Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.
Bandcamp is a fantastic resource for cover fans. Thousands of bands put their music on there to download for free, the quality is generally higher than MySpace/YouTube (for now), and just searching “cover” yields a wealth of music. Today’s Song of the Day comes from an artist discovered that way.
Anyone who has seen Drake or MGMT on tour recently has seen Jake Rabinbach. He plays guitar in Francis and the Lights, the NYC soul-dance band recently on tour with both. You can listen to their entire discography on Muxtape (including Tom Waits, John Lennon, and Kanye West covers) and the longer you wait to do so, the longer your ears will deprived of Francis’ smooth white boy soul.
When not bringing the funk with Francis, Jake leads old-school rhythm and blues band Jump Back Jake down in Memphis. They’ve got a free Bandcamp covers EP that tackles folks like the Supremes, the 13th Street Elevators. His organ-drenched version of Dr. John’s New Orleans ode “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” is even swampier than the original, if that’s even possible. One gets the sense this rough-and-ready quintet knows its way around The Last Waltz.
[audio: SOTD0610/GrisGrisGumboYaYa.mp3]
Download: Jump Back Jake – Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya (Dr. John cover)
Pick up Jump Back Jake’s Live Ardent Sessions Covers EP at Bandcamp, then snag debut album Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle for $3.99.
