Your favorite cover songs?

[blondifan]

Some good old bOyZ took an old instrumental by Spirit and added some words http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnUBk3WzmOU

Yeee hah!

[Old Jud]

Keeping in mind that what passes as 'Good' or 'Bad' in music is purely subjective, i've always preferred Joe Cocker's version of 'with a little help from my friends'.

Ditto the Firms version of 'you've lost that loving feeling'.
Jeff Healey's version of 'as the years go passing by' and his version of 'while my guitar gently weeps'.

Gary Moore's version of 'red house' (and i'm a BIG Hendrix fan!)

[Ace1965]

Judas Priest have done a couple of very nice covers.

First is Joan Baez's "Diamonds & Rust"

Faster version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y63Nb...eature=related

Slower more acoustic version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIC7KQPDuDc

They also covered Peter Green's "Green Manalishi With The Two Pronged Crown"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdGP9...eature=related

[blondifan]

not meaning to offend any 'fans' at all...

but, doesn't the Eagles 'Hotel California'

sound something like a song "We Used To Know"?

then again on "Reflection"

it could all be a Pachelbelian rant on my part

[MrInBetween]

Originally Posted by blondifan

not meaning to offend any 'fans' at all...

but, doesn't the Eagles 'Hotel California'

sound something like a song "We Used To Know"?

Fascinating. That had never struck me before, but since discovering this thread, I was starting to think that a good idea for another thread would be something like "Where have I heard that one before..." and people would make exactly the kind of post you just have, allowing us to hear the "original" and the "rip-off". All in good fun of course.

[blondifan]

Originally Posted by MrInBetween

Fascinating. That had never struck me before, but since discovering this thread, I was starting to think that a good idea for another thread would be something like "Where have I heard that one before..."

Of course, forgetting little unimportant things like 'keys', 'time signatures' 'wurdz' and the overall 'feel' of a piece.
I swear after listening to that 'Pachelbel Rant' makes any four chord sequence with a major chord as the motif sound very similar.
Nothing new under the sun, aye?

Getting back on topic (here briefly ) i remember reading that Creams 'Sunshine of Your Love' was written with Jimi Hendrix in mind?
(Forget the fact that 'Are You Experienced' was released after 'Disraeli Gears').

Hendrix certainly made it his own in live performance. Playing the vocal melody on his strat and the chromatic run added at the resolve of the chorus was shear brilliance, which almost made up for a very despondant bass solo from Noel Redding? The ending (from the as yet unreleased Albert Hall set - the only film he sanctioned for release when he was still alive ) is something of an epithany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q0UF6QPa-M

(For my money beats the only legitimate studio release on 'Valleys of Neptune')

[kenveco68]

IMHO, the practice of rerecording another artist's work is somewhat rooted in the racism of the USA and Elvis.

Songs performed by black artists were usually relegated to 'ethnic' music stations, not the mainstream ones, thereby limiting the song's commercial success. White producers realized they could take a song recorded by a black artist, then rerecord the same song with a white artist whose songs would have access to a larger audience. Elvis was a great singer and performer, but there were plenty of great black singers and performers who came before him. They just didn't have access to the same radio stations, venues, concert halls, etc. that he did.

White producers also benefited from the obscurity of the black artists music; because the white audience never heard the song in its original version (unless they had access to a town with a black radio station and were hip enough to listen in), the cover version seemed to be the original.

It's also the reason why cover recordings were usually blander than the original, by design. Black music was always regarded as more primitive and sexual than mainstream music, so the music was 'neutered' to make it more acceptable to the record buying teenagers and their parents. Listen to Little Richard's version of Tutti Frutti, then Pat Boone's. I've heard on more than one occasion old hipsters say their parents wouldn't allow LR's version in the house, but didn't object to PB's.

The practice seemed to end once black artists gained access to the same venues as white artists. Once the stigma of black music ended, the benefit white artists enjoyed from rerecording them went away. Once white kids could easily buy a Michael Jackson album, would they ever buy a weaker version by a blander artist?

I certainly can appreciate that some people are willing to pay good money for different arrangements of the same song, or to have their favorite singer (ie Sinatra) sing a particular song. The act of covering a song will never go away. But the origins of the practice itself are somewhat dark.

On another note...

Paul McCartney seems to have 'borrowed' the melody of a Nat King Cole song and used it in his song Yesterday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3050614.stm

[geilepietje]

Bruce Springsteen - Jersey Girl (Tom Waits)

Bruce Springsteen - Trapped (Jimmy Cliff)

Melissa Etheridge - Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen)

Melissa Etheridge - Born to run (Bruce Springsteen)

Southside Johnny - The Fever (Bruce Springsteen)

Southside Johnny - Hearts of stone (Bruce Springsteen)

[DRNOE]

Brazilian ... Angra- Wuthering Heights ( Kate Bush ); with the legendary brazilian singer, Andre Mattos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBe5JIl4KR8

[parrabol]

i absolutely love johnny cash's version of hurt, originally by nine inch nails. and for some reason i really like limp bizkit's version of behind blue eyes, originally by the who. i don't like the middle interlude thingy, but the rest is good and the guitars sound great.

cheers