Cover of the Day: Willie Moore

This one goes out to Aaron Invisible, with whom I recently went out on tour. He was teaching me the folk thumb-picking fundamentals. "It's all about the thumb" he says.

Willie Moore is a song that I first heard from the Kossoy Sisters on this really excellent folk music compilation. I mean really really excellent. Blows the water right out of the Anthology of American Folk Music in my modest opinion.

The Kossoy Sisters original recording of "I'll Fly Away" was featured in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" (Allison Kraus & Gillian Welch sing it on the CD). Their recording of Willie Moore features supertight harmony and a chilling deadpan delivery of a tragic love story. Mine has a funny shirt:



One quick thing, when I was rehearsing this song my septuagenarian lefty roommate came out and said: "Oh I always knew that song with totally different lyrics. It's supposed to be about the unions." Awesome.