The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered

Disc 1
1	My Life Is Starting Over Again / Jad Fair 2:10
2	Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances / Clem Snide 4:08
3	Impossible Love / Gordon Gano 4:49
4	Living Life / Eels 2:48
5	Walking the Cow / TV on the Radio 4:44
6	Good Morning You / Rabbit 3:00
7	Sorry Entertainer / Calvin Johnson 3:01
8	Devil Town / Bright Eyes 3:06
9	Dream Scream / Death Cab for Cutie 6:58
10	True Love Will Find You in the End / Beck 3:23
11	Go / Sparklehorse 4:31
12	Blue Clouds / Mercury Rev 4:43
13	Love Not Dead / Thistle 3:26
14	Like a Money in the Zoo / Vic Chesnutt 5:20
15	Dead Lovers Twisted Heart / The Starlight Mints 3:41
16	Story of an Artist / M. Ward 4:20
17	The Sun Shines Down on Me / Guster 3:06
18	King Kong / Tom Waits 5:31
Disc 2
1	My Life Is Starting Over Again / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:05
2	Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances / Late Great Daniel Johnson 3:18
3	Impossible Love / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:55
4	Living Life / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:38
5	Walking the Cow / Late Great Daniel Johnson 3:34
6	Good Morning You / Late Great Daniel Johnson 1:12
7	Sorry Entertainer / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:17
8	Devil Town / Late Great Daniel Johnson 1:02
9	Dream Scream / Late Great Daniel Johnson 4:49
10	True Love Will Find You in the End / Late Great Daniel Johnson 1:45
11	Go / Late Great Daniel Johnson 3:47
12	Blue Clouds / Late Great Daniel Johnson 3:21
13	Love Not Dead / Late Great Daniel Johnson 4:07
14	Like a Monkey in the Zoo / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:40
15	Dead Lovers Twisted Heart / Late Great Daniel Johnson 1:13
16	Story of an Artist / Late Great Daniel Johnson 4:56
17	The Sun Shines Down on Me / Late Great Daniel Johnson 2:00
18	King Kong / Late Great Daniel Johnson 5:42
19	Rock This Town / Late Great Daniel Johnson 8:46

Barnes & Noble

Although his name doesn't ring all that many bells in the mainstream, Daniel Johnston is a veritable American Idol among fellow musicians who respond to the often brutal honesty and unfettered beauty of his work. Johnston -- who, despite the title of this stellar tribute, is very much alive -- has battled mental illness for most of his adult life, a state of affairs that's part and parcel of many of his songs. More important in their creation, however, is his ability to capture both remarkable innocence -- evident here in Tom Waits's appropriately creepy take on the monster-movie homage "King Kong" -- and deep-seated melancholy, as on the rending "Sorry Entertainer," interpreted here by Calvin Johnson. Many of the performers gathered here pay direct tribute to Johnston by sticking as close to his ultra-minimalist style as possible -- most notably Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, who turns in an endearingly lo-fi "Impossible Love," and Mercury Rev, who tear down their usual wall of sound for a whispery "Blue Clouds." Others take Johnston compositions into unfamiliar places: Beck puts his imprint on a shuffling "True Love Will Find You in the End" without compromising the original's wide-eyed hopefulness, while Bright Eyes bring an added tension to "Devil's Town," with the help of Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner. Normally, tribute albums are but a pale imitation of the intended honoree, but the love and dedication present in these renditions make Discovered Covered palatable to Johnston diehards and an ideal entrée for those who have never heard this distinctive artist's music. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Daniel Johnston is a cult figure rather than an artist with a mainstream following for two important reasons: while Johnston is a truly gifted songwriter, his lyrics are often so painfully intimate and obsessively personal that much of his best work is difficult to listen to without feeling like a voyeur, and his skills as a performer are rudimentary at best, with Johnston's quavering, tuneless voice and primitive instrumental accompaniment enough to drive away most listeners unless they're determined to listen past the inept technique to hear the songs hidden within. In 1994, Kathy McCarty, a friend and admirer of Johnston, stepped forward to address the dilemma of his songs versus his recordings by making the album Dead Dog's Eyeball, in which she sang 19 of his songs, accompanied by imaginative and beautifully executed arrangements. The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered attempts to do something similar but with a more ambitious agenda -- disc one of this set features 18 different artists each covering a favorite Daniel Johnston tune, ranging from Tom Waits and Beck to Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie, while disc two features Johnston's original recordings of the same songs in the same sequence. Presumably the idea is that new listeners, once they've grown to appreciate the songs in relatively sugarcoated form, will then be able to move on to investigate Johnston's songs in their pure form.

There is a flaw in this thinking -- while the covers on disc one range from good to excellent and in the liner notes most of the musicians make brief but coherent arguments in support of their choices, the original versions on disc two don't make for an especially strong Daniel Johnston's Greatest Hits album, with a number of key songs missing in action. (Johnston himself has compiled a much stronger overview of his work, Welcome to My World.) But the tribute disc has enough pearly moments to compensate -- Tom Waits' full brio interpretation of "King Kong," Calvin Johnson's craggy voice merging with the angst of "Sorry Entertainer," Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips joining forces for a grand-scale cover of "Go," and Jad Fair embracing "My Life Is Starting Over Again" with help from Teenage Fanclub. Disc two also includes song lyrics, samples of Johnston's artwork, and a video for the song "Rock This Town," all of which can be accessed via your computer's CD-ROM drive. As a testimony to the artistry of Daniel Johnston, Discovered Covered isn't quite up to the standard of Dead Dog's Eyeball, but as an all-star (or semi-star) celebration of an often marginalized artist, it's engaging stuff that never loses sight of the beauty and gravity of these songs. Mark Deming