George Harrison Archives

That’s A Cover?: “Got My Mind Set On You” (George Harrison / James Ray)

Posted by Adam Mason at 12:00 pm No Responses »

Feb 212025

That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.

George Harrison seemed an artist reborn upon the release of “Got My Mind Set On You” in 1987, in a way that compared with Paul Simon on “You Can Call Me Al” the previous year. No sad relic here of a legendary 1960s act with fading powers, whose days of selling gazillions of records were a long, long, long time past. No whiff of recent flop albums, or flop movies. Instead, a pop star wielding an insanely upbeat and wonderfully infectious pop nugget, reveling in an MTV-conquering video, and quite rightly storming up the singles charts in a style we’d come to associate with Madonna, Whitney Houston, and the Pet Shop Boys.

Caught up in the fun of it all, there was no reason to believe the track was anything other than a Harrison original, either, being exactly the kind of catchy rock ‘n’ roll number someone who’d been in the Beatles would come up with (right?). Only with a big 1980s pop sound: big drums, big horns, and big backing vocals. Besides, no other version of the song ever got played on the radio.

But the truth was this: Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set On You” was a cover. And a cover very much in the vein of early Beatles cuts “Please Mr. Postman,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music,” and more specifically the George-fronted “Devil in Her Heart,” and “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby.” It was a cover that had everything to do with the American soul, R&B, and rock ’n’ roll that first inspired Harrison as the lead guitarist/singer in what would become the toppermost band in the world. It’s just that the original was by an artist a lot more unsung than the Marvelettes, Chuck Berry, the Donays, and Carl Perkins.

Essential to Harrison’s 1980s revitalization, then, on his biggest solo single since “My Sweet Lord” in 1970, was a mighty sayonara! to years of tribute and soundtrack doldrums and a nostalgic reconnection with an obscure and sorrowful 1962 non-hit by an unsuccessful and largely unknown black soul singer by the name of James Ray. Unlikely, we know! So it’s high time we offered more in the way of explanation. Specifically, the illumination of several key moments.
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The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2024

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am 4 Responses »

Dec 202024

Follow all our Best of 2024 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

Welcome to the 50 Best Tom Petty Covers of 2024!

We kid, of course. But for whatever reason, this year’s big trend in covers was: Tom Petty. At one point there were something like 20 Petty covers on our longlist. Many came from two all-star tribute albums that dropped, entirely coincidentally, the same year (they both made our Best Albums list). We narrowed it down, of course. Three Petty covers ended up in this Top 50, one not even from those albums. Then, just this week, another high-profile Petty cover dropped: Snoop and Jelly Roll reworking “Last Dance for Mary Jane”! Suffice to say that one wouldn’t have been a contender even if it hadn’t arrived too late.

That was the big surprise trend in 2024 covers. The less-surprising trend you could have called from a mile out: The new wave of young pop divas—Chappell, Sabrina, Charli—got covered a lot. We could have done an entire 50-song list of their covers, too (the “Good Luck Babe”s alone!). But, if we had, we would have missed out on gospel R.E.M. and country The Weeknd and electropop Mott the Hoople and soul Green Day and… you know what, just read the list.

(Moo-chas gracias and Deng-ke schoen to Hope Silverman for this year’s tiny-hippo art.)

Parlor Greens Produce Succulent Cover of “My Sweet Lord”

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Aug 082024

The arrival of a funky Hammond Organ-based trio is always a cause for celebration. Colemine Records recently brought together a powerhouse in that field, with their sessions being released as Parlor Greens’ new album, In Green/We Dream. In addition to some incredibly lithe, funky, psychedelic callbacks to the R&B of days gone by, it contains a new version of “My Sweet Lord.”

The band, consisting of Jimmy James on guitars, Adam Scone on Hammond B3, and bluesman Tim Carman on drums, have said that their touchstone was not the original version, but a more obscure one by Leonard Caston. The God Squad’s (featuring Caston) devotional album Jesus Christ Greatest Hits does indeed feature an organ, but it stops short of something that Parlor Greens wants to achieve, as it had some vocal harmonies. They long for the day when Grant Green produced fully instrumental versions of hits. However, in doing so they face a huge challenge. Religious or spiritual songs often aim to provide certainty via the words in their lyrics. If someone is inspired to write one it is because they Believe with a capital B, and they want others to, and the lyrics reflect this.
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The Best Cover Songs of September 2023

Posted by Ray Padgett at 9:55 am 2 Responses »

Sep 292023

Al Green — Perfect Day (Lou Reed cover)

It’s been 15 years since the last Al Green album. Does “Perfect Day” signal the beginning of his comeback? Unclear — I thought so after his last single, another cover, and that was five years ago. But we can hope. “I loved Lou’s original ‘Perfect Day’—the song immediately puts you in a good mood,” Green explained. “We wanted to preserve that spirit, while adding our own sauce and style.” Continue reading »

Damian Marley Covers “My Sweet Lord” to Mark Concert for Bangladesh Anniversary

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 9:00 am 3 Responses »

Aug 032023

Damian Marley has not released much new music recently. To mark the 52nd anniversary of the Concert for Bangladesh, “Gong Jr.” has released a version of George Harrison’s iconic solo track My Sweet Lord,” marking his first single release since 2019. Continue reading »

Willie and Lukas Nelson Team Up for “All Things Must Pass” Cover

Posted by Curtis Zimmermann at 12:00 pm 1 Response »

Nov 292021

“All Things Must Pass” is one of George Harrison’s signature solo songs, but by all rights, it should have been a Beatles tune. In the new documentary The Beatles: Get Back, there are scenes of the group working on the track in rehearsal. After the Fab Four opted not to record it, Billie Preston released a version on his 1970 album Encouraging Words. The song was later immortalized as the title track to Harrison’s 1972 solo album. Now, fifty years later, it almost seems like an understatement to call “All Things Must Pass” a classic. The track is both timeless and timely, a secular hymn, meditating on the brevity of beauty, love and time itself.

Willie Nelson knows a thing or two about the passage of time. The country music legend released his first album in 1962, several months before the Beatles dropped their debut Please Please Me. Nelson has continued putting out records at a furious pace over the last few decades. For his latest, The Willie Nelson Family, he enlisted the talents of his children. The album has the feel and consistency of many of Nelson’s recent offers, not exactly breaking new ground but still compelling enough to warrant a listen. The album features multiple gospel recordings including takes on Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” and “Keep It On the Sunny Side,” a hymn made famous by the Carter Family.

Wedged in between the many tracks about Jesus is a cover of Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” Willie’s son Lukas Nelson takes on the lead vocal duties, with Willie providing backup. The two deliver a quiet, passionate rendition of Harrison’s masterwork that feels like it’s been part of their family repertoire for decades.