Tom McDonald

I grew up and got schooled in New England, hitch-hiked on a whim to pre-Grunge-era Seattle, never left. Took to designing software for authors and publishers. Raised two kids and quite a few chickens on a island in Puget Sound. Taught myself guitar and banjo and formed a covers band. I help run a map store; here’s an issue of our newsletter. I favor British tv comedies and novels by Cormac McCarthy.

Feb 112025
 

That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.

If Led Zeppelin had made Physical Graffiti a single album rather than a double, “Boogie with Stu” would not have made the final cut. “Filler” is a dismissive term, but that’s what it was. (Of course, one band’s filler is another band’s gem.) The song was just a spontaneous jam, really, recorded in 1971 on an out-of-tune piano as they worked on Led Zeppelin IV. But when Zeppelin suddenly had an extra album-side to complete in 1975, they cleaned up the old recording and tossed the result onto side four, practically as an afterthought.

“Boogie with Stu” is treated like an afterthought, too, in those always-interesting and usually contentious discussions about Zeppelin covering and plagiarizing other artists. Sure, let’s talk “Dazed and Confused” and Jake Holmes, “Whole Lotta Love” and Willie Dixon, “The Lemon Song” and Chester Burnett, and all the other cases. But the discussion rarely gets around to the strange case of “Boogie with Stu” and Ritchie Valens. Or if it does, it’s only as an afterthought yet again.
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Feb 072025
 

One Great Cover looks at the greatest cover songs ever, and how they got to be that way.

“Well it’s story time again,” says a young Tom Waits to a live audience in July, 1975. So begins his intro to “Big Joe and Phantom 309,” Red Sovine’s country hit from 1967. But his listeners were already involved in a story that night: they were collectively pretending to be in “Raphael’s Silver Cloud Lounge,” a seedy LA nightclub.

In truth, they were seated in The Record Plant, the illustrious Los Angeles recording studio. Waits had moved studio equipment aside, dragged in a few tables and chairs, set up a makeshift bar, and invited some friends over for a show. The opening act was a strip-tease. With the correct vibe established, Waits recorded his third album that night, Nighthawks at the Diner. And it included his first departure from original material with “Phantom 309.”
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Dec 042024
 

One Great Cover looks at the greatest cover songs ever, and how they got to be that way.

Neil Young rarely records other people’s songs. In live appearances it’s another story–he seems game to cover anything–but in the studio it’s Neil Young material that Neil wants to record. One exception to the rule is ”Four Strong Winds” by Ian & Sylvia from 1963. Young recorded his own version for his Comes a Time album (1978). It’s not just any old cover–it’s one great cover with special meaning to Young himself.
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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.

Cassandra Wilson – Love Is Blindness (U2 cover)

Bono wrote this song for Nina Simone. Maybe that’s why it feels so fully realized when Cassandra Wilson sings it. I love the harmonics Kevin Breit plays on his resonator throughout this piece, and I love Wilson’s reading of the last line of the bridge: “Baby, a dangerous idea that almost makes sense”–how she starts off soaring and then downshifts to end so confidingly and with a hint of mischief. But what sends the song over the edge (no pun intended, none at all) is what follows that line, the cornet solo by Butch Morris. It’s strange, and yearning, and perfectly set up by his earlier playing behind the verses. Later the cornet mimics–with three or four notes–water droplets hitting the bottom of the deep well Bono wrote about. After a hundred listens, I never noticed them until just now.

Cassandra Wilson – Redemption Song (Bob Marley cover)

In the iconic version of “Redemption Song,” Bob Marley performs this anthem on his own, just the man and his guitar. Wilson follows suit, though she leaves the guitar work to Brandon Ross. Marley’s message is so clear and strong, understatement is called for. No one knows this better than Ross, whose playing and arrangements are always full of space and eloquent restraint.

Cassandra Wilson – Vietnam Blues (J.B. Lenoir cover)

Wilson grew up near the Mississippi Delta region where the delta blues originated, and she has been unique among jazz artists in her eagerness to engage with the form. She’s covered early bluesmen like Son House, Robert Johnson (twice), Muddy Waters, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Here she covers a performer less well known even to blues fans, J.B. Lenoir. His “Vietnam Blues” is characteristic of his politically-charged take on the form. (It was fine for jazz artists and folk artists to meld their music with political protest, but for blues artists–not so much.) Wilson’s somber take on this weighty material is countered by the antics of her soloists (Martin Sewell and Kevin Breit) who take their licks and tricks to the edge of chaos. This recording was on the soundtrack to the Wim Wenders blues documentary The Soul of a Man.

Cassandra Wilson – Harvest Moon (Neil Young cover)

Lullaby-quiet and improbably slow, Wilson’s “Harvest Moon” still operates at extremes. The bassist bows the lowest note on the instrument, a long drone that never decays, while the resonator guitarist brings out the highest-pitched notes his instrument is capable of. (He does it by plinking the strings below and above the fretboard where you are not supposed to play.) The instruments establish a dusky mood and texture. A metal slide quivers against guitar strings in a wavering buzz, a sound akin to the chorus of crickets that opens and closes the track. Cassandra purrs out each line at her leisure, spacing each word just so. She strays so far from the original that it becomes a song of her own, not simply a Neil Young cover.

Cassandra Wilson – Skylark (Hoagy Carmichael cover)

This 1941 pop tune became a jazz standard that every singer has wanted a part of, from Ella Fitzgerald to Samara Joy. (Did you know “Skylark” is about Judy Garland? She was nineteen at the time, and lyricist Johnny Mercer was in love with her.) Wilson’s somewhat overlooked arrangement features the haunting pedal steel guitar of Gib Wharton–really, he is singing in tandem with Wilson through his instrument. And what a duet it is. Wharton was never part of the “sacred steel” movement but he brings the emotive element from that tradition into his free-ranging approach. Like everyone Wilson plays with, he sidesteps cliche and gets to what’s true, fresh, and gorgeous.

Cassandra Wilson – ‘Til There Was You (Meredith Willson/Beatles cover)

Composer Meredith Wilson had a long and storied career, from scoring Charlie Chaplin feature films to writing a Christmas song you know by heart. But for many, he’s only known for his 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man; for many more he’s only known as a song the Beatles covered. (Paul McCartney didn’t know it was a show tune when he learned the Peggy Lee cover from 1959.)

Cassandra Wilson doesn’t have the range of Peggy Lee or Paul McCartney and doesn’t need it. She has timing and feel on her side and, in this live version, a conversational tone. The ballad is a curious pick for a show closer, but what redeems it is Wilson’s ceding the stage to her young and largely unknown pianist, Jon Batiste. It’s a nice touch that after he solos, Batiste himself then leaves the stage so that the percussionist can play us out.

Cassandra Wilson – For the Roses (Joni Mitchell cover)

Joni Mitchell’s music made a lasting impact on Cassandra Wilson when Wilson was growing up in Mississippi. You can hear some of the influence in Wilson’s own lyrics, which often reach the pure poetry of the kind Joni had such a gift for. Musically, maybe it’s from Joni that Cassandra got into “wack tunings.” In this song about the dark sides of fame and success, you can hear that Wilson relates. “They start bringing in the hammers, and the boards and the nails” she sings with particular conviction. In addition to “For the Roses,” which was Wilson’s contribution to a Joni Mitchell tribute album from 2007, Wilson also covered Joni’s “Black Crow” on her first Blue Note release, Blue Light ‘Til Dawn.

Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls – hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Learn more at Patreon.

Oct 112024
 

Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

In terms of commercial metrics, like the number of plays on US radio, or the number of cover versions released, John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind” is massively popular and always has been since its 1967 debut. And yes, the most successful version of Hartford’s hit is a cover: namely Glen Campbell’s arrangement, which he recorded with the Wrecking Crew in LA within months of Hartford’s original release.

Both Hartford’s version and Campbell’s version earned Grammys (in different categories) in 1968. Every subsequent cover of “Gentle on My Mind”–and there are several hundreds of them–is most likely a take on Campbell’s version. Hartford didn’t seem to have a problem with Campbell stealing his thunder–see this video in which the two artists perform “Gentle on My Mind” together on the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour TV show. Both artists revisited the song multiple times through the decades to come; the best of these may be this one, in which Hartford convenes a few bluegrass and country music legends to pick and grin on it.

The song’s chances of success must have seemed thin in 1967 when Hartford first shopped it around. “It violates all the principles of songwriting,” Hartford told an interviewer in 1987. “It’s a banjo tune, it has no chorus. It has a lot of words so that it’s hard to sing.” Indeed, it’s too bare-bones, musically, to amount to much. There’s no chorus, no bridge, no catchy instrumental riff. Second, the song doesn’t slot into any particular genre–it’s not quite bluegrass, country, folk-rock, or pop–it’s all of the above and therefore none of them. Finally, Hartford breaks basic lyric-writing rules (and he breaks them beautifully). His verses are long-winded; his rhyme scheme is offbeat. He crams in janky words and phrases that are difficult to sing. Lines like “I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’ cracklin’ cauldron in some train yard” would have most vocalists calling for a rewrite. But this free-spirited prose poem is deeply American in the Walt Whitman/Jack Kerouac tradition, as is fitting for a song of the open road, a song of freedom. The song that shouldn’t work at all works perfectly.

If traveling the backroads and riding the rails and hanging out in hobo camps is the life, why is the song’s narrator always thinking of one special person back home? Who is the person whose door is always open and who is ever in his thoughts? Hartford himself never committed to one definitive interpretation of the song. He admitted that if he had been trying to write a hit song, he would have written it differently.

Hartford also revealed that this quintessentially American song was actually inspired by Doctor Zhivago, the epic Russian novel (and 1965 David Lean film) about the Bolshevik Revolution. And with that, comrades, it’s time to look at three interpretations of this undyingly popular song…
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Jan 232024
 

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

Misty covers

Popular song titles end up as film titles often enough–“Singin’ in the Rain,” “Dazed and Confused,” “American Pie,” “[I] Walk the Line.” But how many songs are referenced by a film title? Only one: Erroll Garner’s 1954 hit “Misty.” The film Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut from 1971, calls it out.

The film follows a jazz radio DJ who spins “mellow groove” for his listeners each evening. One night someone calls in a simple request: “Play ‘Misty’ for me.” The next evening she calls again. “Play ‘Misty’ for me,” she repeats, and hangs up. This psychological suspense thriller hinges–or unhinges–on this repetition.

A hundred good versions of “Misty” were in circulation by 1971, but the caller doesn’t say which one she wants to hear. And the DJ doesn’t ask. (I get it: the film must advance its plot and not get mired in detail, but as a music lover I’m disappointed, and still just curious: What was her jam?) The DJ puts on the instrumental by the Erroll Garner Trio–the original “Misty” recording.

The song was original in both senses of the word: being the first, and being wholly unique. Garner himself was an original: a self-taught prodigy with a style all his own, who could not read or write music notation, but whose unorthodox creations were some of the era’s crowning achievements, both artistically and commercially.

Garner’s instrumental plays a few times during the film, both as part of the action, and as part of the score. In the world of “Play Misty for Me,” there are no covers of “Misty,” and no lyrics.

Moviegoers mostly knew the words anyway, through popular versions by the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Johnny Mathis. But audiences may have been clueless about the substance of the lyrics. “Misty” was the “Every Breath You Take” of its day: it passed as a love ballad or torch song, but it invited a darker reading, with each verse hinting at a serious emotional disturbance, a fatal attraction. Screenwriter Jo Heims had the song’s double-edged meaning in mind, and wove her story around its tale of obsession. As with the radio caller’s request, you hear it once and it’s anodyne; hear it again and something feels wrong.
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