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Cover Versions
Posts about Cover Versions
READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
I've gotten interested in this particular 16-bar melody line that I've been hearing in a lot of old blues and jazz tunes -- it is the melody that always makes me think "They're Red Hot!" when I hear it, because Robert Johnson's song is the first one I ever heard with this structure:
I was listening to Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra playing "How Come You Do Me Like You Do?" last week and realized it's essentially the same melody -- since then I've worked out that several other songs on the records that I'm listening to regularly are built from the same elements -- here is a brief playlist of a couple others, including Tommie Bradley's hilarious "Adam and Eve" and a version by "Bogus" Ben Covington.
(And, wow! A 2000th post ought not go unnoticed.)
posted morning of September 28th, 2009: Respond ➳ More posts about Mix tapes
I was reminded this weekend of a song I love, and I bothered to do a little research and find out more about it. Here's the version I was listening to this weekend:
I always think of this as a Rockabilly tune; turns out the original version predates Rockabilly by a few years. It was written by Granville "Stick" McGhee when he was in the army in WWII (supposedly under the title "Drinkin Wine, Motherfucker" -- I hope hope hope this is not apocryphal*) and recorded on Decca in 1946 -- Granville's elder brother Brownie(!) played guitar.
They re-recorded it in 1949 on the Atlantic label and had a hit record:
I can't find the 1946 record on the internet anywhere - hoyhoy.com says Decca re-issued it after Atlantic's hit and "It flopped because it didn't rock."
The big hit, the reason I think of this as a Rockabilly number, was Jerry Lee Lewis:
So which do you like best? I hear things I love in each of them, I'm leaning towards thinking the Pirates version rocks the hardest... Any other favorite covers of this tune?
*Update: I found a reference for this story, and more information about Stick McGhee, in The Unsung Heroes of Rock n Roll, by Nick Tosches.
posted evening of July 28th, 2009: 2 responses ➳ More posts about Music
Nigel Smith at Carnival Saloon notes that "after his classic 60s records I reckon Blood on the Tracks is the Bob Dylan album most commonly cited as a favourite." This seems true from conversations I've had; and I've never quite understood why so many people name this as their favorite, when to me it seems like pleasant music not remotely in the league of the classic 60's records. Anyways, Mr. Smith had the great idea of assembling a Blood on the Tracks disc on which every song is performed by a different artist -- Robyn Hitchcock, Joan Baez, Elvis Costello,... You can listen to it at his blog. Mr. Smith also links to a previous instance of the same idea, put together by JayEss of The Saddest Music in the World; the music files there are no longer online but the track list is nice.
Another Update: and more! Mary Lee's Corvette has recorded covers of these tunes on their 2002 live album Blood on the Tracks. I'm listening to their "Simple Twist of Fate" right now and digging it. (Though I am missing Dylan's harmonica...)
I found another pretty spectacular cover version of "Satellite of Love" -- this one is by Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips, I'm assuming from the same tour (possibly the same concert) documented in Elixirs and Remedies. A beautiful performance, and I just love the camerawork way the visual frame is composed.
Slacktivist posted this video yesterday, with the note that there are only three more days -- well today there are only two more days; and this is the perfect version of the perfect song for this moment.
Here are a couple of funky covers of the disco classic.
Tragedy bill themselves as "the #1 heavy metal Bee-Gees tribute band" -- I'm willing to accept this claim at face value as I would never have dreamt of the category existing to begin with. They have some hot tunes; "Stayin' Alive" is my favorite of the ones I've listened to.
...And here is a cover by Ozzy Osbourne, Frank and Dweezil Zappa -- surprising me again: I had no idea any pair of these three had worked on a record together. (I also don't have any verification that it's true, beyond the YouTube caption -- obviously Ozzy is singing the verse and playing guitar, someone else is singing on the break -- possibly this is Zappa père and/or fils. A quick Google search turns up a lot of references to the record (though not all of them mention Frank Zappa being involved) but no dates or personnel information.)* Either way it kicks ass:
* Zappa-head Apostropher confirms this is not a Frank project; it is on Dweezil's 1991 record Confessions. Apo says Dweezil's "actually an excellent metal guitarist, though his guitar playing sounds really, really different from FZ's. There are several live shows where they play together, swapping solos and while they're both impressive, there's never any doubt who's who."
It seems to me like the line "You know that was the last thing on my mind" admits of two not mutually exclusive readings. It could just be a restatement and intensifier of "Didn't mean to be unkind"; or it could also be a separate statement, that he just wasn't thinking about how he was behaving toward the woman he's singing to. The difference here keys on whether that takes "I could have loved you better" or "to be unkind" as its antecedent; I like the ambiguity.
(Yeah, any excuse to post this song... I was listening to Chet Atkins' cover of it last night in the soundtrack to Stroszek and it became the song I want to have in my head all the time. Maybe I will try and learn the words and figure out a violin part for the October jam. Do you know there are like 50 covers of this song -- most of the ones I can find on YouTube are inferior to the original although Dolly Parton's version is pretty easy on the ears. Oh also: here is a tape of Tom Paxton singing "Rambling Boy" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest" show.)
posted morning of September 21st, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Songs
In comments to NickS's covers post, Matthew links to a fantastic version of "Strawberry Fields Forever", by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. Lovely! And it gives me a chance to remember Ellen's brief memoir "1996", published in In My Life: Encounters with The Beatles, about playing Anthology 2 for her fourth-grade class in East Harlem.
"Draw me what you hear in the music," I say.
They show me giant strawberries growing next to an apartment building, the sun's rays as streams of musical notes, the word music in big colorful letters, a strawberry tree identified with phonetic spelling swter breey fealds.
It was Ellen's first full-time teaching job (after many years of adjuncting), and she had a good time with the class, and her students had a good time learning to read and write.
"So were you a Beatlemaniac?" Yazmine asks.
"Oh, sure, of course," I answer in all seriousness. "I always will be."
Over at Before You Listen, NickS is asking, "What makes a good cover?" Well -- I've been thinking about it some and the more I reflect, the more it seems like I'm a really easy target for cover versions in general. This came to me today when I was listening to WFUV's Sunday Breakfast, and Alison Kraus came on the radio singing Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" -- this is just fantastic! and what is it about cover versions that gets me so reliably interested?
I think it's pretty simple really: When I listen to a cover of a song I like, I've got the version I know playing in my head and the version I'm listening to playing harmony. Lots of opportunities for interplay between the variations, a psychic duet between the two singers. Fun! Even better, when I get to know multiple versions and have them all playing together. (Take a look at this list of covers of "Summertime Blues" -- some great stuff in there. I guess The Who's version and Eddie Cochran's are the two most familiar to me; Blue Cheer's, which I heard for the first time yesterday, is totally worth while. Plus T. Rex! Richie Valens! Bruce! James Taylor! and many more. A couple of versions below the fold.)
(Note: Doing a clumsy post like this makes me grateful for the existence of bloggers like NickS who can write meaningful, articulate takes on what is happening in the music they're listening to.)
I've been been listening to Fegmania! a lot over the past week (in its reissue in the Luminous Groove box set), and finding some things I really like about this record, which I had previously considered one of Robyn's weakest efforts. Today I've been getting very interested in the song "The Bells of Rhymney," which I'm embarrassed not to have already known is a classic of the 60's folk revival, written by Pete Seeger and performed variously by The Byrds, Judy Collins, The Alarm, and others.
I think Pete Seeger's is my favorite performance that I've heard so far:
(I think, but not quite sure, that this recording is from the Newport Folk Festival of 1959.)
And The Byrds are lovely and silly, standing gaily on the beach singing about mining disasters. I believe it is their version that Robyn is covering, as he sounds very similar to this:
The song is based on a poem from the book Gwalia Deserta, by miner-turned-teacher and poet Idris Davies, which Seeger found in a book of Welsh poetry compiled by Dylan Thomas. The poem (as near as I can understand) deals with the failure of a mine-workers' strike in 1926. Two other of Davies' poems can be seen in manuscript form at Welsh cultural history site Gathering the Jewels: "Rhymney", and "Rhymney Hill". David Librik gives more detail about the origins of the poem at this link (midway down), including this tantalizing couplet from Gwalia Deserta:
O what is man that coal should be so unmindful of him?
And what is coal that it should have so much blood on it?
Oh what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Is there hope for the future?
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.
Who made the mine owner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.
And who robbed the miner?
Cry the grim bells of Blaina.
They will plunder will-nilly,
Cry the bells of Caerphilly.
They have fangs, they have teeth,
Shout the loud bells of Neath.
Even God is uneasy,
Say the moist bells of Swansea.
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Throw the vandals in court,
Say the bells of Newport.
All will be well if, if, if, if
Cry the green bells of Cardiff.
Why so worried, sisters why?
Sing the silver bells of Wye.
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Note: I found (at The Mudcat Café) some updated lyrics to this, composed by Mr. Steve Suffet, with help from Pete Seeger.
Bells of Kabul
"We've had twenty years of Hell!"
Cry the sad bells of Kabul.
"Oppression and war!"
Scream the bells of Kanduhar.
"Did we win? Did we lose?"
Ask the broken bells of Kanduz.
"Will God grant us peace?"
Pray the bells of Mazar-i-Shareef.
↻...done
At Acephalous, Dr. Kaufman writes up a new Literary History of the U.S. -- one co-edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors, one whose prose sings, or "Mostly sings -- sings more than academic prose usually does." Sounds like great stuff!
Nigel Smith at Carnival Saloon notes that "after his classic 60s records I reckon Blood on the Tracks is the Bob Dylan album most commonly cited as a favourite." This seems true from conversations I've had; and I've never quite understood why so many people name this as their favorite, when to me it seems like pleasant music not remotely in the league of the classic 60's records. Anyways, Mr. Smith had the great idea of assembling a Blood on the Tracks disc on which every song is performed by a different artist -- Robyn Hitchcock, Joan Baez, Elvis Costello,... You can listen to it 
about playing Anthology 2 for her fourth-grade class in East Harlem.
At Acephalous, Dr. Kaufman