Marcus Mumford and Taylor Goldsmith – Not in Nottingham

I am a HUGE fan of covers. It doesn’t even have to be particularly good. Sometimes I’ll go on YouTube and just listen to average people play their renditions of someone’s work. There’s something about the reinterpretation of a song, whether dramatically different, like Ray LaMontagne’s version of “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley or Matt Weddle’s version of “Hey Ya” by OutKast, I adore them.

I also adore Daytrotter. If you aren’t familiar with Daytrotter, their website says this “What Daytrotter is attempting to do is to not kid around with you and tell you that we found something that you never knew existed. We are going to contribute to the musical landscape, not just toss it around like a used book or a stolen pick-up line. We’re going to give you something that you truly have never heard. We are not giving you songs from someone you love’s record album, thereby stealing from someone you love. We’re giving you exclusive, re-worked, alternate versions of old songs and unreleased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands.” That’s exactly what they do and, if you’re a member (it’s like 25$ a year, it’s almost stupid to not do that), you can download them all. Literally, all of them, there’s more than a thousand sessions that are 4 or 5 songs each, including multiples of some popular bands.

This week’s promo from the site is a sessions from Mumford and Sons and friends that they recorded on their way through on their Stopover shows. It’s pretty great and has a bunch of songs you haven’t heard before. I was particularly struck by a tune done by Marcus Mumford and Taylor Goldsmith (frontman for Dawes, an EarToTheGround favorite). “Not in Nottingham” is, in fact, the same song that the rooster sings in Disney’s “Robin Hood”. It’s incredible to listen to my favorite musicians perform songs from my favorite Disney movie. I wish they’d make a cover album like this.