Gladys Knight and the Pips Archives

In The Spotlight: Bread

Posted by Hope Silverman at 12:00 pm 2 Responses »

Jul 182025

Even during their absolute peak of popularity in the early ’70s, when I was kid living for AM radio, the gushy, on-bended-knee, soft-rocking romantic balladry of Bread held no allure for me. My musical palate at that time, was as unrefined as my daily afterschool snack of a single Devil Dog™ with a Hawaiian Punch™ chaser. Sammy Davis Jr.’s “The Candy Man” and The Aristocats soundtrack were unironically being spun in my blue shag carpeted bedroom on a daily basis. I thought the Bay City Rollers were amazing and as good as The Beatles. But even my sugar-pickled brain with its relentlessly questionable taste, was able to discern that softer-than-soft rocking Bread were not cool.

I knew this because their songs were all icky-lovey-dovey like you’d hear at a wedding. I knew because in my grade school music class, their song “If” was deemed unthreatening and un-rock ‘n’ roll enough for we innocent children to be taught to sing. I knew this because they weren’t like, you know, cute, or at least cute enough for a table of pop-worshipping little gals at a lunch table to ever gush over (never happened ever). I knew this because easy listening crooners Andy Williams and Perry Como seemed really into covering Bread songs on their lame, grandma-seducing TV specials.

Bread’s imperial years ran from 1969-1973, during which time they released five (!) studio albums and landed nine songs in the Top 20 of the U.S. pop chart, every one of which is now a massively-streamed, seventies pop-soft rock monster standard. “Everything I Own”. “Make It With You”. “If”. “Baby I’m-a Want You”. “The Guitar Man”. Hits, hits, hits! The band—David Gates, Jimmy Griffin, Mike Botts, Rob Royer (from ’69-’71) and Larry Knechtel (’71-73, ’76-78)—broke up and reunited twice (1976-78, 1997-98)…and, as the timeline hints, there was a fair amount of inter-band drama.

Gates and Griffin were both were gifted songwriters but the former’s compositions featuring his lead vocals were the ones consistently released as singles. This led to a fair amount of bad blood and resentment which later manifested in a lawsuit over use of the band name which Gates and Griffin co-owned. Along with this excess of alpha dogs, there were drugs. Yes, even the sonically gentle Bread weren’t immune to all the traditional band-related tropes.

So why am I writing about these sappy suckers? Well, because as the years have passed, I’ve come to realize that while Bread weren’t “cool,” they definitely didn’t suck. They were in fact really good. Bread were a bottomless pit of memorable, lovely windblown pop songs…and they’ve inspired a staggering number of covers.

I’ve written a couple of lengthy, nerdy love letters on Cover Me about R &B covers of soft rock (here) and hoary old regular rock (here). While researching those pieces, I was struck by just how many covers of Bread songs there were. Not only were there a whole lot of soulful reinterpretations but there were a ton of alternately fascinating, weird and impassioned pop-flavored takes of Bread songs…and we are gonna explore.

Welcome to the gorgeous and goofy world of Bread covers.
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Five Good Covers: “Midnight Train to Georgia” (Jim Weatherly)

Posted by Seuras Og at 1:00 pm 1 Response »

Mar 022021

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

If you live and die known for but one song, it better be a good one, and in “Midnight Train to Georgia” Jim Weatherly, who just died last month, wrote one of the best. The song is far and away best known in the iconic version by Gladys Knight. Never forgetting the Pips, for it is they who lift the song from merely great to transcendent. OK, the arrangement is pretty damn fine too, the orchestration and backing exuding all the desolation and disappointment of Amtrak by night. But it wasn’t always that way. Continue reading »

In The Spotlight: Donny Hathaway

Posted by Hope Silverman at 1:00 pm No Responses »

Jan 312020

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!

At the conclusion of Amy Winehouse’s posthumously released version of “A Song for You,” there’s a particularly revealing and heartbreaking snippet of dialogue. “Marvin Gaye (was), great,” Amy emphatically states, “but Donny Hathaway like…he couldn’t contain himself, he had something in him, you know.” It’s heartbreaking to hear for myriad reasons, but it’s also, hands down, the most beautifully spot-on description of Donny Hathaway’s transcendent gift. He was in possession of an extraordinary voice that, like Aretha’s, could easily evoke tears in the most hardened of souls, even if the song itself was expressing a seemingly uplifting sentiment. He didn’t so much sing as simply feel out loud.

By the end of 1973, Donny Hathaway had recorded three solo studio albums, a duet album with Roberta Flack, and a movie soundtrack, as well as a live album widely acknowledged as one of the greatest ever made. He’d become the recipient of considerable critical acclaim, money, overwhelming attention…and pressure, much of which was self-created. He was a musical perfectionist of the extreme, complex, and occasionally insufferable Brian Wilson variety, both in the studio and onstage. And he was surprisingly insecure about the quality of his voice (a fact we standard issue humans might find hard to comprehend), so much so that in the latter years of his career he’d taken to telling colleagues that if he did any more recording, he no longer wanted to sing but just wanted to play piano.

Donny had been diagnosed as schizophrenic in 1971, and as time progressed, sadly, so did the disease. He also suffered from depression. By 1974 his mental health issues had become so severe that studio work and live performances became increasingly difficult to arrange and follow through with. He did what he could, when he was able, but for all intents and purposes, his career as a singular headlining and touring artist was over. As a result, from 1974 to 1979, his recorded output was minimal, consisting of two tracks with Roberta Flack in 1979 and a dozen or so solo songs, the latter of which didn’t see light of day until the release of the 2013 Rhino box set Never My Love. He ultimately died by suicide on January 13th, 1979 in New York City.

Donny Hathaway was one of the greatest singers to ever walk the planet, and his excursions into the world of covers remain to this day a master class in how it’s done.
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Five Good Covers: “Sugar, Sugar” (The Archies)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 2:00 pm 3 Responses »

Jun 042019

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

I used to work in the music department of a chain bookstore. One day a customer came in and asked, “Do you have a copy of the song ‘Sugar, Sugar’?” We did, of course; I took him to the Various Artists section and handed him a copy of Billboard Top Rock ‘n’ Roll Hits: 1969.

“Thanks,” he said. “I have to learn this song for a lip-sync for work.” He grimaced.

“Wait,” I said. “If it doesn’t matter what version you lip-sync to…”

In a twinkling he was holding a Very Best of Wilson Pickett CD, containing Pickett’s classic “Sugar, Sugar” cover. “Yes!” he said, eyes alight. “This has songs on it I’ll actually want to listen to more than once!”

The Wicked Pickett’s version is indeed eternally worthy of relistening, but I don’t want to slight the Archies song. Sung by Ron Dante and backed up by Toni Wine (who turns 72 today!), it’s the perfect AM rock song, the #1 song of 1969, one that Lou Reed once admitted he wished he’d written. It’s been remade for Archie-related live-action TV shows, not once but twice. And it’s raked up a lot of covers – including some by artists you never would have guessed…

Watch Exclusive Snoop Dogg, Righteous Brothers, Marvin Gaye Covers at 2nd ‘Cover Me’ Book Party

Posted by Ray Padgett at 12:39 pm 1 Response »

Nov 032017

In October, I held the first release event for the Cover Me book at Paste Magazine’s New York studios, featuring performances by Eli Paperboy Reed, Emel Mathlouthi, and Anthony D’Amato (watch them all here!). And this week I held the second, at Phoenix Books in my old hometown of Burlington, Vermont. The concept was similar: rather than a dry book talk, I would combine some conversation with live covers of songs from the book.

Two of my favorite local bands, Swale and Madaila – both of which I’ve posted about here before – stepped up with some amazing performances. And luckily, like at Paste, we’ve got footage. (More amateur-quality footage, admittedly – iPhones at a bookstore rather than multi-cam at Paste’s recording studio – but the performances are every bit as stunning.)

Swale kicked things off with a tender trio take on “Unchained Melody,” the Righteous Brothers hit first recorded as the theme for the now-forgotten 1955 prison move Unchained. Bobby Hatfield left a pretty high bar for a vocalist to hit, but Swale’s Amanda Gustafson easily cleared it while Eric Olsen (guitar) and Tyler Bolles (bass) gave her a stripped-down acoustic backing. Continue reading »

The ‘Cover Me’ Book Is Out Today!

Posted by Ray Padgett at 9:00 am 6 Responses »

Oct 032017

Today is the day! At long last, Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time is in stores and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, and many other places (including, hopefully, your local independent bookstore!).

A lot has happened since I first announced the book back in May. The New Yorker published an excerpt about Devo’s meeting with Mick Jagger. I was interviewed on SiriusXM about the Hendrix, Cash, Aretha, Pet Shop Boys, Elvis, and Creedence Clearwater Revival chapters. And most importantly for you reading this, I put together an exclusive bonus mix that blog fans can get when they buy the book (it says “pre-order,” but we’ll say “week-of-release order” counts too).

And I wanted to share one more thing, another blog exclusive: An audio companion to the book. Continue reading »