Mar 092023
 

I Don't Know a Thing About LoveWith a work ethic that dwarfs musicians a third of his age, good ol’ Willie keeps pumping ’em out, praise be. When listening to him sounding impossibly youthful on I Don’t Know a Thing About Love, his tribute to famed songwriter/contemporary/buddy Harlan Howard, it is impossible to believe Nelson turns 90 at the end of next month. These songs are staples by now, avoiding any purely Nashville C&W silo, so he and (largely) his regular crew, can imbue these songs with some outlaw life, verve and, where necessary, pathos.

It is over 20 years since Harlan Howard died, aged 74, in 2002. Despite that, his songs have remained timeless, seeming to avoid being locked into any of the stylistic cliches of the last century. Striking lucky only a year or two after he began to write, he swiftly scored a couple of major country chart hits, with massive crossover success of the second of those, one you’ll know, his best known song, “Heartaches By The Number,” which Guy Mitchell took to the top of the pop charts in 1959. Unrestricting himself to Nashville, he wasn’t even averse to dabbling in R’n’B, penning “The Chokin’ Kind,” a hit for Joe Simon in 1969. Howard summed up his writing style with the legendarily pithy phrase, since adopted as the yardstick of a good country song, “three chords and the truth.”

I Don’t Know a Thing About Love bounces out the corral convincingly with “Tiger By The Tail,” all chunky guitar twangs and Nelson sounding like he’s having a hoot. Howard cowrote this song (and many others) with Buck Owens, and it gave Owens his biggest hit. It was inspired by the Esso/Exxon tagline of the day, around putting a tiger in your tank. Nelson here certainly sounds as if he has one in his. That aforementioned Joe Simon hit follows, with Nelson slowing it down, stripping out the funk, finding a classic truck stop weepie in the remains. Those of us who can never wait for the inevitable appearance of Mickey Raphael’s mournful harp on any Nelson record need wait no longer, as Raphael blows a corker on this one, ahead a typically stuttering solo from Trigger. (Trigger? Google it, in the context of Willie Nelson.)

Heartaches always a stock in trade for Howard, “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)” could almost be a rerun for the better known song, itself not included, perhaps as Nelson covered it before, if back in 1965, on Country Music Favorites, Willie Nelson Style. A pity, as that was not Nelson’s finest moment, arguably before he hit his stride. Nevertheless, this lighter song gets a good seeing-to that doesn’t disappoint. Mike Johnson’s steel is especially good. As is the piano, provided by Jim “Moose” Brown, for another tears-in-your-beer number, “Life Turned Her That Way,” another short doozy of a harmonica interlude from Raphael, bookending with more whining steel. The title track may be the weakest song in the set; it’s pleasant enough, but Nelson can do this sort of thing in his sleep, it sounding he here he was on automatic pilot.

Thankfully, that is retrieved by a sterling version of Howards’s other best-known song, “Streets Of Baltimore,” popularized to more modern audiences by Gram Parsons and Dwight Yoakam. Lyrically it could be the flip of “Life Turned Her That Way,” taken from the view of the embittered husband rather than those with a kindlier view. The band play it like the best Texas bar band in the world, and hey, maybe they are. “Busted” here manages to find a middle road between the best-known other versions of this song, capturing Johnny Cash’s swagger with Ray Charles’ soul, with Raphael puffing and blowing like an old bluesman. Moose’s organ is great, too.

“She Called Me Baby” captures a glossy retro feel, in waltz time, with lots of echo on the steel and the guitars. That’s lots of echo, and I feel the 50’s Western swing mood deliberate. It is certainly better than the gloopy strings when Charlie Rich covered it and had a hit. (It would have been interesting had there been an effort to look at it in the style of Candi Staton, who also had a hit with it, changing the sex of the protagonist!) “Too Many Rivers” returns to the template elsewhere, with Nelson in as fine vocal fettle as anywhere on this project, he presenting the words convincingly and believably. Trigger gets to show his chops again. Finally, and to close this engaging album comes “Beautiful Annabel Lee,” a sweet song of thwarted childhood love, steel and harp the fuel that feeds this one. A bit soppy, but since when was this sort of music not?

Nelson could possibly put anything out at this stage of his career, and have it praised by default. To be fair, I Don’t Know a Thing About Love stands up on its own legs, irrespective, as does indeed his last album. And for that matter the one before that. So, it is true you do have to have a fair bit of love for country, and it may not quite steer sufficient into Americana crossover territory for some, but that is their problem. Any lover of Nelson and any covers lover should have a field day here.

I Don’t Know a Thing About Love Track Listing:

1. Tiger By The Tail (Buck Owens cover)
2. The Chokin’ Kind (Waylon Jennings cover)
3. Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache) (Buck Owens cover)
4. Life Turned Her That Way (Little Jimmie Dickens cover)
5. I Don’t Know A Thing About Love (Conway Twitty cover)
6. Streets Of Baltimore (Bobby Bare cover)
7. Busted (Johnny Cash with the Carter Family cover)
8. She Called Me Baby (Harlan Howard cover)
9. Too Many Rivers (Claude Gray cover)
10. Beautiful Annabel Lee (Burl Ives cover)

Dec 172021
 

Follow all our Best of 2021 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

best cover songs of 2021

To come up with our year-end list, we listened to thousands of covers.

That’s not an exaggeration, or loosely throwing around “thousands” for effect. My iTunes tells me I personally listened to and rated 1,120 new covers in 2021. And I’m just one of a dozen people here. Many of those thousands of covers were very good! But “very good” isn’t good enough for our annual year-end Best Cover Songs list. So when we say these 50 are the cream of the crop, we mean it.

They, as usual, have little in common with each other. A few tie into current events: Artists we lost, social justice concerns, live music’s fitful return. Most don’t. But does a doom metal cover of Donna Summer really need a reason to exist? How about African blues Bob Dylan, New Orleans bounce Lady Gaga, or organ ballad Fleetwood Mac? Nah. We’re just glad they’re here.

So dive into our countdown below – and, if you want us to send you a couple hundred Honorable Mentions culled from those thousands, join the Cover Me Patreon.

– Ray Padgett, Editor in Chief

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Mar 282020
 

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em/Know when to fold ’em” might be one of the most recognizable choruses of the last 50 years. Even people who don’t know the song “The Gambler,” know those lines.

On March 20, the world learned of the death of the singer most associated with those words, Kenny Rogers, who passed away at the age of 81. As with a star of his caliber, his death was greeted with a major outpouring of condolences across the celebrity world and lengthy obituaries in most major news outlets. Very few publications mentioned the one tidbit we here at Cover Me are most interested in: the fact that Rogers’ version of “The Gambler” was a cover.

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Dec 162016
 

Follow all our Best of 2016 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

best cover songs

2016 in music will be most remembered for one thing: death. It seemed like an unprecedented list of major musical figures left us this year: David Bowie, Prince, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen. The list, sadly, goes on and on.

Prominent passings affect many aspects of the music world, but the impact is particularly clear in the world of cover songs: When an artist dies, a lot of people cover his or her songs. The world was hardly hurting for Prince covers before April 21, but afterwards, to paraphrase the man himself, we went crazy. Bruce Springsteen alone became a one-man tribute machine, covering Bowie, Prince, The Eagles’ Glenn Frey, and Suicide’s Alan Vega after they died (it’s a shame his tour ended before Cohen passed because he’d do a great “Everybody Knows”). Our list this year features a number of these tribute covers – though both the Cohen covers listed were actually released before his death, proving there’s no need to wait to honor one of the greats.

Our list also features fantastic final covers by the recently departed, brilliant song-interpreters like Sharon Jones and Allen Toussaint. The fact that they died may add extra meaning to these new songs, but they’d make the list regardless. Whether they performed wonderful covers or wrote wonderful songs for others to cover, we miss these artists because they were great. They don’t need any “death bump.”

The year wasn’t all dire though. Our list features many covers by and of artists who are alive in every sense of the word. Kendrick Lamar and Drake represent the new world of hip-hop, Kacey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson in country, Animal Collective and Joyce Manor in indie rock, and in too many other genres to name. Jason Isbell currently holds a streak here, making his third consecutive appearance this year.

We also have plenty of artists whose names I won’t highlight here, because you probably won’t have heard of them…yet. We’re not in the business of predicting fame – the music industry is far too fickle for that – but some of our past best-cover winners have gone on to big things this year, like Chance the Rapper (2014 winner) and The Weeknd (2012 winner). Hell, Sturgill (#3 in 2014) just got an Album of the Year Grammy nomination!

Those early covers may have helped kick off such success. A revelatory cover song can help a musician attract early attention. When I interviewed Mark Mothersbaugh recently, he said no one understood what Devo was doing until they covered “Satisfaction.” A familiar song done Devo-style finally made the connection for people. “Whip It” and other original hits would not be far behind.

Maybe some of this year’s under-the-radar names will go on to Weeknd-level superstardom. But even if they don’t, all these covers, by household names and Garageband geeks alike, deserve recognition. We’ll miss all the great musicians who left us this year, but it’s gratifying to see so many promising younger artists coming in to fill their shoes.

– Ray Padgett, Editor in Chief
(Illustration by Sarah Parkinson)

PS. Last year in this space, I mentioned I’m writing a book about cover songs. Well, Cover Me (the book, that is) is finished and will be out next year! In addition to the aforementioned Mothersbaugh, I interviewed Roger Daltrey about “Summertime Blues,” David Byrne about “Take Me to the River,” and many more. Follow our Facebook for updates on preorder, etc. Now, on to the countdown…

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Dec 092016
 

Follow all our Best of 2016 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

tribute records

We’ve done a Best Cover Albums list every year since 2009. That list usually ends up being a reasonably even mix of various-artist tributes and single-artist records. But in all those lists, our number-one pick has been, without fail, a single-artist album (for those keeping score at home, we’ve awarded The Lemonheads, Peter Gabriel, Baaba Kulka, Neil Young and Crazyhorse, Xiu Xiu, Andrew Bird, and Bob Dylan – who didn’t turn up to accept our prize either).

This single-artist streak is no coincidence. It is naturally easier for one artist, if he/she/they are good enough, to maintain consistent quality control over 10 or 15 tracks. Whereas even the best mixed-artist tribute records usually have one or two dud tracks. Take the National-curated Day of the Dead, certainly this year’s highest-profile tribute album. Some of these Grateful Dead covers were so good they’ll appear on next week’s Best Cover Songs of 2016 list. Many others were dreck, filler, or superfluous. So we ranked the record – spoiler alert – at #20, sort of an honorable-mention position.

Even various-artist tributes comprised of uniformly good covers typically don’t add up to more than the sum of their parts. For example, we ranked MOJO Magazine’s Blonde on Blonde tribute pretty high this year because we liked just about every one of the Bob Dylan covers on offer. But there’s little common ground between an aggressive electronic “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and a tender folk “I Want You.” The record is more a bunch of great cover-song fodder for mixes and playlists than a truly great and unified album.

I sound like I’m being critical, but again, these are among the best cover albums of the year. This is usually the most a various-artist tribute album can aspire to: more good covers, few bad ones.

But this year, for the first time in our eight years making these lists, a various-artist tribute album rose so all the way to the top. This album was not only good top to bottom, but it felt like a real album, not just a collection of covers. It ably walked the finest of lines: showcasing diverse approaches to the source material while just remaining cohesive enough to stand together as a complete listen.

I don’t want to give away what that number-one album is just yet. We’ll get there, and there’s already enough of a tendency with year-end lists to skip straight to #1 and ignore the rest. I no doubt have not helped by hyping this magical album that broke our eight-year streak. But every one of the twenty albums we picked offers something worth hearing.

We’ve got jazz-sax forays through prog-rock and twee-pop covers of vintage punk tunes. There’s a ’60s New York icon honoring her then-competitors in the British Invasion, and a band from that same British Invasion honoring their American inspirations. There are tributes to great musicians who died this year, and tributes to long-dead musicians who there’s no news hook for honoring now, just great songs.

This list itself is as “various artists” as it can get, a whole array of genres and styles with one common thread: musicians honoring their inspirations and influences. Let’s dig in.

– Ray Padgett, Editor-in-Chief

Start the countdown on the next page…

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Oct 182016
 
jack-white-acoustic-approved-press-photo-3-by-jo-mccaughey

This past weekend, Chris Thile of Cover Me-favorites Nickel Creek hosted his first Prairie Home Companion after Garrison Keillor stepped down. There’s been a lot of speculation over whether fans of Lake Wobegon and “Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie” will stick around with Keillor gone, so Thile brought out the big guns for his debut, booking Jack White for his first-ever appearance. White sang solo material, Raconteurs, and White Stripes songs in new acoustic arrangements (one with his Third Man labelmate Margo Price) and even played a new cover, of Bobby Bare‘s 1969 country hit “(Margie’s At) The Lincoln Park Inn.” Continue reading »