Seuras Og, Author at Cover Me

Seuras Og

Seuras Og is an old enough to know better family Dr in Birmingham, UK, having taken the easy option of medicine upon failure to get work in a record store. By now drowning in recorded music, he has thought it about time to waste the time of others in his passion here, as well as a few other places dotted about the web.

Review: Cat Power’s ‘Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert’

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:30 am 1 Response »

Nov 202023

There is something happening, but you don’t know what it is, as someone once said, and they may well say it again, following this daring further adventure in the wonder of Ms. Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power. Despite a healthy and reliable back catalog of her own material. she has become quite the regular on these pages, care of her regular re-interpretations scattered liberally about her output. Sure, she has “done” Dylan before, but she has never, nor anyone else to my knowledge, taken on quite such a doughty challenge as she has on Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.

A legendary recording, initially only available on bootleg, Bob Dylan’s “Royal Albert Hall” concert (ask your hep uncle why that’s in quotes) has passed into the annals of not only Dylan mythology, but of the whole development of 20th century music. Few would ever risk such an endeavor as recreating, let alone in a live setting, let alone in the same live setting as the original. (OK, as the original claimed to be, the Dylan program actually coming from a concert at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. Plus, given that Manchester venue is now a Radisson hotel, it would be tricky.) But, ever the free spirit, this is what Cat Power did. And here we have the evidence.
Continue reading »

Cover Classics: George Michael’s ‘Songs From The Last Century’

Posted by Seuras Og at 3:00 pm No Responses »

Oct 302023

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

I imagine there are more than a few readers for whom George Michael might come under the heading of guilty pleasure. Maybe that’s why it’s taken as long as it has for him to be enrolled, and rightfully, into the Rock & Roll Half Fame. Guilt or no guilt, let’s just pause and admit that he really was one of the most creative interpreters of song we have had, as well as writing a fair old number of quality bangers himself. Yes, some of it may well have been somewhat wispy and ephemeral–most great pop music is–but I defy anyone not to have had a sly, secret bop to “Club Tropicana” in the comfort of their own kitchen.

I could certainly never really admit to loving Wham! at the time, but I sure as hell admired them. Later, as a solo artist, when it seemed Michael was the desire of all our wives and girlfriends, yes, it became a little harder. But, if anything, the quality of his own songs improved exponentially, until it would be only a curmudgeon who could deny his true talent. As his life, and its myriad difficulties, unraveled, that “local color” gave him, in the ridiculous way fame works, a greater credibility, and his untimely death gave even more. Add in the legion stories of his kindness to strangers, and we have all the trappings of a modern legend. Imagine had he lived.

Songs From The Last Century, Michael’s cover album, came out in 1999. He released it at a time when his powers were arguably at his peak, following a run of chart-topping releases, Faith, Listen Without Prejudice (Volume 1) and Older, at least in his homeland. (In the US he had had to be satisfied with numbers 1, 2 and 6, respectively, ultimately very good listings for an artist seen largely as a singles specialist.) By his standards it was a flop, only managing a UK number 2 slot. For some reason, the American market did not take to it all, it getting only as far as a lowly 157, perhaps giving some concern to his management. Not to worry: five years later, Patience returned him to the top spot at home, and 12 in the US.
Continue reading »

In Memoriam: Tom Petty

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:30 am 2 Responses »

Oct 202023

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

Tom Petty (10/20/50 – 10/2/17) was clearly one of the good guys, with little but praise of and for him following his untimely death, 18 days shy of his 67th birthday. Possibly going a little too hard celebrating the end of the Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary tour, he took that one toke over the line and died of an accidental drug overdose. What a waste, just say no, etc etc. (To be fair, intractable pain from a fractured hip and his emphysema were each also weighing heavy at the time.)

Petty was no stranger to cover versions, over his lengthy career, initially with the later revived Mudcrutch, but predominantly with his own band, 13 albums as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and 4 under his own name alone, there are a few, mainly across his myriad live albums. Today, though, we are to celebrate covers by others of his own songs, but it would be churlish not to take at least a nod at his rendition of Lucinda Williams’ “Change The Locks” or his version of the UK one hit wonder “Something In The Air,” originally by Thunderclap Newman.

A Tom Petty song was seldom comparable to the work of others, or transferable, that much, to other styles, mainly down to the idiosyncrasy of his vocal style, a high pitched nasal whine. My apologies to anyone put off by that overly clinical description of his voice, for, in full flight, it was a rousing and rallying instrument of power and promise. Still is. But it would somehow be remiss not to comment on the one very similar singing style, especially given the reception of the debut single from Petty and his team…
Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Burning Down the House” (Talking Heads)

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:00 am 1 Response »

Oct 182023

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

If you haven’t been aware of the story of Talking Heads getting back together, I guess you may have been on another planet, such was the publicity. Given they didn’t even play anything, grouping only to talk and be interviewed, this shows quite the lasting appeal of this band, and gives some idea of the delight forthcoming if they actually did pick up their musical gear.

The occasion was the polished up re-release of Jonathan Demme’s concert film of the band in their prime, 1984’s Stop Making Sense. You know, the big suit and all of that. Because the break-up of the band was so famously dysfunctional, any previous talk of the foursome ever meeting up again was deemed well nigh impossible, such the apparent lasting ill-feeling between de facto band leader David Byrne and the other three, constructively dismissed at the end of the road, or as near as. Literally so, it being at the end of a tour. Many words have been spoken: drummer, Chris Frantz has said a fair bit in his memoir, Remain In Love. Yet, as they grouped around a table in Toronto this fall, all seemed sweet and contrite, even as they carefully dodged questions around any more working together. (So they didn’t deny it, shout all the fanbase! We shall see…..)

“Burning Down the House” was one of their biggies, their only Billboard top 10 single. Based on the skeleton of a studio jam between Frantz and his wife, bass player Tina Weymouth, its evolution had David Byrne chanting nonsense lyrics, designed more to fit the scan, than to make any sense, and Jerry Harrison, the 4th Head, adding choppy synthesizer stabs. And, yes, of course it was in the film, if somewhat expanded and adapted, featuring Weymouth on synth bass. It was and remains a consummate snapshot of what the band were then doing, applying a remarkable meshwork capture of jittery post-punk new wave energy, funky dance club rhythms and emergent afro stylings.

But, are there, I wonder, any other ways of gilding this lily?
Continue reading »

Review: The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project’s ‘The Task Has Overwhelmed Us’

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:00 am No Responses »

Oct 132023

We stretched our own meaning of cover version previously, when we gave the earlier three volumes of the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project a belated review. Now, and against the odds, lo and behold, here is a fourth. Its title, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, provides a small glimpse into the work that went into it and its end result.

As before, Task has been put together by London-based guitarist and one-time Pierce sideman Cypress Grove. Once again, it is based on demos and early recordings by the prolific Gun Club auteur, with earlier volumes stemming from cassettes squirrelled away in a drawer and found after Pierce’s untimely death. As with the others, it brings together quite the cast of contributors, many reprising roles from the earlier sets. In a reflection of the time it took to put this Task together, this includes both the living and the dead–perhaps fitting, as Pierce himself also “appears,” like a ghost at the feast, across a fair few of them.

With 18 tracks spread across four sides of vinyl, it would be impossible to talk about all the tracks here. Of course, there is the issue that few, if any, of these songs can be compared to any original. Even if you think you recognize the name of the song, possibly from one of the many Gun Club albums, the chances are that the words will be different; Pierce was notorious for writing completely different versions of, nominally, the same song.

A word is necessary for the production duties, which transcend the occasional slip from the sublime, transforming even the slightest melodic sow’s ear into a a golden purse. Sharing those duties with Grove is Australian singer, Suzie Stapleton, herself also based in London, and who appeared, if just as a performer, on the last volume. Here she steps right up, showing a sure and deft hand on the sound balance, as well as giving one of the album’s more striking vocal offerings.
Continue reading »

Review: ‘More Than A Whisper – Celebrating The Music Of Nanci Griffith’

Posted by Seuras Og at 12:30 pm No Responses »

Sep 252023

The title More Than A Whisper – Celebrating The Music Of Nanci Griffith probably says it all, given the disproportionate heft of the footprint left behind by this self-effacing singer. Her mild and bookish persona, all ankle socks and cardigans, might suggest a small town librarian or primary school teacher, but what she gave, and what you got, was so very much more. A consummate writer of literate story songs (she called them folkabilly), Griffith could captivate any an audience with her Texas charm and sweet/sour voice, attracting the best musicians to play by her side. Both as a writer and an interpreter, she lived and breathed the characters in songs she made her own, several of which are well on the to becoming standards. Her run of albums, from her 1978 debut There’s A Light Beyond These Woods through to Storms, a decade and a bit later, was little short of astonishing, the traction of the one building on the next until she became quite the star. And if she became, latterly, drawn, or possibly led, more to the mainstream, with the country hayride honed down a little, still the songs remained the same, elegant constructions, meticulously put together. Illness quietened her workload this century, her last album made in 2012, before her death in 2021.

It is fair to say that most of the songs on More Than a Whisper come from Griffith’s imperial phase, 1987-9, a time where she could do no wrong, touring constantly, with new material pouring out of her. I must have seen her two or three times during those years; she always included the UK and Ireland in her itineraries. I was never less than enthralled by the show she and her Blue Moon Orchestra would put on, falling, always, a little more in love. And, lest you feel this project of such appeal as to bring back singers from the dead, this album has been several years in the gestation, it fitting, and vital, that it should include one singer always very closely associated with her. You’ll know who I mean.
Continue reading »