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: Dave Stewart’s ‘Dave Does Dylan’

Posted by Seuras Og at 4:05 am 2 Responses »

Jul 202025

When I first heard of this, I confess the thought came: Why? The Dave is Stewart, arguably most famous for not being the singer in Eurythmics, the other half of that once so shining brightly duo, all-conquering during the 1980’s, with a brief return at the turn of the century. Annie Lennox sang and he played guitars and keyboards. More recently he is possibly better known as a producer, but best-known really for being a friend and collaborator of the rich and famous, popping up on albums by Bob Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Mick Jagger and several by Ringo Starr. His Wikipedia page is quite a read.

This recording actually first slipped out in April, on this year’s Record Label Day, a limited vinyl release available only through participating stores. Now it has been relaunched. Again there is a limited-issue vinyl, but it is also available as a digital release. Again, it is a barebones set of acoustic performances, recorded on his iPhone, otherwise untouched. For a singer, and one without a voice that well-known, again creeps back that nagging why? Continue reading »

Cover Classics : Babybird’s ‘Covers’

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

Jul 152025

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

You won’t know this one. Well, not unless you read our Good Better Best on The La’s ‘There She Goes‘, where Adam Mason gifted the best to the version from Stephen Jones, aka Babybird. (Or should that be babybird? Citation needed.) This isn’t a dig at taste anyone’s taste or due diligence in capturing all end every cover version in the world, more around the blink and you missed it nature of the release. Covid still very much the story of the day, it snuck out in June of 2021, likely a pointer to how Jones had himself spent lockdown. There were limited hard copies available, on CD, as a single disc, a double, containing a trio of additional revisions, and a special edition, with individually hand finished covers. These all sold out aeons ago, with none of these self-released items accessible even through Discogs. But, luckily for you, if so inclined, you can grab the downloads over on Bandcamp. And they are free! Continue reading »

Review: ‘A Tribute to the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier’

Posted by Seuras Og at 9:26 am No Responses »

Jul 072025

Possibly not the snappiest of album titles, but if you know, you know, and it is everything, much more, that it says on the tin. Which is a long winded way of saying party time. Sorry, PARTY TIME! And there won’t be a better party this year, that is for sure, with Valcour Records hoovering up about as stratospheric a line up you could ever imagine, in support this timely celebration of Chenier, the coolest man to ever tote an accordion in the name of rock and roll. And blues. And soul. For that is, loosely, what zydeco is, a defiantly idiosyncratic mixture of all those musical forms, cooked up in the swamps of Louisiana. Often sung in French. Lead instrument accordion. Continue reading »

Review: The Wandering Hearts’ “Déjà Vu”

Posted by Seuras Og at 9:30 am 1 Response »

Jun 232025

So, you are a London based acoustic Americana band. What are you going to come up with to stand out from the crowd? If you’re the Wandering Hearts, the answer is Déjà Vu. And if that doesn’t sound familiar, keep reading.

The subtitle of this intriguing release is a lyric from the title track: “We Have All Been Here Before.” To me, that’s either a musing metaphysical or a tad presumptuous. I mean, really–how many of us have actually sat down and decided to make a song by song cover album from one of the premier vocal bands of all time? If they had elected to cover, say, the debut by the original three-piece that may have made better sense, being a more acoustic arrangement, by and large.

But they didn’t. Déjà Vu was, arguably, the release of 1970, as Messrs. Crosby, Stills and Nash bestrode the world, adding the trump card of Neil Young into the brand. Very much of its time, hippy dippy lyricism aplenty, somehow it remains timeless. There are few 50-year-old records that can raise the neck hairs like this one can. Each and every song comes with an instant flashback to the day first heard, whether you were hurling down the highway in an open top car or (like me) headphones on, under the bedcovers. A wonderful record, we gave it the Cover Me badge of honor a year or 5 back, with our own specially compiled covers compilation.

So who the Hearts, Wandering or otherwise? Tara Wilcox, Chess Whiffin and AJ Dean Revington is who. They have been on the UK country circuit long enough to have gained plaudits from most who have encountered them, sharing stages with big hitters like Robert Plant, Tom Petty and more. Indeed, no lesser than Lissie chose them as her support band for her US tour of 2024. This is album number four, the third as a trio, founding member Tim Prottery-Jones having left after their 2018 debut. All three are strong and confident singers, gelling well for the harmonies that are their trademark.

The earlier releases suggest that this record would be a milder confection than it actually is, the trio electing to go for the full-on electric assaults that characterize the release. Which, given the axe-wielding credentials of Young and Stills, might be considered brave or even foolhardy. We’ll get to that, but suffice to say it is their regular band they employ to provide the surprisingly faithful instrumental heft of the full fat rock songs that fill out the recording, along with the additional input of producer Michael Rault. That the set was recorded at Taurus Rising Studios, Joshua Tree, CA, may have something to do with the atmosphere of authenticity, too.
Continue reading »

In Memoriam : Brian Wilson

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:00 am 2 Responses »

Jun 162025

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

Songwriter Brian Wilson in Santa Monica California 1990

God only knows where we’d be without Brian Wilson.

If that sounds glib, a journalistic play on one of his best-known tunes, think it through. The footprint made by Brian Douglas Wilson, who died on June 11, nine days short of his 83rd birthday, is amongst the largest of any single musician from the 1960s, certainly of those born his side of the Atlantic. As a writer and producer his skill was exemplary, but remember also his angelic voice, arguably the second finest in his family (his brother Carl just one step ahead in those stakes, to my mind).

Whilst it had seemed he had been long gone, trapped in his own mind, if still being paraded out by management, friends and family, the pain of his actual departure from this world is both profound and shocking. Few musicians have had as much scrutiny over the years, with books and films aplenty, all documenting the highs and lows of a life lived largely in the public eye. From the start, the bedeviled saga of the Beach Boys has attracted equal parts adoration and opprobrium, the former usually reserved for Wilson, the latter for those who sought to take advantage of his often precarious mental health.

And what highs and what lows there have been. But we at Cover Me have come to praise his genius, rather than rake over those coals; there will be plenty of that elsewhere. One of only two musicians to get two birthday “salutes” from us, here and here, his legacy was also rightly celebrated in our deep dive into the best 40 covers of songs by his band, the Beach Boys. Sure, he didn’t write them all, but certainly had a hand in the vast majority of the best ones.

Add in a welter of album reviews for the myriad tributes to him, personally and/or The Beach Boys, and it is obvious as to quite how well regarded he was, here and everywhere. I typed “Brian Wilson” into our site search engine and it delivered 16 pages, with “Beach Boys” providing 31. Even if you allow for some duplication, that is quite staggering. As such we need, and Brian Wilson deserves, a last hurrah, a valedictory victory parade of the bounty left in his wake, with the Beach Boys and without. Here is a baker’s dozen of his best.
Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Ain’t No Sunshine” (Bill Withers)

Posted by Seuras Og at 8:30 am 3 Responses »

May 232025

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

Hard to believe we haven’t done this, given the myriad reprises and reinventions it has received over the years. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know*, you may think we have, but we haven’t, something to remedy right now. (*And in case you have never counted, the answer is 26 times…….)

The breakthrough hit for Bill Withers, “Ain’t No Sunshine” was originally the B-side of “Harlem,” the initial single drawn from his debut long player Just As I Am. DJs started playing the flip more; this led to a re-release and bingo, it hit #3 on the Billboard chart, in the summer of 1971. Quadruple platinum sales have accrued in the intervening years, in both the US and the UK, performing nearly as well in other markets, often getting a second surge of sales whenever some of the cover versions themselves cracked the charts, from Michael Jackson’s in 1972 to the one by American Idol‘s Kris Allen in 2009.
Continue reading »