aren’t two of my favorite mavericks, what am I talking about? Well regardless, I wanted to include this to break up a pretty jamband-heavy piece this week. Source: Maverick

Widespread Panic: Panic’s been covering the tune since the late ’80s, but the version I have selected this week was a bustout having not been played in 200+ shows before being taken off the the shelf in 2007. They do a great job with it normally; add horns and it’s pretty bad-ass. Source: 4-24-2007

Before we go, let’s share a few videos of the Levon Helm Band playing the tune – he’s still got it!

Merlefest 2008:

moe.down 2008: