Under the Radar Archives

Under The Radar: Delbert McClinton

Posted by Seuras Og at 10:00 am No Responses »

Feb 252025

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Fear not, this is no obituary; Delbert McClinton is still around, a mere stripling of 84. Still, given that it’s been three years since his last album and more since he toured, I’d hate to have him slip away on me before I got the chance to celebrate him here.

Delbert who? That’s the response from most when I laud McClinton, his name having surprisingly little traction despite a career as long as my entire life. To answer the question, he’s a good ol’ boy from Lubbock, Texas, with a laissez-faire attitude to genre type-casting. Many of his records went top 20 positions in the US blues and country charts at the same time. We first heard of him playing his distinctive harmonica riffs on Bruce Channel’s “Hey, Baby.” In 1962! (That year he toured the UK with Channel; the Beatles were their opening act, and John Lennon famously got some playing tips from McClinton that he put to use on “Love Me Do.”)

That wasn’t even where McClinton began. He played Texas bar-bands from his teens, backing some of the blues legends then still on the road — Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins just to name a few. A hit with his own band, the Ron-Dels, “If You Really Want Me To, I’ll Go”, came in 1965, followed by a three-year partnership with Glen Clark, 1972-5, before striking out on his own. He was nominated for eight Grammy awards and won four — not too shabby. And let’s not forget his own songwriting, something he may even arguably be better known for. Emmylou Harris’s “Two More Bottles of Wine” was his, as well as many others that led to his 2011 indictment in the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame.

But it is his gravelly, gritty renditions of the songs of others that we celebrate today, vocals that sound they have spent years in the saddle, ahead being trampled underfoot in a bar brawl, buried and then brined for posterity. Imagine a mix of Johns Fogerty and Hiatt, gargled with a sandpaper side, and you pretty much have it. A laryngologist’s nightmare, and perfect for his tramples over blues, country and rock and roll.
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Under the Radar: Punchline

Posted by Sara Stoudt at 1:00 pm No Responses »

Aug 012023

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Photo: Courtesy of Craft Services

The tagline of Punchline’s website reads: “Punchline is a band from Pittsburgh, PA. For fans of Jimmy Eat World, hope, and cats.” As a native Pennsylvanian who is a fan of two of the three of those things, I am immediately sold. (For those of you who think I could ever not be a fan of Jimmy Eat World, I will just leave you with this.)

And then as part of my Wikipedia deep dive on the band and its members, I found this gem on lead singer Steve Soboslai’s page:

In 2011 Soboslai began doing solo performances as “Blue of Colors.” In his first performance he opened for Parachute and Plain White T’s at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania student union.

I was 100% at that show. I was of course wearing a plain white t-shirt–ironically, probably, but maybe not. During this trip down memory lane I didn’t immediately remember the opening, opening act, so I went to listen to the most popular songs on Spotify from the album released closest to that time to try to jog a memory. It’s possible I’m just in the “no way” of it all, but “Goodbye Stranger” sounded fairly familiar. Maybe a mirage. Maybe a memory. “Untie the knot, and I’ll untangle you.”

Just like I can’t conjure a specific memory of that 2011 performance, I can’t pinpoint the first time Punchline surfaced from under the radar for me, but with recent, relatable singles titles like “I Don’t Wanna Leave Yet,” “Can I Get A Break,” and “Find Yourself,” it was a fortuitous find. Since the moment of discovery I have played their Songs from ’94 cover EP many, many times. You will soon understand why.

Under the Radar: Kevin Rowland

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 112023

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Under whose radar?, shout all the UK readers, as Dexys frontman and brand identity Kevin Rowland truly struggles hard to stay out the spotlight in his own land. (OK, struggles may be a stretch, he no wallflower in the publicity seeking stakes, as some of his sartorial choices all too brashly display.) His right to crave our attention today is twofold. You may have enjoyed our recent best one-hit-wonders covers of the ’80s extravaganza, here if you missed it, but, his presence came at some price, our US contingent knowing nothing much of him beyond drunken dance floor filler “Come On Eileen.” A fair old transatlantic barney took place around his right, or otherwise, to appear. Here in the UK, Rowland has been suffering for his art for nearly 45 years (voice from the back: So have we! Yes yes, hilarious, go away now), and we have borne witness to much, much more. (To be fair, longtime readers may recall a 2013 In Defense piece that popped up here, and might have alerted you to all of this. Forgive a little duplication.) But time’s old jet plane is still moving, and there is now an announcement of some forthcoming new, an all new album and a tour for the autumn.

Does any of that sound snarky? It shouldn’t, as I have utmost respect for Rowland and his ever-changing moods, even as, on occasion, he has strained both the credulity and the patience of his audience. I think he’s great, and have even the deemed dodgiest of his output proud on my shelves. I had tickets for his cancelled tour of last year, which a Dylanesque motorbike accident put paid to. A pity, as that was his opportunity to present the revisited remastering of his moment of most fame, 1982’s Too-Rye-Ay album, which spawned the song so loved and hated by Eileens everywhere. Unable to fulfil, give or take a book by then fiddle player Helen O’Hara, who had been re-recruited for that tour, he has, as ever, moved on to new climes. I can’t wait, but, until then, catch a handful (and some) of his influences, disguised as just covers. (Believe me, there is no such thing as “just a cover.”)
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Under the Radar: The Michael Udelson Trio

Posted by Tom McDonald at 10:00 am 3 Responses »

Jul 272022

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

When it comes to instrumental covers of popular music, my go-to is the edgier jazz artists–you probably know the ones I mean. They are lovable troublemakers, but sometimes their jarring ways, all the virtuoso-signaling, is not what the mood calls for. More and more I appreciate instrumentalists who play the melody straight, who embrace the original arrangement of the song and work within its comforting confines.

The trick is that a more modest and direct approach can wash the color out of a song–it becomes the music you hear when the bank puts you on hold. A good cover has a proper edge to it: there’s embellishment and surprise in it, a searching quality, a point of view–all the things missing from the music that elevators listen to during their work hours. For me, the Michael Udelson Trio brings all the good aspects to their jazzy treatments, and leaves behind the undesirable bits.

The band has so far released two recordings, both of them cover albums: Irrational Numbers and Minor Infractions (2015 and 2016). (During the COVID lockdown period, the trio got together virtually to share some new material with fans–so maybe there’s more albums coming in the future.) This next part I find mystifying: these two albums and the songs on them have a vanishingly small number of views/plays. (Probably most of those plays are mine.) The trio’s most popular track on Spotify is their take on Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” It has 17,000 plays. For every other Udelson track, Spotify displays a blank instead a number in the “Plays” column–which why the phrase “vanishingly small” seems apt. It’s fair to ask how that 17,000 figure compares to any jazz piano version of “Paranoid Android.” Here’s a point of comparison: Brad Mehldau’s cover has nearly 5,000,000 plays.

Few seem to know or care about MUT–not even its own members, as we’ll see shortly. So who are these guys, and where their fans at?
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Under the Radar: Handpan Player Rosie Bergonzi

Posted by Tim Edgeworth at 1:00 pm No Responses »

Apr 222022

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Last year, a study by Fender and YouGov of Americans between 16-34 revealed that 16 million people had taken up the guitar since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking to Insider about the study, Fender CEO Andy Mooney estimated that “as many as 72 million people are playing the guitar right now.” These are impressive statistics, and something to be celebrated. However, it’s hard not to wonder if the prominence of instruments like the guitar might be pushing other, less-well known instruments to the sidelines.

One person doing a lot to change this is London-based percussionist Rosie Bergonzi. Rosie has a YouTube channel dedicated to the handpan, a unique flying-saucer shaped instrument that can trace its roots back to the Trinidadian steel drum. The channel is a goldmine of information, featuring lessons, interactive livestreams, and an eclectic selection of covers arranged especially for the handpan.

“I first started playing the handpan in 2015,” Rosie tells Cover Me. “A few years before, I heard a busker playing in the street, and I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard–I was determined to have one! So after a lot for searching I found my own handpan and have kept up with it from there.”

The handpan itself was created in Switzerland in 2001 by steel drum makers Sabrina Scharer and Felix Rohner of Pan Art, based on a suggestion by hand percussionist Reto Weber. For its first twelve years of existence the instrument – originally known as the Hang drum – was extremely hard to come by, available only by sending a special request directly to Pan Art. However, once Pan Art ceased production of Hang drums in 2013, the instrument became widely available from other makers, soon becoming known as the handpan.

How does Rosie go about choosing songs to cover?

“I’ve found that the tunes have to be very melodic for an instrumental cover, so rap, for example, is really hard to make effective as it’s all about the words. It’s always surprising ones that work well, so I ask around a lot for song suggestions – any genre!”

And what about arranging the songs for the handpan?

“I get the chords down, normally while singing the tune. Then I work out the melody. The harder job is working out how to play the two at the same time. My handpans have limited amounts of notes (9-17) so getting the melody to sing clearly is an interesting challenge. My favorite part is working out the arrangement, sometimes playing with the speeds to make it feel really different to the original.”

To demonstrate this process, Rosie started a series called Covers Done Quick, where she selects a song a random and adapts it for the handpan in just one hour.

Let’s look at some of Rosie’s other handpan covers…
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Under the Radar: Isto

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 3:00 pm No Responses »

Oct 152021

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Here’s a great example of how internet rabbit holes work. I wanted to find out if the Broccoli family that produced the James Bond movies was named after the vegetable or the other way around (answer: inconclusive but leaning toward the former). I learned that broccoli was considered a delicacy in America in the early 20th century. Then I remembered the famous New Yorker cartoon. Well, I thought, that explains that, and went to learn more about that. This was where I learned that Irving Berlin wrote a song called “I Say It’s Spinach (And the Hell With It),” so of course I had to go find it on YouTube.

This is how I discovered Isto.