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: ‘Billy Valentine And The Universal Truth’

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:30 am 1 Response »

Feb 142024

(hangs head) How did I not hear of this? How did Billy Valentine and the Universal Truth, a slice of prime r’n’b/jazz–acid jazz if you must–slip under the Cover Me radar last year? Alerted by the end-of-year lists of others, a quick shufti confirmed this demanded our attention. And it comes with quite an impressive back story to boot.

There are two Billy Valentines. There’s the 98-year-old blues and r’n’b man, William A. Valentine, and there’s 73-year-old who was one of the Valentine Brothers, r’n’b hitmakers of the 1970s into ’80s, best known for “Money Too Tight (To Mention),” to be later catapulted into ubiquity by Simply Red. (Their version is better…) This is the latter of the Valentines, however much I secretly hoped it the former.

After the brush with fame offered by “MTT(TM),” with their own version sinking under the lack of promotion capable of their then-tiny independent label, Valentine took on work with Bob Thiele Jr., as a writer for hire. Thiele Sr. was the boss of Impulse Records, when their roster covered acts such as Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane; later her served as the boss of Flying Dutchman Records, which had championed Gil Scott-Heron. Valentine and Thiele Jr. sold songs all over, ahead of some later traction of soundtracks: Valentine was one of the featured singers for The Sons Of Anarchy series, with a number of featured cameos. Come 2020, with Thiele Sr. deceased, his son felt it as good a time as any to revive the Flying Dutchman imprint, as part of the Acid Jazz family. Valentine was his first signing.

Taking a while to gather together the right combination of material and musician, Billy Valentine and the the Universal Truth dropped last March. It features eight songs drawn from the more militant factions of black music, or at least songs that reflect on that. There is some Gil Scott-Heron, some Curtis Mayfield and Pharaoh Sanders, with Stevie Wonder and Prince in there for good measure. Musicians include the likes of Immanuel Wilkins, Alex Acuña, Jeff Parker and Pino Palladino, so the album is class personified. Let’s play it!
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Five Good Covers: “Johnny B. Goode” (Chuck Berry)

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:30 pm 2 Responses »

Feb 022024

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

Really? As in, surely Cover Me must have talked about “Johnny B. Goode” before? Well, I’ve searched, and it seems “Memphis, Tennessee” is the only Chuck song to show itself on this platform. Of course, it may just feel like we’ve given Johnny the once-over twice on account of ol’ Charles Edward Anderson Berry wrote so many of the standard templates of rock (and roll). I mean, it isn’t as if nobody’s ever tried a cover, it difficult to imagine any guitar band ever not taking a crack at it. Is it not compulsory that every band of spotty youth, convening in a reluctant father’s garage, include it in their nascent set of tunes? Hell, I bet it casts a longer shadow than even “Louie, Louie,” always previously the lodestone at such gatherings. Secondhand Songs, still the wiki for cover lovers, suggests 328 versions, which, given the site’s understandable inability to know or find every single itty bitty rendition, suggests possibly a fair few more. (Indeed, as ever, we rely on you to let us know some more good(e) covers in the responses.)

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Full Albums: Love’s ‘Forever Changes’

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm 1 Response »

Jan 192024

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

Love was definitively a band of and for the ’60s. Formed in 1965, their incandescent flame shone bright only until the turn of the decade, their legacy thereafter diminishing, not least as founder Arthur Lee became last man standing. Indeed, such was Lee’s imprint that he was able to trade on the name and past glories for the rest of his career and the rest of his life, even if it was mainly the first three albums – Love, Da Capo and Forever Changes – audiences wished and needed to hear.

The extravagant meshwork of styles and influences Love’s original lineup brought collectively into the mix, defied any one attempt to restrict the resultant style to any one genre. There were elements of almost raw garage rock, cheek by jowl with pastoral and orchestral interludes, with folk influences and whiffs of psychedelia elsewhere.

Lee kept the b(r)and going, on and off, more or less until his death, in 2006. Bryan MacLean, who had parted from the band acrimoniously, died in 1998, a few months after Ken Forssi did the same. Snoopy Pfisterer has long since retreated to idyllic rural isolation, with little lasting involvement in the music industry, but Johnny Echols has continued to hold a candle for the band, re-igniting the name and touring a version of the band since 2009, the show usually reliant on playing the material from those first three albums.

As for Forever Changes, it’s become a staple in the best-of lists pumped out by your Rolling Stones, your Pastes and others of that ilk. Along with a select few, such as Pet Sounds, Blonde On Blonde, Astral Weeks and Revolver, Forever Changes has become of and beyond its time, a beautiful bad trip seeing off many of the newcomers begging for comparison and subsequent attention.
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Five Good Covers: “I Can See Clearly Now” (Johnny Nash)

Posted by Seuras Og at 1:00 pm 3 Responses »

Jan 052024

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

Starting a new year from the old has often the effect of bestowing clarity on the observer, a post-festive pause in the storm, allowing evaluation of the present and a filter to the past, seeking a better way forward. That’s the idea, anyway, and anyone wondering about New Year’s resolutions (assuming anyone still does) needs the ability to clear their eyes and brush away any blurring of intent.

That’s where Johnny Nash comes in. On “I Can See Clearly Now,” Nash writes lucidly about that movement, should you stumble upon it. To me the song always seemed to be a song of hope, one designed to welcome positive thoughts for the way ahead, enticing them to become actions.

“I Can See Clearly Now” spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard chart and soon certified gold, doing well also in markets of the UK, Australia and South Africa, ironically all areas where the record buying population was largely white. Nash, an American by birth and upbringing, was one of the first non-Jamaican artists to break a wider recognition of Reggae. Indeed, the prime aim of his mid-60s move to Kingston had been to broker a wider acceptance of the musical styles of the West Indies. Ironically, his success arguably led to a later fade from the spotlight, as the artists who were making the songs he championed, in the style he had possibly softened up an audience for, no longer needed introduction, with the likes of Bob Marley (who wrote or co-wrote four of the songs on I Can See Clearly Now) now able to stand on the world stage in their own right.

Nash died, aged 80, in 2020, but had benefitted from a resurgence in interest, as films and TV bought up the rights for “I Can See Clearly Now,” most notably through Jimmy Cliff’s version from the 1993 film Cool Runnings. It is a song of hope and, as such, it never fails to lift my mood.
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Five Good Covers: The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart Of Mine”

Posted by Seuras Og at 11:30 am 3 Responses »

Dec 082023

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

In 1965, the Isley Brothers were looking for a bigger label to help them grow, and found it in Tamla/Motown. The then-trio of O’Kelly, Rudolph and Ronald Isley sang this Holland/Dozier/Holland composition, Ronald on lead vocals, with Motown’s crack Funk Brothers session team on the instrumental heft. As with so many of the songs from Motown on the 60s, it is a masterclass of construction, from the opening propulsive percussion and the piano riff that immediately identifies it. The orchestra swoops in and the brothers start to emote, before Ronald pipes up with the lead vocal. The xylophone is a magical addition, a catalytic converter that seems to spark and stimulate the responses of Rudolph and Kelly. Magnificent, even as a honking sax plays a baritone solo, a song that has continued to resonate over the subsequent years.

“This Old Heart Of Mine” was first a hit in 1966, and was the Isley Brothers’ biggest Motown success, reaching (only!) number 12 on the Billboard chart that year. In the UK it fared worse, reaching number 47, and then better, hitting the number 2 slot on a 1968 re-release. It seems odd that Motown let them go shortly thereafter. Berry Gordy, who’s been known to make a mistake or two, told them that “It’s Your Thing” was not the kind of music he wanted them recording. But irreconcilable differences don’t always spell “The End.” Cue the brothers setting up their own label, and history!

So what other artists had old hearts that were weak for the song? Listen and learn…
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Review: Amos Lee’s ‘Honeysuckle Switches: The Songs of Lucinda Williams’

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:00 am 3 Responses »

Dec 042023

The last time we featured Amos Lee on this site, about a year ago, he was subject to such a savage kicking that even I felt bad, so it is with utter delight to discover Honeysuckle Switches: The Songs of Lucinda Williams. So often do we feature Lu here, given her prodigious thirst for covering the songs of others, it becomes especially good to see the compliment returned.

Lee and Williams have form; always a fan, Lee had a dream come true as she collaborated with him, for “Clear Blue Eyes,” on his 2011 break through album, 2011’s Mission Bell. Returning frequently to her songs in his concert settings, he says of her that “her vulnerability opened my heart,” citing how “she embraces sadness but is never enveloped by it.” I think that sentiment perfectly embraces the bittersweetness so often apparent in her songs, and Lee shares that quality in spades, a fragile strength that bears witness to his having maybe faced similar battles along the road.
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