Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Bad Company were one of the great “Oh-they-played-that” rock bands of the 1970s. With their heavy blues-rock guitar licks, infinitely-catchy hooks, and bombastic frontman, Bad Company produced a number of the decade’s most anthemic, fist-pumping rock hits such as “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Shooting Star,” “Ready for Love,” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy.” However, since they came of age in an era before MTV or digital radio, countless listeners have lip-synced and air-guitared to their music on classic rock radio without having a clue who they were or what they even looked like.
Complicating matters even further, the band is a supergroup featuring members of several other great British rock bands of the era including Mott the Hoople, King Crimson and Free. With Free, Bad Company’s future lead singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke scored the hit “All Right Now.” So, they’re easily confused with other bands from the era in sound and swagger. They’ve just got that ‘70s rock band quality about them, for better or for worse.
This year the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is inducting Bad Company, fifty-two years after the group’s founding. Earning this spot, they beat out artists like Phish, Oasis, Mariah Carey and the Black Crowes. The band’s selection is a testament to their longevity, but not necessarily rock fans’ ability to immediately identify the group when their songs hit the radio.
To honor their induction, Cover Me looks at three excellent covers of the one song that is most associated with the band, their eponymous track: “Bad Company.” It was the first song on side two of their self-titled 1974 debut record. It’s a power ballad, with a slow piano intro and a buildup to a climactic chorus. Throughout the decades, it has served as a showcase for singers, from rock to country to metal, all of whom want to live out their rock n’ roll fantasies and dreams.
Here are three covers that stand out.
Sara Spicer’s cover is good.
Rickie Lee Jones’s cover is better.
And Tori Amos’s cover is the best.
Sara Spicer – Bad Company
With its lyrics about a lone gunman making his final stand, the song seems a natural fit for the country genre. Superstars such as Garth Brooks and Gretchen Wilson have both recorded covers. But those versions both seem like replicas of the original, as if each singer wanted to highlight their stadium rocker bona fides. Singer Sara Spicer gave more of an actual country feel by including heavy fiddle and metallic resonator guitar. It still rocks, but she gives it more of a swampy, southern rock flavor. She might not be as big of name as Brooks or Wilson, but she has a voice that might make her a “Shooting Star” one day too.
Rickie Lee Jones – Bad Company
Plenty of hard rock acts have covered “Bad Company,” perhaps the most notable being metal band Five Finger Death Punch. Now, I would never label Rickie Lee Jones as a hard rocker, but she seemed to be flirting with grunge on her emotionally charged 2019 cover. It has an arrangement that would have been at home on a record produced in Seattle in the ‘90s. Though the song is quiet, blending acoustic and electric guitar, her delivery gives the song a harder edge than many of her rock and metal counterparts.
Tori Amos – Bad Company
Tori Amos covered “Bad Company” live ten times in the mid-90s. Though she never commercially released the track, thanks to a few conniving fans who sneaked in video cameras and tape recorders (a big no-no in the pre-iPhone age), a few bootlegs exist. In this clip from 1994, she can be seen opening the show with the song. Playing only the piano, Amos sings “Bad Company” as a dark mournful ballad, without any of the guitar or vocal fireworks from the original. There’s no moment of recognition from the audience, so it was a cover that people likely did not know was a cover. Credit Amos for being willing to challenge her audience at the height of her career.
Follow our complete Rock and Roll Hall of Fame series here! All week long we’ll be sharing covers by/of every artist inducted: Cyndi Lauper, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, The White Stripes, Salt n Pepa, Bad Company, Soundgarden, and Warren Zevon!
