Today is the day! At long last, Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time is in stores and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, and many other places (including, hopefully, your local independent bookstore!).
A lot has happened since I first announced the book back in May. The New Yorker published an excerpt about Devo’s meeting with Mick Jagger. I was interviewed on SiriusXM about the Hendrix, Cash, Aretha, Pet Shop Boys, Elvis, and Creedence Clearwater Revival chapters. And most importantly for you reading this, I put together an exclusive bonus mix that blog fans can get when they buy the book (it says “pre-order,” but we’ll say “week-of-release order” counts too).
And I wanted to share one more thing, another blog exclusive: An audio companion to the book.
The book traces the journey of the cover song by diving deep into how twenty iconic covers happened, from Elvis’s “Hound Dog” to Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” (full chapter list below). And if I’ve done my job, reading the stories will make you want to listen to the songs. So I made a Spotify playlist. It includes all the main originals and covers I write about, plus some other interesting versions that come up in the book. Listen along as you read at Spotify, or embedded below.
Thanks for reading the blog (we’re ten years old this month – more on that celebration soon), and thanks for checking out the book!
– Ray Padgett
Cover Me Founder
‘Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All time’ Chapter List:
* Elvis Presley — “Hound Dog” (Big Mama Thornton cover)
* The Beatles — “Twist and Shout” (Isley Brothers/Top Notes cover)
* The Righteous Brothers — “Unchained Melody” (Todd Duncan cover)
* Aretha Franklin — “Respect” (Otis Redding cover)
* Jimi Hendrix — “All Along the Watchtower” (Bob Dylan cover)
* Joe Cocker — “With a Little Help From My Friends” (The Beatles cover)
* The Who — “Summertime Blues” (Eddie Cochran cover)
* Creedence Clearwater Revival — “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (Marvin Gaye cover)
* Gladys Knight & the Pips — “Midnight Train to Georgia” (Jim Weatherly cover)
* Patti Smith — “Gloria” (Them cover)
* Talking Heads — “Take Me to the River” (Al Green cover)
* Devo — “Satisfaction” (The Rolling Stones cover)
* “Weird Al” Yankovic — “Polkas on 45” (Various Artists cover)
* Pet Shop Boys — “Always On My Mind” (Elvis Presley/Brenda Lee cover)
* Whitney Houston — “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton cover)
* Fugees — “Killing Me Softly” (Roberta Flack/Lori Lieberman cover)
* The Gourds — “Gin and Juice” (Snoop Doggy Dogg cover)
* Johnny Cash — “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails cover)
* Adele — “Make You Feel My Love” (Bob Dylan cover)
I’ve justed finished the book a posted a review on Amazon. Thought it was amazing. Great storytelling, I often felt like I was in the room as the covers were being discussed and developed. I’d love a sequel or more stories like these (but it must have been a ton of work) for other covers