One Great Cover: Tom Waits “Big Joe and Phantom 309”

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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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One Great Cover: Neil Young’s “Four Strong Winds”

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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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One Great Cover: Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy”

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Nov 262024
 

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

Bow Wow Wow

Some songs are transcendent and seem inevitable. They were always going to be a hit, and destined for greatness. As soon as the opening notes are played, or a motif is reached in a cover, you feel comfortable that you are in the presence of something important. No ornamentation or elaboration is necessary.

“I Want Candy” is not one of those songs. From its very first iteration, writers Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer felt that the song needed something extra to help it along. They cast themselves as The Strangeloves, and implied that they were an Australian Beat Combo, consisting of the Strange Brothers (Niles, Giles and Miles), so that their song about the undoubted appeal of Candy Johnson could have an unusual hook.

Other covers sought other boosting methods. When Aaron Carter made his version he felt that he had to draft in his brother, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, to make it more interesting. In a much different iteration Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm, having successfully curated a girl-next-door persona as Sporty Spice, decided to go “raunchy” in an (unsuccessful) Olivia Newton-John style transformation for her take.

Who might you call if you had to create something that is successful as a triumph of form over substance? If you were thinking of Malcolm McLaren, ex-Sex Pistols manager, you get a prize. McLaren was a man who realized that presentation could trump musical ability or artistry if handled correctly. He proved it multiple times, but “I Want Candy” may be the catchiest proof in his particular rucksack.
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One Great Cover: UK Subs’ “Sabre Dance”

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Nov 082024
 

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

Punk paradigms provoke panic. Whether it is parents worried that their young people who do unnatural things with their hair may do more natural things if left alone together, politicians who fear anything they can’t readily control, or prog musicians who feel that someone is about to eat their lunch, there have always been reasons for fearing the new art form from the ’70s. Of course, none of these paradigms really hold true. Punk youngsters had no greater rate of teenage pregnancy than any other group of horny young people, and often proved to be good parents, and prog musicians have continued to thrive for the last few years, despite the efforts of the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls. Punks are inherently “anti-establishment,” but the remarkable thing about “The Establishment” is that no one can agree on who it is, so rebelling against it has no universal means and meaning.

Mexican-British (a much smaller demographic than Mexican-American) David Perez may be a nephew of original Joker Cesar Romero, or maybe he is not! Born in 1944 he didn’t find his true calling, as a hardcore punk now going by Charlie Harper, until 1976. He has embraced it as a member of the UK Subs ever since, combining skills with admirable industry. However, by the time he formed the band, in response to seeing The Damned, he was no longer a teenage tearaway, but a married man with experience of the world, and a history of playing in a range of R&B bands. He assembled a band that knew more than three chords, could turn his hand to harmonica and had assimilated a range of influences from the ’50s and ’60s, as well as the ’70s. He still includes songs by Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie in his sets, putting his politics alongside his music. We might guess who his “establishment” is. His band’s only previous appearance on these pages was to be included in a Nirvana cover feature, indicating a wish to stay current.
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One Great Cover: Tricky’s “Black Steel”

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Oct 252024
 

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

I got a letter from the government the other day
I opened and read it. It said they were suckers
They wanted me for their army or whatever
Picture me giving a damn, I said never. 

Public Enemy, “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” 1988

Tricky was doing what no one else was doing musically in 1994, as he was pretty much most other years. His audacity (or complete naivete) as an artist knew no bounds, being largely how he got female vocalist Martina Topley-Bird to sing Chuck D’s none-more-Chuck D rap lyrics from Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” over an exhilarating rock-dance backing. Which she did in her uniquely seductive tones, bringing melody and wispiness to words that once seemed inseparable from the hip-hop frontman’s testosterone-pumped New York baritone, so renowned for emanating righteous anger in the face of injustice and prejudice.

It was consequently hard to know what the oft-called “trip-hop pioneer” from Bristol UK had, in fact, delivered in the track he simply called “Black Steel” – but there was no doubt it made for one of the most original and exciting singles of the times. No doubt too that it made, in an unprecedented way, for one great cover.
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One Great Cover: Van Morrison’s “It’s All in the Game”

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Sep 152023
 

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

Van Morrison, very sadly, is no longer Van The Man. More Van the Curmudgeon. But curmudgeon doesn’t rhyme. However, Van the Also-Ran does. A bit harsh? Maybe. Though a procession of erratic (and, in the case of Latest Record Project: Volume 1, irascible) albums, probably since 2016’s Keep Me Singing, hardly offer a robust defense.

Oh, but when he was The Man, he was good. Real good. In his ’70s pomp Van Morrison was on a whole other wavelength (if you will). High on that amorphous thing we call soul, he made us high too on the likes of Moondance, Tupelo Honey and Veedon Fleece. And then there was Into the Music, a collection that accommodated the instantly irresistible “Bright Side of the Road” and “Full Force Gale,” as well as the deeper dives “And the Healing Has Begun” and “It’s All in the Game.”
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