HEATHER MALONEY and DARLINGSIDE: Woodstock
Heather Maloney and Darlingside
Woodstock
Signature Sounds 2063
Things went âviralâ long before anyone thought of the Internet. A hoofer breaks her leg and the understudy dances to fame and glory; an attractive woman is photographed in a World War II factory and Marilyn Monroe is discovered; John Phillips writes a song that wonât work with his trio and hands off âSan Franciscoâ to his buddy Scott McKenzie; someone hears Mary Chapin Carpenter doing warm-up acts and throws her a contract … The only pattern is serendipity. Still, itâs pretty amazing that 28-year-old Heather Maloney has scored nearly 16,000 YouTube hits for her cover of Joni Mitchellâs âWoodstock,â which commemorates an event that was over twenty-seven years before she was born. In just four months, Maloney has gotten 25% as many hits as Mitchell singing her own version.
Western Massachusetts-based Heather Maloney is not a hippie wannabe, but a return to â60sâ values would be fine by her. She admits feeling out of synch with her generation. âHipster detachment is so not me. Iâm a raw person [and] sensitive to a fault.â Sheâs written several songs critical of what she calls the âseen-it-all, unmoved, too-cool-to-careâ crowd. She credits her mother, who was âa hippie, a feminist, and a psychotherapistâ for inculcating some of her Woodstock-era values, as well as momâs record collection: The Beatles, Dylan, CSNY, and Joni Mitchell being favoritesâespecially Mitchell.
Still, the decision for Maloney to team with innovative stringband Darlingside to create the EP Woodstock (Signature Sounds) was serendipitous, not intentional. Blame Baby Boomer Val Haller, who writes a column called âMusic Matchâ for the New York Timesâthe goal being to expose her generation to the 20-somethings that cover classic â60s songs. Haller liked Maloneyâs music, played it on her Valslist.com site, and hosted a house party when Maloney and Darlingside were touring her home turf. âShe didnât know Darlingside until the concert in her living room,â Maloney recalls, but at the end of the evening she said, âIf I closed my eyes it could have been Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with Joni Mitchell.â Haller made the proverbial offer you canât refuse: Make a video of a â60s song and sheâd feature it in her New York Times column. Maloney relates, â’Woodstock’ seemed like the obvious choice because it was done by both CSNY and Mitchell. Darlingside literally worked out the arrangement in the back of a vanâ â one that is a mid-tempo median between the two familiar versions. Haller posted the video, and it went viral.
It even got a shout out from Graham Nash. Three different people sent Nash the video, and he was smitten. Coincidentally, Maloney and Darlingside were in Kansas City for the Folk Alliance conference, whose keynote speaker was Nash speaking about connecting generations. Maloney admits she was awestruck when meeting Nash. âIâm a psycho Joni Mitchell fan and all I could think was âWow! You got to hang out with Joni Mitchell.â But he was sweet and has been a dear supporter ever since.â Howâs this for a Nash promo? âIâm sure that Joni would love this wonderfully heartfelt version of her classic song.â
âWoodstockâ is one of the EPâs five tracks. Darlingside penned the hauntingly bittersweet âYou Forgetâ and the plinky, wistful âWhipporwill.â Another stunner is Maloneyâs âNo Shortcuts,â a soulful a cappella numbers thatâs part hand-jive, part Motown, and part â90s-era R & B shaped by what Maloney laughingly calls her âperiod of rebellion,â her adolescent embrace of pop idols such as Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. âI think a lot of my vocalizations and inflections are straight out of Motown ⌠but they probably came via â90sâ music.â The direct inspiration for âNo Shortcutsâ was more pedestrian, though: âI wrote it while driving and was both meditative and distracted. I just needed to create space for other stuff in my mind.â She hastily sang her thoughts into her cellphone. Maloney wonders about her mind; now that sheâs recorded âWoodstockâ sheâs says she âwouldnât be the tiniest bit surprisedâ if Joni Mitchell was rattling around in her subconscious when she wrote âDirt and Stardust,â her most-requested song. Think Mitchellâs line, âWe are stardust/We are golden/And weâve got to get ourselves back to the garden.â
Maloneyâs musical garden is a glorious mix of old and new. She likes the revivalist genre variously called acid folk, neo-psychedelia, and jam band music (think Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, and Perpetual Groove), but sheâs an even bigger fan of performers such as Anais Mitchell, Josh Ritter, and indie folk artists âwho are weaving in passion and commentary reflecting on the ways things are.â Old, new, passion, and talent. Going viral is here and now, but Maloneyâs garden is planted with perennials.
— Rob Weir