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Justin Timberlake Covers Ray LaMontagne’s Painful Beauty, ‘Jolene’

Justin Timberlake Cover Ray Lamontagne Jolene

When he’s not singing and dancing with Michael Jackson, charmingly disarming bird-flipping fans, and hanging out on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show set, it seems Justin Timberlake is staying current with the contemporary folk scene. The pop star took a minute (or three) out of his private show at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom last night, as Stereogum reports, to pick up an acoustic guitar and cover Ray LaMontagne’s “Jolene,” introducing it as one of his favorite songs. To be sure, it’s an especially tender, refined, and tasteful choice. Not that we’re surprised, following Timberlake’s turn in Inside Llewyn Davis. He’s teased a possible country album in the future, could a folk record be in the works too?

Hear LaMontagne’s original below:

//www.youtube.com/embed/k_8xgmfUEHg