Listen: Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, Yim Yames record songs based on Woody Guthrie lyrics

Did you know about this? I just read a 3-star review of the New Multitudes CD – a collection of songs built upon unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics by Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), Anders Parker (Varnaline), Yim Yames (My Morning Jacket) – in the new issue (Paul McCartney-cover) of Rolling Stone. The magazine’s website did a feature on the release which one person commented, probably rightfully so, “Wasn’t this album called Mermaid Avenue?”

I’m snagging this from Facebook because it explains the project better than I can:

New Multitudes is an intimate interpretation of American icon and musical legend Woody Guthrie’s previously unrecorded lyrics from a dream team of Americana torchbearers: Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), Anders Parker (Varnaline), and Yim Yames (My Morning Jacket). What makes this album such a rarity in today’s music world is the allowance of the songs’ infectious simplicity to stand alone in all their glory. In doing so, Farrar, Johnson, Parker, and Yames have paid the greatest compliment to Woody Guthrie and the collaborative spirit he so greatly embodied. This is an album which seamlessly converges the sepia-toned essence of the time honored past with the risks needed to forge the future.

There’s a small handful of tour dates scheduled to promote the release of New Multitudes.

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