Judd covers the Grateful Dead, Fats Domino and others
Wynonna Judd has been spending the COVID-19 quarantine recording a new covers EP on her Tennessee farm called Recollections. The five song collection features her interpretations of songs by Fats Domino, Slim Harpo, Nina Simone, John Prine and Grateful Dead with an appearance by the Dead’s Bob Weir. It’ll be available on CD and digitally on October 30th via Anti/Epitaph.
“I’ve learned a lot being at home these last few months,” Judd shares. “When there’s no touring, no concerts, no band, no lights, no action; all that’s left is you and the song. All that’s left is your gift. My Recollections EP is the product of that. Out October 30th!”
Recollections marks both a literal and a figurative homecoming for the GRAMMY-winning songstress. Forced off the road for the first time in years, she found herself reconnecting with her roots as she sang once again for the sheer joy of it, performing a series of loose and lively covers with her husband, former Highway 101 drummer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Cactus Moser, who also engineer and produced the project.
The gritty “King Bee,” a half-century-old blues tune Wynonna and Moser have been performing live together for years, gets an extra boost of swagger from the couple’s palpable chemistry, with Wynonna bouncing swampy, distorted harmonica riffs off of her husband’s searing slide guitar. “‘King Bee’ reminds me of why I love the blues so much,” Wynonna shares. She will perform the track on Facebook Live tonight (Tues, Aug 25th) at 8 pm ET.
Despite all her success, Judd — who started out as one half of the mother/daughter duo The Judds in the 1980s and will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2021 — grew understandably weary of the music business, and after more than three decades she decided to embark on a new chapter in 2019, starting over fresh and signing with stalwart indie label ANTI-Records.
“I never wanted to be defined by the business side of things, by all the industry accolades and awards,” she explains. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for all of that, but ultimately, I’ve always just wanted to be defined by my art, and ANTI- lets me do that. It’s like a shelter from the storm, a place where I can go after all these years in the business and make the music I want to make.”
It was precisely that freedom that led Wynonna to Recollections, a project so spontaneous and organic she didn’t even realize she was making it at the time. “This EP was a labor of love without the labor,” she laughs. “As a songwriter, you can get bogged down in your own craft sometimes, but there’s something so liberating about letting go of all that and just inhabiting someone else’s writing.”
1. I Hear You Knocking (Fats Domino)
2. King Bee (Slim Harpo)
3. Feeling Good (Nina Simone)
4. Angel From Montgomery (John Prine)
5. Ramble on Rose featuring Bob Weir (Grateful Dead)
