All songwriters seem to get a tribute album after a few years - I can imagine some of them are useless given that there are so many and most of them filled with "up and coming" artists who get put on them by record companies as opposed to being fans. I only have a few that I actually listen to - being a massive Bruce Springsteen fan I've quite a few of his tributes - the Uncut ones, "One Step Up/Two Steps Back" (with Jackson Cage by John Wesley Harding outstripping Bruce's version by miles) , "Badlands tribute to Nebraska" (Dar William's Highway patrol Man and Downbound Train by Raul Malo) and "Light of Day" (Patty Griffin Stolen Car and Jesse Malin's Hungry Heart). I've also got "Return Of The Grievous Angel - Tribute To Gram Parsons" (Lucinda Willams version excellent) and "Por Vida - Tribute to songs Of Alejandro Escovedo" which is slightly bizarre as he sings on it himself and "Kindred Spirits - tribute to Johnny Cash" which has Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I tend to only listen to the songs on these albums which are interpreted uniquely by the artist. Have a stack of magazine ones that I never touch. Any other recommended tribute albums or should they all be given a wide berth???

'Timeless' - a collection of songs of Hank Williams, is pretty good with Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty, Ryan Adams, Beck etc on it.

I like "Living", the David Gray tribute album which Paddy Casey did

Oh come on david gray's not that bad.

'I'm your fan', the leonard cohen tribute album, is interesting but a bit hit-and-miss, like most of these projects tend to be. for tribute albums, I'm always interested to see which artists choose which songs... being in exile, I haven't heard anything from the 'even better than the real thing' tribute to U2 which I've read about...anything decent or innovative on it? (or am I asking too much of the ray d'arcy show?)I saw the tracklisting; a good pub game would have been to first see the list of artists and try to guess which song they would cover: for example, george murphy singing 'van diemen's land' was a dead cert, maybe others more interesting choices...