May 082024
 
Cover Songs Steve Albini

Steve Albini died today. In addition to being a musician in his own right, he was a legendary engineer (he refused to be credited as “producer”) who recorded Nirvana’s In Utero, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, and many others. He recorded hundreds of albums, for bands big and small, right up through his passing.

There are a million ways to honor him, but, for now, I thought I’d share some covers that he produced recorded. Not for his own bands like Big Black and Shellac—we may have a separate post devoted to that—but for other people’s.

The first couple covers are iconic, mainstays of “The Best Covers of All Time” type lists. The rest are more obscure. But they all have the Albini touch—which, as he would be the first to point out, was a light one. These lean towards the alt-rock and punk, with some weird-folk excursions, but ultimately as an engineer he worked to help the bands get the sounds they wanted. Including when they wanted to do covers. Continue reading »

Mar 182024
 

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

Karl Wallinger covers

Karl Edmond De Vere Wallinger: chorister and oboe player educated at England’s finest schools.  Karl Wallinger: hippy, Beatles fanatic, multi-instrumentalist and “likable smart aleck.”  Like Joe Strummer before him, also a product of a diplomat who had his children educated at Boarding Schools, Karl Wallinger took his music and his political passions in an individual direction.

Wallinger came from the small Welsh seaside town of Prestatyn.  As the crow flies it is not far from Liverpool (although it is more of a trek by road than across the Irish Sea), and his sisters gave him a love of the Beatles and Merseybeat which never left him.  Music engulfed him at a young age. He was a chorister at Eton College, a nursery for Royalty and Prime Ministers, and his skills earned him a music scholarship to another famous school, Charterhouse. In the latter he followed closely on the heels of Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel, as they started their path to the formation of Genesis. Gabriel gave one of the warmest tributes to Wallinger, noting that he had “the most creative and fun week I have ever had in the studio” during their time in a Real World Recording Week.

Always active in bands and musical movements, he first came to prominence as a member of The Waterboys. In many ways that does not distinguish you.  Mike Scott likes to claim that The Waterboys have had more members than any other band, and he has some receipts to help make his case. However, Wallinger was more than a bit part rental player. He was a key part of the band’s most successful incarnation, at least commercially. Having talked his way into the band (Scott had advertised for a guitarist, Wallinger sold himself as a keyboard player), Wallinger was part of the “big sound” that marked the most impactful phase of the band’s career, including their biggest hit, “The Whole of the Moon.” Scott remains on better terms with his many, many collaborators (when compared with The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, for instance), and his love and respect for Wallinger never waned. “Travel on well, my old friend,” he wrote on his X/Twitter page. “You are one of the finest musicians I’ve ever known.”
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Mar 132024
 

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

Eric Carmen

Eric Carmen, one of power-pop’s pioneers as the frontman for the Raspberries and a successful adult-contemporary solo artist, passed away over the weekend. He was 74 years old.

Carmen was forever a man out of time. Even as he accumulated hit records (did you know he cowrote the Footloose love theme “Almost Paradise”?), his music was scorned for being too wimpy, too poppy, too much not what was cool at the time. But time marched on, and people found themselves returning to the songs he wrote, because of their messages – what could be more direct than “I wanna be with you so bad”? – and the feelings they stirred up. Try as the critics did to shame him for his career, he had a lot to be proud of.

When it comes to covers of Eric Carmen songs, the veins are rich, but they’re tapped a lot more rarely than you might think. According to Secondhandsongs.com, the most-covered Raspberries song, “Go All the Way,” has fewer than a dozen versions. If anything good comes out of Carmen’s passing, maybe it’s that people will discover what a true artist he was. Here are five artists who have already made that discovery.

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Dec 012023
 

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

Shane MacGowan covers

No matter how much longer than anyone’s expectations Shane MacGowan may have lived, the news that this polymath contradiction has died still manages to come as a body blow and a shock. Only last week there were sighs of relief, with his being discharged from his Dublin hospital bed, his home for most of the last year, with his wife Victoria citing he was being discharged for Christmas. Clearly it was to die, which he did, in his own bed.

Our job at Cover Me is not to replay all the tales of MacGowan’s excesses and exploits yet again; Lord knows, there will be plenty of that elsewhere. Here we come to celebrate his supreme gift of songwriting, through a prism of cover versions. MacGowan crafted songs that seemed drawn from the deepest well of Irish tradition, full of arcane and archaic imagery. He used a lexicon drawn from mythology, poetry and the gutter, yet imbued with a recognition of all the current ways and woes of the world. He thus confounded listeners, baffled by how all of this could emanate from his shambling and battered frame. How could someone who seemed barely able to speak manage to produce work of such beauty?

I caught the Pogues but once, early on in their career, mayhap 1986, in a dodgy venue in Birmingham, UK. It was, in turns, exhilarating and terrifying, the latter courtesy the howling, drunken mob of a pre-Christmas audience. Keeping a low profile, I was entranced, as the band rollicked through song after song after song. It was impossible to see the join between the traditional and the new, all soaked in a melee of whistle, accordion, banjo and guitars, the permaslurring frontman both totally out of it and totally in the moment. And this was well before they became TV favorites, on Top Of The Pops, first for their duet with the Dubliners, a version of “The Irish Rover,” and later with perennial Xmas favorite “Fairytale Of New York.” I was instantly hooked.

The first few albums have rightly become iconic–if anything, more so with the passage of time–as the quality of MacGowan’s lyricism has taken focus over the tunes. But, before losing sight of the tunes themselves, riddle me this: how many individuals and how many bands can lay claim to inventing a whole genre? That’s what MacGowan and the Pogues did, founding a genre that continues to have worldwide traction. In the same way as few places in the world fail now to have Irish pubs, so too there are Celtic punk bands from all four corners of the globe. But, returning to his lyrics, Bob Dylan apart, few writers have provoked such academic attention and praise as MacGowan, and there will be a whole lot more now.

So let’s have a look at some of those songs…
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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

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…
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Sep 072023
 

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

Jimmy Buffett covers

When news spread on September 2nd that Jimmy Buffett had passed away at age 76, Parrotheads everywhere were consoled by Radio Margaritaville, the popular SiriusXM channel created by Buffett 18 years ago. Caller tributes and recent live concerts continued through Labor Day weekend to celebrate the remarkable career of the Son of a Son of a Sailor who left port for the last time to parts unknown.

Buffett leaves behind a legacy that began as a vibe and evolved into a billion-dollar entertainment and business empire built over five decades. The legendary songwriting-singer and tireless concert performer created an amazing body of work blessed with commercial success. Over 30 studio albums (17 going gold, platinum, or multiplatinum) were produced, along with another 30 compilation, live, or specialty albums, and 67 singles. Covers, in their various forms, were a significant part of Buffett’s repertoire; nearly 100 of them are listed on SecondHandSongs.com, the popular website that keeps track of such things.

Buffett, along with his Coral Reefer Band, successfully developed the “Gulf & Western” island-influenced musical genre into its own casual lifestyle brand. While not always critically admired, the music’s popularity is undeniable.

Let’s raise a mast and look out over the horizon at Buffett’s most interesting cover choices from his storied career…
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