Ashley Monroe - The Covers (2021)

Ashley Monroe Covers The Beach Boys, The Police, Bryan Adams, & More On New EP. Ashley Monroe, the rootsy country singer who’s part of Miranda Lambert’s group Pistol Annies, has had a trying year. Shortly after releasing her new album Rosegold, Monroe revealed that she’s undergoing chemotherapy, battling a rare form of blood cancer. But Monroe hasn’t let that diagnosis stop her from making music, and she’s just released a new EP of covers today.
Monroe and veteran producer Tyler Cain worked together on the new EP The Covers. They started recording it before Monroe’s cancer diagnosis, and they finished it as she was beginning her chemo treatment. The EP features a guest appearances from a couple of prominent friends. The singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly joins Monroe on her version of “Love Hurts,” the Everly Brothers ballad most famously covered by Nazareth. Brittney Spencer, another Nashville singer-songwriter, duets with Monroe on Bryan Adams’ monstrously huge power ballad “Everything I Do (I Do It For You).”

Elsewhere on the EP, Monroe covers another early-’90s power-ballad hit, Extreme’s “More Than Words.” She also takes on the Beach Boys’ immortal “Don’t Worry Baby” and the Police’s perennial “Every Breath You Take.” All of her versions are quiet and tender and comforting, with soft and mostly-acoustic arrangements.