Dread Zeppelin Archives

Five Good Covers: “Sunshine Of Your Love” (Cream)

Posted by Seuras Og at 12:00 pm 7 Responses »

Mar 082024

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

Duh duh de duh, dun dun dun da DEEEEE duh.
Duh duh de duh, dun dun dun da DEEEEE duh.

That “Sunshine of Your Love” riff has been rewiring my circuits all day, my ears thoroughly and efficiently wormed. Music writers Covach and Boone describe the riff as “blues-derived, using a minor blues pentatonic scale with an added flattened fifth note,” doncha know, and I can’t get rid of it. So I’m hoping it might help if I wrote about it. Otherwise that riff is going to stay with me ’til my seas are dried up.
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Five Good Covers: “Rock and Roll” (Led Zeppelin)

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm 2 Responses »

Oct 182019

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

Even if you can’t quite stomach the whole full-on vibe of Led Zeppelin — me, I have to admit to some yawning over the self-reverent mythologizing that can abound whenever one J. Page gets interviewed — you have to admit that “Rock and Roll” is one prime slice of, well, rock’n’roll. Astonishing, even, and one that has me almost believing it all. To be fair, at the time Zeppelin were bigger than huge, bigger than massive, and the sheer impact of side one of IV, on headphones, in a record store in Eastbourne, Sussex, U.K., had this 14-year-old boy smitten. I’d found II too guitarry (!), but this had me on their team immediately. (Side 2 less so, but that’s another story.)

Anyhow, it was in one of these long fawning articles the rock music glossies are so fond of that I discovered the back story of how “Rock and Roll” practically wrote itself in minutes, or at least the melody line. Messing around in the studio, John Bonham suddenly kicked off into an embellished drum intro, “borrowed” from Little Richard’s “Keep a Knockin’.” Jimmy Page instinctively banging in with the riff that basically is the song. With lyrics come from ye olde school rocke thesaurus, Robert Plant’s keening banshee of a vocal somehow imbues a meaningful basis for it all, whilst John Paul Jones’ subterranean bass underpins the whole thing. And, just when you are thinking it all a bit derivative, a final touch of brilliance: single note piano pounding it into the home stretch, courtesy of sixth Stone Ian Stewart.
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Full Albums: ‘Saturday Night Fever’ Soundtrack

Feature, Full Albums, Video 3 Responses »

Oct 112019

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977, joining the ranks of great movies that feature dance as a plot line such as the ballerina fairytale The Red Shoes, or the string of Fred Astaire movies with Ginger Rogers (Top Hat, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, and more) and without (Easter Parade, with a post-Oz Judy Garland). This genre also has plenty of popular descendants like Dirty Dancing, Footloose, Save the Last Dance, and Step Up. SNF is both a worthy successor to the older films and a proud forebear of those that followed in its dance steps.

Starring John Travolta before he had really made his mark (post-Kotter, pre-Grease), the story is as old as time: boy wants to escape his mundane job and dramatic family life through dance and pursue the woman of his dreams, who of course is bad for him, along the way. Plus, there is an obligatory Brooklyn v. Staten Island rivalry thrown in for good measure.

The Bee Gees had fallen into a funk, and not the good kind, in the early 1970s. With help from disco and falsetto, the band had found a new groove. Being a major part of the SNF soundtrack – they composed and/or performed eight of its 17 songs – helped breathe new life into their career. The soundtrack contributed three of their six consecutive number-one singles to the Bee Gees streak, at the time tying the Beatles’ record for the most in the United States.

The soundtrack helped the Bee Gees win five Grammys, and the Bee Gees were able to keep up the momentum from this success until the end of the disco era. By the end of the ’70s, disco fever had burned itself out.

Although some of the themes and dialogue from the movie don’t hold up, the songs remain essential for those times when you want to put on your boogie shoes.
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Cover Me Q&A: What was the best/worst experience you have had seeing a “tribute” band?

Posted by Staff at 12:00 pm 7 Responses »

Oct 022019

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question, courtesy of Cover Me staffer Jordan Becker: What was the best/worst experience you have had seeing a “tribute” band?
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In the Spotlight: Dread Zeppelin

Posted by Mark Bogard at 5:00 pm 2 Responses »

Apr 082014

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!

Imagine, if you will, a place where Elvis is still the King. Not the slim, young, rockabilly Elvis, shaking hips and pouting lips, but a rotund, sweaty, Vegas Elvis, one who is adorned in sequins, karate-kicking and crab-clawing his way through an entire set of Led Zeppelin songs. And just for shins and grits, imagine those oh-so-familiar classic rock tunes tuned to a reggae beat and backed by a band that’s a cross between Bad Brains and Bob Marley. Amazingly, what can be imagined can – and has – become reality. Welcome to the world of Dread Zeppelin.
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