Various Artists – Songs For Sixty Five Roses

Ask a young kid to say “cystic fibrosis,” and what comes out is something like “65 roses”; thus the title of this disc. When longtime North Carolina music scene veteran John Plymale’s daughter was diagnosed with the disease two years ago, he put together a benefit record to fight it. Plymale put out the call for North Carolina acts to cover songs by their in-state brethren, resulting in this amazing and beautiful labor of love.

Connective threads run throughout Songs For Sixty Five Roses, seamlessly linking past and present Tarheel stars. Whiskeytown’s alumni figure into both sides of the equation: Caitlin Cary offers a stoic take on Goner’s “Battleground Park”, while Portastatic turns in a nicely wistful version of “Oh My Sweet Carolina” by Cary’s old bandmate Ryan Adams. Two Superchunk songs get covered, including the Two Dollar Pistols’ amazing honky-tonk shuffle transformation of “Driveway To Driveway”. But nothing can top Archers Of Loaf/Crooked Fingers mastermind Eric Bachmann’s radical recasting of Let’s Active’s 1983 signature tune “Every Word Means No”, which moves from wide open spaces to dark and doomy noir soundtrack.

Reunions also figure into Sixty Five Roses, with the dB’s regrouping to revive their own “Nothing Is Wrong”. And Tift Merritt reconvenes her old band the Carbines for “It’s The Shame” (by Stillhouse, the Carbines’ current incarnation). Throw in Bonnie Raitt sideman Will McFarlane’s lovely closing version of James Taylor’s “Shower The People”, and there are eighteen good reasons to get this record — nineteen, if you include the cause.