You searched for muddy waters

You searched for muddy waters - Cover Me

In Memoriam: Muddy Waters

Posted by Tim Edgeworth at 9:30 am 1 Response »

Apr 042020

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

On the morning of October 17, 1961, a skinny, scruffy-haired teen was standing on platform 2 of Dartford station, waiting for a train into London. He was holding a guitar case. Slightly further down the platform stood another, less scruffy teen. He clasped two vinyl records under his arms, held at just the right angle that the titles were visible. The scruffy-haired teen tilted his head to get a better look, his eyes widening as he read the large print emblazoned across the record covers. Chuck Berry Rockin’ At the Hops and – could it be? Yes! – The Best of Muddy Waters. Trying to act naturally, the scruffy teen took a step closer to to the young man with the records. Then another step. And another. Before long they were right next to each other. The scruffy teen cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Keith.”

So there you have it: Muddy Waters was partially responsible for the first meeting of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger since primary school. It would not be his last contribution to their history. A few months later, Brian Jones was on the phone attempting to secure a booking for the newly formed group. The promoter asked for the band’s name. They didn’t have one. Jones’ eyes darted around the room and fell upon that same fateful album, The Best of Muddy Waters – specifically, side one track 5: “Rollin’ Stone.” The Rolling Stones were now christened. Continue reading »

Giveaway: The Morlocks Cover Chess Records Hits

Posted by Ray Padgett at 4:30 pm 15 Responses »

Aug 242010

At Cover Me, we like to give stuff away. Read on to learn how that stuff can be yours.

Tribute albums to famous artists are a dime a dozen. Tribute albums to famous labels though…well, that’s something else entirely. The Morlocks Play Chess is a great title with a greater concept behind it. San Diego garage rock quintet the Morlocks cover the hits of Chicago’s legendary Chess Records. And what hits! Without the 45s of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and other Chess artists, rock and roll wouldn’t be where it is today.

Though shut down in 1975, the label has experienced something of a revival in the popular imagination recently. The 2008 film Cadillac Records spotlighted the label with help from Adrian Brody (who played Leonard Chess), Mos Def (Chuck Berry), and Beyoncé (Etta James). Just a few weeks ago Chicago podcast Sound Opinions devoted a whole show to unearthing some of the label’s history.

Enter the Morlocks. The band first popped up in southern California in 1984. Three years and a few local hits later, things collapsed. They returned a decade later with their raw garage sound as frenetic as ever. The Chess Records catalog fits them perfectly and they know it. Continue reading »

Full Albums: Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Electric Ladyland’

Posted by Seuras Og at 12:00 pm No Responses »

Dec 132024

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland in 1968, the last of his three lifetime studio releases. Produced by the guitarist himself, it was a double set and featured a veritable panoply of guests, over and above the core trio of Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Notable amongst these were Steve Winwood, Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane), and the drummer in his later band, Buddy Miles. This sometimes led to criticisms of the album being a chaotic overindulgent sprawl, and there are moments that touch upon that, but it did not stop Electric Ladyland‘s swift elevation to bestseller, almost from day one. It attained the number one album slot in the US within a month of release. In the UK, where he had made his name, it fared less well, if still attaining a credible number six. Time has expanded and widened the appeal, winning over many of the initially sniffy critics, who saw it as overlong and muddled. In the year 2000 Rolling Stone ranked it at #53 in their Best 500 Records of All Time, a full 32 years after release. And we haven’t even mentioned the album artwork, which has a whole backstory of its own. Hint: there was a reason the UK cover was different from the US cover. Well, nineteen reasons. (Would you believe thirty-eight?)

But that’s another story for another time. Here we are interested more in covers than covers. We found sixteen of them, one for each song, even the ones where calling it a song is a stretch. You might not like them all – there’s one here that we think is an absolute clinker – but hopefully they evoke the best of Electric Ladyland when you hear them.
Continue reading »

In the Spotlight: Cassandra Wilson

Posted by Tom McDonald at 12:00 pm 1 Response »

Nov 222024

In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!

As tradition has it, the jazz singer usually comes with piano accompaniment. Often, as with Diana Krall or Nina Simone or Norah Jones, the crooner is the keyboardist. The deep-voiced vocalist Cassandra Wilson broke this template back in the 90s. Her most successful music centers on the acoustic guitar, and features acoustic stringed instruments as main ingredients in the mix. If this unusual sonic palette makes Wilson’s music stand out, what makes it stick is her embrace of genres outside the jazz idiom.

Wilson first gained recognition in the mid-1980s as a founding member of the avant-garde M-Base collective. M-Base artists explored intricate rhythmic layering, free improvisation, and absorbing various African and African-American musical traditions, including newer branches like hip-hop. But Wilson soon struck off in her own direction, issuing several albums under her own name. Then she transformed her approach, and in 1992 she signed on with Blue Note Records (EMI).

It was at this point she expanded beyond jazz standards (and her own compositions) by covering folk, country, Delta blues, and pop material. From Hank Williams to U2, The Monkees to Van Morrison, Muddy Waters to Joni Mitchell, she was on it. At the same time, she began to feature instruments that were largely excluded from the jazz bandstand: classical guitars, octave guitars, resonators, banjos, a violin, a bouzouki, and a mandocello. Wilson redefined what jazz could sound like. She partnered with individualistic musicians (like Brandon Ross, Kevin Breit, and Charlie Burnham) all phenomenal artists who could play with imagination and with extended techniques. When Wilson herself played guitar it was usually in a “wack tuning” (to quote her own liner notes).

Not one to cling to a format or formula, she continued to evolve beyond her breakthrough Blue Note records (she left the label entirely in 2010). She even brought piano back into the mix, bringing to light some the best players of the next generation, including a young unknown named Jon Batiste. In some phases she focused on musical forms from Italy and from Brazil, or veered back into a more mainstream jazz approach, as on projects with Wynton Marsalis (the Pulitzer-prize winning Blood on the Fields production) and album-length tributes to Miles Davis and Billie Holiday. In the current decade Wilson’s been very quiet. She turns 70 in 2025, and if we are lucky she will re-emerge with more of her beguiling music to share. Continue reading »

Review: Little Feat’s ‘Sam’s Place’

Posted by Seuras Og at 11:00 am No Responses »

Jun 052024

A new Little Feat album seems remarkable enough; as in, are they still a thing? The fact that Sam’s Place is a (mostly) covers album, and a blues cover album at that, is less so. Which seems a tad snarky as, actually, in a gourmet-grits-no-grocery, cordon-bleu-meat-and-potatoes way, the album has its pockets jammed full of charm.

Sam’s Place is Little Feat’s first “new” album in 12 years. With a back catalog as long as Little Feat’s, one might ask if they even need to bother with new product. Sam’s Place doesn’t really answer that question, as the “new” material here is anything but new. Perhaps this is their Blue and Lonesome, a stopgap release from a band that’s past its peak but has something still left in the tank. Only time will tell.
Continue reading »

Little Feat Delivers Fiery Cover of “Got My Mojo Working” on New Album

Posted by Curtis Zimmermann at 9:00 am No Responses »

May 242024

In the late ‘90s, I took a musicology class on the history of 20th century American music. During a section on blues, my professor played Muddy Waters’ rendition of “Got My Mojo Working.” “Now,” she said after it ended. “What is the song about?” Frustrated by our blank stares, she yelled out, “Sex, people. It’s about sex.” More precisely, it’s about someone trying to score and failing miserably, but that’s the blues for you.

We’re now almost one-quarter of the way through the 21st Century, and we can still talk about “Got My Mojo Working,” and all its tawdriness, in the present tense. Last week, the long-running rock band Little Feat released a live cover on its newest album Sam’s Place.