Last month's set of Pavement covers got me thinking about other artists from the early days of indie rock who might find a place here on Cover Lay Down. As far as I can tell, the only major distinction between modern folk and a certain sort of indie music seems to be how the artists choose to produce and use instruments on their songs. And though you won't find this sort of fuzzed-out guitar on the other folkblogs, the way the modern singer-songwriter mentality seems to find voice in both indierock and folk fascinates me.

But production isn't what makes folk, and even if it were, the distinction is often fluid. The small but growing cadre of indie artists who perform in both folk and alt-rock modes owe no small debt to a select group of artists -- Evan Dando, Lou Barlow, Tanya Donelly, Jeff Tweedy, Ben Gibbard and others -- who have, over the years, moved easily across the bridge between the two forms. But these artists, in turn, owe the very existence of that bridge to other, lesser-known forerunners, like Elliott Smith and Daniel Johnston, who spent their entire careers building the bridge for them to cross.

As part of our ongoing exploration of this curious relationship, today we feature one underappreciated artist who is more often found among the indierock, but who has claimed folk credibility from the start. Ladies and gentlemen: Mary Lou Lord, folksinger and cover artist.

I was a high school student in Boston during Mary Lou Lord's busker days, and not an apt or dilligent pupil; I often skipped class to head off down the T into Harvard Square with friends. Given our relative age, then, and her own preference for playing along the Red Line, I suppose I must have passed by Mary Lou Lord a couple of times. But back then, my ears were full of post-punk grunge, and she was just another streetcorner kid with an acoustic guitar, a ragged approach, and an innocent, little-girl voice. By the time she started recording alongside the best of the growing post-punk world, I had already moved on.

The heavy fuzz and feedback of much of her production puts the bulk of Mary Lou Lord's recorded work squarely in line with early nineties alt-rock; if you're looking for her in your local indie record store, you'll find it alongside the pre-grunge of artists like The Lemonheads and Juliana Hatfield. But like Beck, Mary Lou Lord has always had a folk heart, and worn it proudly. Though she's famous for her catfights with Courtney Love, she toured and recorded with Elliott Smith, and opened for Cover Lay Down fave Shawn Colvin. By identifying herself with those artists and others, Lord categorizes herself as an artist straddling the bridge between singer-songwriter folk and the indie world.

The songs that Mary Lou Lord has chosen to cover over her two-decade career speak volumes about which artists she considers her musical peers and forefathers, and here, too, we find a curious connection with the folkworld. In and among the Magnetic Fields and Big Star covers, we find covers of Smith and Colvin, indiefolkie Daniel Johnston, Lucinda Williams, Richard Thompson, and even oldschool pre-folkie Elizabeth Cotten. Clearly, this is a woman who listens to folk music on her own time, recognizes good songwriting regardless of original instrumentation, and takes them where she can find them.

Here's a few of my favorite Mary Lou Lord coversongs which hit that spectrum, and then some. Don't be scared by the occasional guitarfuzz; this is, at heart, a form of folk. Heck, if feedback was all it took, Dylan wouldn't be a folkie anymore, either.

• Mary Lou Lord, Jump (orig. Van Halen)
  
• Mary Lou Lord, Shake Sugaree (orig. Elizabeth Cotten)
  
• Mary Lou Lord, Speeding Motorcycle (orig. Daniel Johnston)
  
• Mary Lou Lord, Fearless (orig. Pink Floyd)
  
• Mary Lou Lord, Thirteen (orig. Big Star)
  
• Mary Lou Lord, I Don't Want To Get Over You (orig. Magnetic Fields)
  
  
• VIDEO: Mary Lou Lord covers Shawn Colvin's Sunny Came Home

Officially, Mary Lou Lord stopped performing and recording in 2005 when she was diagnosed with a rare vocal cord affliction, though an appearance at SXSW 2006 suggests she's still occasionally on the road. Her recorded output was scattered across several indie labels, some short-lived, but some of her back catalog is still available, and it's chock full of folk covers.

Folk fans are probably best served by starting with Rubric Records, which has several of Mary Lou Lord's more recent recordings; I especially like Live City Sounds, an acoustic album with several Richard Thompson covers which sounds like the streets where I once passed Mary Lou Lord by. Alt-punk label Kill Rock Stars also still carries an EP and a couple of compilations; the EP is a split bill with someone else, but it's got a great rockabilly cover of a Lucinda Williams tune that's well worth the cost. Her myspace page also has a few downloads, including a tune she recorded with Elliott Smith...

What, more? Okay, here's a couple more Big Star coversongs in the same grungefolk vein. Dando's cover is one of my favorite coversongs ever, hands down. And doesn't Mary Lou Lord sound like a female version of Elliott Smith?

• Evan Dando, The Ballad of El Goodo (orig. Big Star)
  
• Elliott Smith, Thirteen (orig. Big Star)

Coming soon: a third installment in our very popular Covered in Kidfolk series helps us teach our children well, and a new indie compilation of Neil Young songs sends us to the folkstacks. Cover Lay Down publishes Wednesdays, Sundays, and the occasional Friday.