lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: walk your valley

2005-05-19: pre-order indigo girls' 'rarities' collection!, epic records e-mail list:

having contributed to a number of tribute albums, film soundtracks and benefits, the grammy-award winning indigo girls will now, for the first time, make available a unique collection of tracks called rarities on june 14th! with selections ranging from never-before-released tracks to hard-to-find covers and collaborations, rarities gives indigo girls' fans a chance to catch up on their extraordinary catalogue of recordings.

some of the previously unreleased tracks include "let me go easy," "winthrop," a demo of "ghost," a remix of "free in you" and "point hope." also included is one of amy ray's first compositions, "cold as ice"; concerning the song's title, she admits, "i always felt bad for using a foreigner title for my song." an ultra-rarity on the collection is an original emily saliers song called "walk your valley," which was recorded only once at a soundcheck. emily notes, "i felt sure no one would have a bootleg copy of this."

the covers include "clampdown" from 1999's burning london - the clash tribute, "i don't wanna talk about it" from the 1993 soundtrack to philadelphia (originally by neil young's backing band, crazy horse, but later popularized by rod stewart), vic chestnut's "free of hope" from 1996's sweet relief ii: gravity of the situation, "uncle john's band" from 1991's deadicated: a tribute to the grateful dead and their cover of ferron's "it won't take long" from 1995's spirit of '73: rock for choice.

collaborations include r.e.m.'s michael stipe on "i'll give you my skin" from 1991's tame yourself, a live performance of "ramblin' round" with ani difranco from the 1996 album 'til we outnumber 'em: woody guthrie and the special tom morello (audioslave, rage against the machine) remix of "shed your skin," a song originally from 1997's shaming of the sun.

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2005-07-15: silver anniversary nears for indigo girls, the eugene register-guard:

actually, ray said in a recent telephone interview, it was epic's idea to end their relationship with a "fun" project.

"they said, 'we would really love for you guys to do a fun project just for the fans. and we were like, 'that's a great idea,' " ray said.

"they thought it would be a good way to wind up things, and we thought the same thing."

"rarities" features a cover of the clash's "clampdown," done originally for a clash tribute album; a version of "shed your skin," remixed by audioslave's tom morello; and a live version of elton john's "mona lisas and mad hatters."

also included are saliers' "walk your valley," which was recorded just once, at a sound check, and "cold as ice," one of ray's earliest songs.

songs such as "cold as ice" are almost archeological, ray said.

"it's embarrassing to put it on the record, but it's just kind of a point of reference of where we came from," she said. "for me, it's not the first thing i'd play for someone if they wanted to hear indigo girls. but it would definitely be something i'd want to know about as a fan.

"it's like, 'well, what was their early, early stuff like and where do they come from and how far have they come?' "