Nov 232023
 

Cover Genres takes a look at cover songs in a very specific musical style.

Minnie Riperton

Back in 2022, right here on Cover Me, I wrote a confessional essay titled Soul In The Middle Of The Road. It was all about my weird, scarily specific obsession with R&B covers of soft rock songs from the ’70s and early ’80s that were recorded during that same era. Well, here’s where I confess to you that it wasn’t quite the whole story. My affliction actually runs a bit deeper than I first described. In addition to my soft-soul craving, I have a side obsession with R&B covers of classic, dirty, Dad-approved late ’60s ‘n’ ’70s-era ROCK songs recorded during those same years. Yes, you guessed it: it’s sequel time! Welcome to Exorcist II: The Heretic The Rock Of Soul, an over-the-top sister piece to that original essay.

Before we start, I need to lay out a particular parameter regarding the songs included in this love letter/essay. There are multitudes of fine soul-ified covers of songs by Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles. Everyone from Aretha to Stevie Wonder to Otis Redding has recorded something from at least one of their songbooks, as have a myriad of incredible others.

We’re not gonna talk about those.

Instead, we’re gonna be adventurous mofos. The fact is, at this stage of humanity, none of us need to hear another cover of “Let It Be,” good, bad, or otherwise (don’t freakin’ pretend like you do). Besides, it’s way more fun to look past the well-trod songbooks of rock’s behemoths and dig a little deeper. All of which is to say, we’re gonna get weird and occasionally obscure here. In a few cases, you may not be familiar with the originals. I know I wasn’t when I first heard several of these covers. So as an added bonus, I’m going to include links to some of the lesser-known tracks just so you can check them out and potentially be even more blown away by the reinterpretations (Hope says hopefully).

Okay, are you ready to hear some fine, old-school late ’60s and ’70s FM radio nuggets by wonderfully sludgy stalwarts/stallions/stadium stalkers like Cream, Free, and Mr. Springsteen get transformed into mighty ‘n’ righteous clouds of joy (and shimmery beautiful tears)? Then let’s get crackin’ (chronologically).
Continue reading »

Feb 192021
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday  celebrates an artist’s special day with covers of his or her songs. Let someone else do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

birthday

Hi, I’m Patrick Robbins, the features editor here at Cover Me, and today’s my birthday. Please forgive the self-indulgence of a one-year-older guy for putting up a post that’s about me.

2021 is kind of a big year for me. Not only am I having one of those milestone birthdays – you know, one of those ones that ends in a zero – I’m also having a milestone anniversary. This year marks ten years since I joined the Cover Me staff. In all that time, I’ve gotten off a few good lines here and there (my favorite: a song had “more hooks than Moulty’s closet”), but far more importantly, I’ve found some great covers that I never would have discovered if I hadn’t been looking for them to share and talk about here.

So, as a little birthday present from me to you, I thought I’d pick out some of my favorite discoveries I’ve made over the years. What follows are some of my all-time favorite covers that I found specifically for Cover Me posts (as opposed to covers I already knew about), and links to the pieces in which I originally wrote about them. There’s a lot of songs here, but they’re only about one percent of the songs I’ve written about. So think of these as the cream of my cover crop.

Thanks to all of you for reading Cover Me – without you, this post wouldn’t exist – and here’s to many more birthdays and anniversaries to come.

Continue reading »

Feb 052016
 

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!

al-kooper

Dylan: “Turn the organ up.”

Wilson: “Hey, man, that cat’s not an organ player.”

Dylan: “Hey, now don’t tell me who’s an organ player and who’s not. Just turn the organ up.”

When Bob Dylan ordered producer Tom Wilson to bring up the organ in “Like a Rolling Stone,” it cemented the talents of a 21-year-old named Al Kooper into legend. (Kooper tells the whole story in his fantastic autobiography Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards.) Once serendipity has allowed you to put a trademark stamp on arguably the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time, there’s nowhere to go but down, right?

Wrong – in fact, Kooper was just getting started.
Continue reading »

May 082013
 

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

“Sam Stone,” from John Prine’s self-titled 1971 debut album, is considered one of the most depressing songs ever written. We’re not talking my-baby-left-me depressing here, understand; this is a song about a wounded war veteran suffering from PTSD and a heroin addiction, who grows remote from his family and winds up dying alone, with a chorus couplet so devastating (“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes / Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose”) that even Johnny Cash flinched at it, altering the words in his own cover. When the Man in Black can’t bring himself to sing your lyrics, you know you’ve touched a nerve.
Continue reading »