Mark Lavengood Covers Bruce Springsteen

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As any regular reader of If It's Too Loud would know, we love cover songs here. This was one of those sneaky covers that I didn't recognize until about halfway through. Mark Lavengood also plays with Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellies, but has a solo album coming out next month. I tend to like Springsteen covers more than I tend to like Springsteen (although my 40 year odyssey of appreciating The Boss has me actually kinda getting into him in the past year), and I have a huge love of folk and bluegrass covers of his songs, which makes sense since I like Bruce the Folk Singer more than Bruce the Rock God. Lavengood's cover of "Hungry Heart" is a great bluegrass version of the Springsteen classic. It's as faithful a cover as a genre switch can be, and exists in both worlds of traditional bluegrass and more modern nu-grass. If I'm being completely honest, I loved the instrumentation at first, but almost balked at Lavengood's voice. It's not non traditional the way J Mascis or Neil Young have non traditional voices, but something about it seemed odd to me. Luckily for me, I stuck it through and grew to love his singing. 

Mark Lavengood's solo album, We've Come Along, is due out on May 11. You can watch the video for his cover of "Hungry Heart" below. If you're interested in what his originals sound like (and you will be), you can also watch the video for "Three Day Blow" here. He actually will be releasing videos for every song on the album, which is very Sonic Youth's Goo of him. For more on Mark Lavengood, check out his website.