My wife is a big Mary J. Blige fan but I’ve never really given her much thought (Blige, that is, not my wife). She strikes me as a run-of-the-mill R&B singer… and I readily admit that impression is based on my complete ignorance of her body of work.
But Blige really stood out for me at the Hope For Haiti Now telethon, performing the 19th century Stephen Foster classic ‘Hard Times’ (also known as ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’). This was no doubt the oldest song performed on a night when most artists reached into their own catalogs and Blige’s soulful rendition imbued it with the depth it has earned over a century and a half of sorrows.
I knew this song intimately as soon as she started but it took me to the chorus to realize why… Bob Dylan covered it on his ’92 album Good As I Been To You. I’ll get to that album many Dylan Weekends from now but suffice it to say that the difference between Bob’s voice and Mary’s is significant.
Let us all taste the hungers of the poor.
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears:
Hard times, come again no more.
It’s a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.
As we seek mirth, and beauty, and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say:
Hard times, come again no more.
It’s a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.
It’s a song that the wind blows across the troubled wave.
It’s a cry that is heard along the shore.
It’s the words that are whispered beside the lowly grave
When hard times will come again no more.
It’s a song and a sigh of the weary.
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’m not familiar with the song, but this is a very nice rendition. I also haven’t really heard much of Blige and the little I have heard has not captivated me.