Feb 162021
 

“Covering the Hits” looks at covers of a randomly-selected #1 hit from the past sixty-odd years.

sunflower covers

Last time the “Covering the Hits” dice-roll landed me one of the earliest chart-toppers ever – Ernie K-Doe’s sassy New Orleans classic “Mother in Law” – and today it lands me one of the most recent: Post Malone and Swae Lee’s contribution to that animated Spider Man movie, “Sunflower,” which went to number in 2019.

Post Malone gets covered a lot. In fact, we had a bluegrass version of “Circles” on our year-end list two months ago. “Sunflower” didn’t quite hit “Circles”-level covers ubiquity, maybe because it sounds pretty hard to sing, but it’s been tackled plenty (once by a very prominent band). (And let’s not forget Posty himself knows his way around a cover; I saw multiple people call his Nirvana set one of the best livestreams of 2020.) Continue reading »

Jun 262017
 
jack white american epic

Every once and awhile, a musical project comes along that reminds us of the magnitude of talent and ingenuity many of our current musicians possess. The American Epic series by PBS is one such project. Directed by Bernard McMahon, American Epic re-imagines the music captured by record companies way back in the 1920’s. But not just any music. “Country singers in the Appalachians, blues guitarists in the Mississippi Delta, Gospel preachers across the south, Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, Tejano groups from the Texas Mexico border, Native American drummers in Arizona, and Hawaiian musicians”. The record companies gave a musical voice to so many talented, undiscovered musicians at that time.

To make the project authentic, the American Epic team reassembled the very first electrical sound recording system which was used back in the 1920s. They then tasked executive producers Jack White and T Bone Burnett to create an album of recordings by twenty of today’s artists, all recorded on the only system of this kind in the world. The result is a fantastic throwback to long ago brought to us by some seriously talented and committed musicians. Continue reading »

Jun 292012
 

Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.

Erickson didn’t simply sing [the] songs, he became them. Watching him then, it was like he was screaming to get outside of his body, knowing that the music behind him was a cannon meant to hurtle him into the stratosphere. I can recall shows where Erickson sang as if his life would end if he didn’t reach a certain plateau. We’d stand in the audience, holding our breath and hoping for his sake that he got there. – Bill Bentley

Continue reading »

Apr 252011
 

In February 2010, an all-star roster of artists and legends came together to honor Neil Young at a charity tribute concert. Now, a year later, the footage from that show will finally see release. A MusiCares Tribute to Neil Young features James Taylor, Wilco, Norah Jones, and more – and we’ve got a first look below! Continue reading »

Apr 012011
 

Download This scours the web’s dark corners for cool cover freebies. View past installments.

Regular readers know we love Bob Dylan covers. They also know we love collecting live covers in what we creatively call Live Collections. Well this is a live collection to beat them all. It’s 33 discs of live Dylan covers performed by, well, everybody! Continue reading »

Jan 172011
 

January 2011 looks to be a big month for cover albums, with big-name artists dropping new ones left and right. Perhaps everyone was waiting for the Christmas season to be over. Last month, non-holiday covers were a rare breed indeed. After umpteen “The First Noel” and “Last Christmas” covers though, some blues and rockabilly tunes prove as refreshing as a rum and coca cola. Continue reading »