Bill Callahan & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy cover Dave Rich’s “I’ve Made Up My Mind” w/ Alasdair Roberts
For three Fridays straight, Bill Callahan and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy have shared collaborative covers, and each of them have also been collaborations with a third artist. Their version of Yusuf/Cat Stevens' "Blackness of the Night" was made with AZITA, while their post-punky take on Hank Williams Jr's "OD'd in Denver" was a collaboration with Chavez's Matt Sweeney. Now, they've covered country artist Dave Rich's 1964 weepy gospel number "I've Made Up My Mind" with help from Scotland's Alasdair Roberts.
This version of "I've Made Up My Mind" keeps things twangy while being very different than Rich's original, with spoken parts from Callahan. From the press release: "As fragrant wah-wah leads weave and genuine Nashville-strung guitars strum in front of a gentle fiddle march in ¾, Bonnie sings lead, with Bill's bass harmony vocals winding in and out of the droning waltz. Brother Callahan steps forward to testify at several key moments, and hands reach across the water all over the place, with the redolence of Gram and Emmylou, Richard and Linda, Shirley and Dolly, Bob and The Band, The Albion Country Band and all of their forebears, kith and kin stretching from here back to the horizon." You can stream this version, and the original, below.
Now that we've had three of these, what's next, guys? Is there a whole album of these in the can? Stay tuned.