Nov 072025
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

Warren Zevon Covers

This weekend, Warren Zevon gets inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after decades of eligibility. So, as the culmination of a week-long tribute to the 2025 Rock Hall class where we posted covers of every artist (catch up here), we are sharing a countdown of the 30 best Zevon covers ever.

Warren Zevon is one of those musicians that other musicians love, so he bats way above his commercial weight in cover songs. The most casual person probably only knows one Zevon song—and it’s appropriate this list is posting just after Halloween. Many music nerds, though, including many musicians, revere the full catalog. Artists way more famous than Zevon, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen, have paid tribute, as have a host of younger acts that consider him a primary influence.

So whether you always hum along with the air conditioner in “Desperados Under the Eaves” or just like aah-ooo-ing to “Werewolves of London,” dive into the Zevon catalog via thirty amazing versions of his songs.

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Jun 042025
 
MJ Lenderman and Patterson Hood

At this year’s Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, MJ Lenderman and Drive-By Truckers’ lead singer Patterson Hood shared both a bill and a stage. Lenderman, who opened the festivities, brought Hood out for the two to team up and play Pink Floyd‘s “Wish You Were Here.” The two kept the song similar to the original in both style and tempo, but with an added flute. (The flutist was Ben Hackett who is in Hood’s band.) The highlight is hearing the voices of the two intertwine and play off each other. Continue reading »

Jul 192024
 
Shonna Tucker

A long-gestating bluegrass tribute album to Bob Seger is has finally been released. A standout highlight is former Drive-By Trucker Shonna Tucker fronting a cover of “Hollywood Nights,” Seger’s 1978 classic. Recorded 10 years ago she formed a bond with the material and its theme, and we can now all share in that. Continue reading »

Jan 022019
 
cover songs 2018

We already counted down the 50 Best Cover Songs of 2018 but, inevitably, many of our staff’s personal favorites get left off. So, before we begin scouting for what might become the best cover of 2019, we share the best of the rest, an unranked hodgepodge of worthy covers that only just missed our year-end countdown. Continue reading »

Oct 202013
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by. Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

This is a hybrid piece, melding together two Cover Me staples, “In Memoriam” and “Full Albums,” prompted by today’s anniversary of the plane crash that killed Lynyrd Skynyrd members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and his sister Cassie Gaines. We’re remembering them by giving the Full Album treatment to the band’s debut album, (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd). While neither of the Gaines siblings appeared on it, they certainly played its classic songs in concert, and probably even some of the lesser-known ones. So this piece may lack a certain consistency, but if a band can tour as Lynyrd Skynyrd with only one original member, then we can still do this.
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Jun 282013
 

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.

Back in 2010, Cover Me posted a Live Collection of the Drive-By Truckers, the Athens, GA band led by Patterson Hood. It featured “every DBT concert cover we could get our hands on,” adding that “Hood’s vast solo repertoire will wait for a later date.” That’s an undertaking for another day, but today we can at least scratch the surface and share a few of Hood’s covers.
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