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.
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Just what is is about the songs of the ’60s that gives them such legs? Are they that amazingly good? Did they appear on enough soundtracks that they embedded themselves in my brainpan? Or is that just my fantasy, born out of a familiarity as long as the life of the songs?
“Light My Fire.” Perfect example. The song started life in L.A.s proto-underground, written and performed by the Doors, one of many groups plying their trade on the strip at the bars, seedy and otherwise, dotted along its trajectory. Jak Holzman, president of Elektra Records (they’d signed the Doors’ friendly rivals Love), liked what he heard enough to give them a contract. Shortly after, they moved to the studio, recording “Light My Fire” and the rest of their debut and eponymous album fifty-eight years ago this week.
Released in April of 1967, in an edit of the full-length version, the “Light My Fire” single spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard chart, getting a further boost when Jose Feliciano delivered the first cover, itself a top-five hit. Over the years, that original version has seen it regularly populate various best-of lists, helping it attain platinum sales by 2018.
Via many of the saccharine cover versions that followed swift behind the Doors’ own rendition, arguably the plight of any perfect song construction, it has been latterly seen as some MOR staple, slipping further and further away from the original menace inherent. Pity. Second Hand Songs shows upwards of 310 versions, and not all of these are weird, cheesy cabaret staples. (You want cheesy? Try Nancy Sinatra, or Shirley Bassey, or the New Jordal Swingers. You want weird? Well, you couldn’t get much weirder than Mae West……) Thankfully, we found five that are not. Continue reading »
The clue is in the name, Silver Bullet, yes? Silver Bullet as in the Silver Bullet Band, or, more specifically, Bob Seger, whose band it was and whose songs he, and they, played. Bluegrass, in that these are all interpretations flecked with bluegrass tropes, at least instrumentally, so fiddle, mandolin, banjo, all that stuff. I’m uncertain whether the Kentucky purists would concede the legitimacy of the performances, but, hey, maybe it’s not for them. At least, they’re welcome, but Silver Bullet Bluegrass is aimed at lovers of blue collar heartland rock, of which Seger was a rightly celebrated king.
Seger’s commercial heyday largely happened in the ’80s, his big-lunged anthems emerging from Detroit. If this raises some eyebrows as to why, where and how these good ol’ country boys should be celebrating him, think again. His raw and emotive songs, a little like the songs of New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, transcend any simple classification. There is rock and roll, there is blues, and there is country running through their veins. (A little-realized fact is that Seger’s last live appearance was actually in Nashville, as he helped Patty Loveless be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. If he has no issues with country music, hell, why would we?) Continue reading »
I don’t know about you but I just love the fusion of ’60s pop and scuzzy walls of post-punk guitars: think Jesus & Mary Chain, My Chemical Romance and, of course, da brudders Ramone, melody and noise in a perfect pairing. Arguably, the Cramps started off this attractive meeting of opposites back in the mid 70’s. The baton has since passed to and fro, between froth and feedback, so often as to make it sometimes difficult to where it all started. (The answer, by the way, is probably Phil Spector.)
Denmark’s Raveonettes, the not-husband & wife duo of guitarist/vocalist Sune Rose Wagner and bassist/vocalist Sharin Foo, know this. They’ve spent their career allying close two-part harmonies into a scaffold of guitar noise. With their last album having been released in the Mesozoic era of 2017, many had deemed the band lost in action.
But Cleopatra Records knew otherwise. That L.A. institution has been the home of innumerable records that record and relate the co-terminosity of opposing genres. In fact, they featured the Raveonettes’ version of “The End,” that epic Doors song, etched forever into Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, for their somewhat limply titled Indie Goes Pop compilation. Now they have encouraged the duo to embark on a set of ’60s covers. Given the pair started off singing Everly Brothers songs in the clubs of Copenhagen, this isn’t too much a stretch. The love for the material still remains extant within their performance, if a little dialed back, on The Raveonettes Sing…. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Well, actually not Deep Purple’s “Hush” at all, even if that is the version that cuts most traction. It’s also the only song that lingers from the pre-Gillan iteration of the UK titans, from when they were carved in soap rather than rock. The learned and erudite know that it was written by Joe South, that doyen of southern soul, but it isn’t even Joe South’s “Hush,” as he didn’t get around to putting it out, himself, until two years after the first recorded version, itself a year ahead the Purps. That honor went to Billy Joe Royal, a recording artist for Royal Records, where South was then a jobbing songsmith. Indeed, “Down In The Boondocks,” Royal’s biggest chart success, was also a South composition. But “Hush,” from Billy Joe Royal Featuring Hush, in 1967, did not chart.
However, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple, heard that version. He would later tell Vintage Guitar Magazine, “I thought it was a great song, and I also thought it would be a good song to add to our act, if we could come up with a different arrangement…. We did the whole song in two takes.” Despite being a British band, it bombed at home, but soared in the States, reaching number four on the Billboard chart, effectively making their name, even if the singer and bassist were shortly to step aside. Most UK listeners had to wait until the band re-recorded the song, with their new line-up, in 1984.
Irrespective of all that, Blackmore is quite correct in his assertion as to the greatness of the song, and it has racked up a roster of cover versions. Here are the best five, at least today. (Please note this does not include the version by Kula Shaker, as, regardless of the red-blooded interpretation, it is all rather too much in thrall to the Deeps, as I will this time call them, struggling to find a suitably uniform diminutive.)
Jimmy Somerville – Hush (Billy Joe Royal cover)
This “Hush” comes from Suddenly Last Summer, an all-covers album Jimmy Somerville made in 2009, both Bronski Beat and the Communards behind him. Almost impossible to classify, possibly somewhere between pop, jazz and an out and out torch ballad,vocally at least. Somerville has an unmistakable voice, inviting comparison with Dusty Springfield. Ukulele and piano flitter about for an arrangement that defies categorization. I think it perfection. The rest of the album is equally surprising, with the choice of songs stretching from Pete Seeger (“Where Have All the Flowers Gone”) to Blondie/The Nerves (“Hangin’ on the Telephone”), through to the unbridled trad. arr. of “Black is the Color,” via Patsy Cline and “Walking After Midnight.” Bizarre and brilliant.
Jeannie C. Riley – Hush (Billy Joe Royal cover)
Sticking to, I would hazard, the good ol’ boy vibe of Joe South’s rendition, Jeannie C. Riley ups the twang factor, and then some. If her na na nas sound a little unconvincing, her snarled swipe about the rest of the lyric is anything but, pouring all that Harper Valley P.T.A. bitterness deep into her delivery. Catch her “earrrly in the morning” and yelped “late in the evening” and play that bit again, a few times even, so as to get the full impact, not least as the way-too-prompt fade obscures her repeating the line, clipped way too soon, in her prime. Never to reach the heights of her debut single, this 1973 disc barely dented the country chart, peaking at 51.
Milli Vanilli – Hush (Billy Joe Royal cover)
Yeah, yeah, or whoever was really singing for the disgraced duo, but that isn’t really the point. Here, it’s the arrangement that grabs all attention. Drum machine and a funky electronic riff on repeat shouts the 1980s, and the boys nearly start rapping before sliding into echo and reverb effects. Heaven 17 and their production work for Terence Trent D’Arby had clearly been given a good listen to in the studio. Mind you, producer Frank Farian was never much of a slouch in that direction, his earlier project being Boney M, with a similarly loose relationship between who seemed to be singing and whomsoever actually was. It is a decent song, as, despite subsequent derision, was much else on the debut album, All Or Nothing, repackaged as Girl You Know It’s True for the U.S. market.
Max Merritt & the Meteors – Hush (Billy Joe Royal cover)
Whoa, you didn’t see that one coming, did you? A big-band jazzy instrumental, this came from the New Zealander’s last album in the Southern Hemisphere, Stray Cats, before he re-located and reformed the Meteors in London. where they were regulars on the pub rock circuit. As punk took away their soul and horn heavy jive, Merritt moved again, this time to Nashville, embarking on stage three of his near six decade career. Ill health took him back South, this time to Australia, until his death, in 2020, still performing, with his last album released posthumously. If in doubt, he is the guitarist in this version.
The Prisoners – Hush (Billy Joe Royal cover)
I guess midway between the above and the rockier metal versions, the Prisoners carry a heft imbued with a cocky r’n’b swagger, akin to the early Stones and Pretty Things. The beat drums and the scuzzy organ, offering nothing as casually insouciant as Jon Lord, are the most striking features, along with the throaty gargle of singer Graham Day. Defiantly garage, they were lynchpins of the so-called Medway Scene, Kent, United Kingdom, home of similar ne’er-do-wells, such as Billy Childish and his myriad bands. The organist was James Taylor (not that one), whose eponymous quartet later became prime movers in the acid jazz movement. Thought irretrievably lost in action, despite all members continuing careers in music, the band this year re-formed and released a new album, Morning Star, a mere 38 years since the last. I hope they still play “Hush,” available on a recent compendium of rare and unreleased material.
Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!
A Full Album post of covers of Nebraska? Surely, you say, Cover Me has done this before. Well, I have checked, and whilst we have published posts about officially released full album versions of Born in the U.S.A., Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Tunnel of Love, as well as our Best Ever of Bruce covers piece, and even reviews of Nebraska tribute albums here and there and here again, we actually haven’t. So then, cometh the day, and this man’s job is to find ten Nebraska covers, one of each song, while avoiding as much duplication as is possible. You up for that? Continue reading »
Sometimes it is the lower key and lesser heard that most catches the ear, and Adam Holmes a prime example. If you follow the contemporary Scottish folk (and beyond) scene, you may well know Holmes already, for having one of the more soulful instruments in the country, a warm burr with a distant flavor of John Martyn. Starting off as a member of neo-trad outfit Rura, Holmes’ singing and songs were a tidy contrast to their instrumental elemental fare of fiddle, flute and pipes. With time, the mix became perhaps too schizophrenic, he needing a platform to stay on stage the whole set. This he found, forming a band, the Embers, lasting for a well-received year or three.
Since then he has been on his own, give or take a duo, with Heidi Talbot, and a brief membership of Anglo-Scots folk-rock supergroup, The Magpie Arc. A veritable one man industry, he releases his own albums and sorts out his own gigs and shows, no middlemen to sour the pitch. As such, the gap between he and his audience is thin; if you fancy him writing a song for you, or for him to play in your own home, he will; contact him, via his website.
Songs for My Father, the second of two recent releases, each dedicated to cover versions, is in his father’s memory, the songs of his childhood and his father’s record collection. (The earlier one, last year’s The Voice of Scotland, covered more the traditional songs he grew up with, together with a couple that have near earnt that same soubriquet: we included “You Are My Sunshine” from that set recently.) Holmes’ father, dying of throat cancer, made a last request his son record his favorite songs; it was a task that took Holmes ten years to work up the initiative to address. Continue reading »
The clue is in the name, Silver Bullet, yes? Silver Bullet as in the Silver Bullet Band, or, more specifically, Bob Seger, whose band it was and whose songs he, and they, played. Bluegrass, in that these are all interpretations flecked with bluegrass tropes, at least instrumentally, so fiddle, mandolin, banjo, all that stuff. I’m uncertain whether the Kentucky purists would concede the legitimacy of the performances, but, hey, maybe it’s not for them. At least, they’re welcome, but Silver Bullet Bluegrass is aimed at lovers of blue collar heartland rock, of which Seger was a rightly celebrated king.
I don’t know about you but I just love the fusion of ’60s pop and scuzzy walls of post-punk guitars: think Jesus & Mary Chain, My Chemical Romance and, of course, da brudders Ramone, melody and noise in a perfect pairing. Arguably, the Cramps started off this attractive meeting of opposites back in the mid 70’s. The baton has since passed to and fro, between froth and feedback, so often as to make it sometimes difficult to where it all started. (The answer, by the way, is probably Phil Spector.)
