Best of Cover Wars: Harvest Moon

Benevento Russo Duo: Contributing our only instrumental rendition this week is Marco Benevento and Joe Russo. Always interesting to listen to older shows from this group and hear just how much their sound has developed. Source: 5-25-2003

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Cassandra Wilson: Here we’ve got another take from the jazz world. Wilson recorded this back in 1995, just three years after the release of Harvest Moon. Source: New Moon Daughter

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Some video with an extended instrumental introduction:

Elliot Smith: Sometimes the best recordings come from the worst audio gear. Maybe I shouldn’t say best, but sometimes recordings done with very inexpensive equipment can still have some serious character. This recording was captured on a Sony handheld cassette recorder, and once the crowd quiets down after the intro, it’s a very clear sound. Source:4-5-1999

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Kevin Barnes (of Montreal): Barnes contributed his charitable track to Paste Magazine’s Songs For Haiti. What I really dig is that in addition to being able stream, or purchase these tracks – they also give out these great little embed code that you see below. Well done Paste Magazine.

Some bonus video where Barnes falsely claims that Neil Young is both from Texas and the father of Avril Lavigne.

Mr. Blotto: The setlist indicates that somebody sits in on broom for this track, which is pretty damn hysterical. At the end of the track, one of the band members says into the mic that this is their annual Neil Young tradition. Any Blotto fans want to clue me in on this? I know you’re reading this because you always show up in large numbers to vote for this band. Source: 9-19-2009

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Pearl Jam with Sleater-Kinney: Pearl Jam and Neil Young have quite the history as they’ve recorded and toured together. And of course, PJ plays a lot of Neil covers on their own. In 2005, they had a few renditions of Harvest Moon with a little help from the ladies of Sleater-Kinney who were opening some shows on the tour. In the video clip below, from a 2006 benefit, Vedder says they’re going to play it because he doesn’t know when they’ll get to do it again. To date, it’s the most recent performance.

Railroad Earth: RRE very tastefully stretches this one past the 9 minute mark with some nice mandolin work. Great recording, if you’re a fan of this band – check out the whole show. Source: 5-19-2007

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St. Vincent & Justin Vernon: Edit! Late addition. I normally don’t do this but Jeff has just pointed out that there was another cover of this done Saturday night from St. Vincent and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

And down here we need to do a bit of Cover Wars clean-up as three week’s ago our race was too lose to call, and I forgot to declare a winner from two weeks ago because I was writing Cover Wars last week while whacked out on muscle relaxers from a snow-shoveling-back-pain incident.

Phish won the Time Cover Wars. YARN walked away victorious from the Helpless Cover Wars with Ryan Adams and Gillian Welch coming in a strong second. And the winner of last week’s Ballad Of A Thin Man Cover Wars was The Grateful Dead.

Pearl Jam and Sleater-Kinney took home the Cover Wars title for Harvest Moon based on the voting back in early 2010.