The cover image is immediately recognizable—it’s a recreation of Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home LP cover featuring Amanda Palmer, her infant son, and her father posing in the same room in Albert and Sally Grossman’s Woodstock home where the 1965 Dylan cover was photographed. This is an unexpected 12-track release from the eccentric queen of punk cabaret and her sire, a collection of folk, blues, and contemporary covers that are kept sparse primarily using acoustic strings and keys. The two splendidly harmonize on a lullaby by the Simon sisters, Carly and Lucy, called “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” (check out the fun YouTube video) and again on Phil Ochs’s doom ditty, “In the Heat of the Summer.”
"In the Heat of the Summer"
Hudson resident Amanda delivers a sweetly earnest rendition of Melanie’s “Again” and an impassioned version of Sinead O’Connor’s anthem of police brutality, “Black Boys on Mopeds.” A noble interpretation of Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” spotlights the father-daughter call and response over spirited piano. To perfectly close the recording is Noah Britton’s simple yet poignant “I Love You So Much,” and a hankie warning for this track cannot be stressed enough. Even father and daughter choke up as they affirm their love for each other in tender, fragile voices. Considering that the two were recently united after a strained relationship of many years, it’s understandable and delightful to hear a family reconciled through song. Amandapalmer.net.
