Jake Shimabukuro Archives

The 35 Best Led Zeppelin Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 10:00 am 7 Responses »

Mar 272026

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

Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were veteran session musicians. Robert Plant and John Bonham hadn’t turned 21 yet. The first time the four of them got together, they played “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and in Jones’s words, “the room just exploded, we could see the grins spreading, and we said, ‘Right. We’re on, this is it, this is going to work!'”

Eleven years and change later, the band released a statement: “We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were.”

In between, the band that someone predicted would go over like the world’s biggest lead balloon became the biggest band in the world. Led Zeppelin were pioneers in so many ways. Hard rock, AOR, studio wizardry, stadium touring, album cover design – all saw the band at the forefront. Most importantly, their music was what brought people to them, and what kept them there. All the members were among the best in the world at what they did, and together their alchemy made their songs, whether loud or soft, catch in their listener’s minds and hearts.

When Francis Malofiy called Led Zeppelin “the greatest cover band in all of history,” he didn’t mean it as a compliment. Malofiy was the attorney suing Zeppelin for stealing “Stairway to Heaven”‘s opening riff from the Spirit song “Taurus,” and he certainly wasn’t the first to take the band to court to get songwriting credit. But whether the greatest cover band in all of history synthesized, swiped, or supplanted their influences, the cover bands that came after them were given deep, deep cupboards to plunder, and plunder they did.

We’ve come up with thirty-five top covers of Led Zeppelin songs. Like the band, they branch into blues, country, reggae, folk, and hard rock (and, unlike the band, even jazz). Like the band, they take something great and make it greater. And like Robert, Jimmy, John and John, once you hear it working, your grin is going to spread.

–Patrick Robbins, Features Editor

The 75 Best Beatles Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am 24 Responses »

Feb 232024

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

Sixty years ago this month, The Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show. You don’t need us to tell you what a momentous occasion this was; entire books have been written on the subject. Suffice to say we’re using the anniversary as our excuse to finally devote a Best Covers Ever to perhaps the biggest band of them all. We’ve done Dylan. We’ve done the Stones. We’ve done Dolly and Springsteen and Prince. But there was one last giant remaining.

Though it’s difficult to measure this precisely, The Beatles are the most-covered artist of all time according to the two biggest covers databases on the internet (SecondHandSongs, WhoSampled). And that certainly feels right. “Yesterday” is often cited as the most-covered song of all time, though that needs qualifiers (a ton of Christmas standards would beat it). But, again, it feels right. The Beatles were ubiquitous in their day, and they’ve been ubiquitous ever since. They just had a chart-topping single last month, the A.I.-assisted “Now and Then,” which was duly covered widely. If “Carnival of Light” ever surfaces, no doubt a carnival of covers will soon follow. Continue reading »

The 40 Best Queen Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 8:00 am 7 Responses »

Apr 012021

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

There is no Queen without Freddie Mercury. On a fundamental level, we all agree that is true. But, if you want to be literal about it, there is Queen without Freddie Mercury. Thirty years after Freddie’s death, the show must go on, and so the band still exists. Adam Lambert now sings Freddie’s parts on tour, just as Paul Rodgers did before him. The Bohemian Rhapsody movie included some new vocal recordings – not by star Rami Malek, but by Canadian singer Marc Martel. And then of course there are the many singers who fronted Queen at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, broadcast to an audience of up to one billion people. (If you haven’t watched George Michael singing “Somebody to Love” or Annie Lennox joining David Bowie for “Under Pressure,” go do that now, then come back.)

Suffice to say, millions if not billions of people have heard Queen songs sung by singers other than Freddie Mercury. But none of those we just mentioned are covers, strictly speaking, since they feature most or all of the band’s three surviving members. Bassist John Deacon has since departed – and his joining Queen fifty years ago this month, solidifying the lineup, marks the anniversary we’re pegging this post to – but guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have kept the Queen name alive. No doubt, when touring becomes a thing again, Queen will be back on the road once again.

The forty actual covers on our list do not feature any members of Queen. As such, they’re free to roam much further afield than Adam Lambert or George Michael, turning the band’s hits and the occasional deep cut into genres from polka to punk, a cappella to acoustic instrumental. Queen dabbled in so many different genres during their time – I mean, “Bohemian Rhapsody” alone! – I think they’d appreciate how malleable their songs can be. Even when they’re not the ones performing their songs, Queen will rock you.

Or, in one case, polka you.

The list begins on Page 2.

The Best Cover Songs of 2012

Posted by Staff at 12:30 pm 12 Responses »

Dec 212012

Adele dominated the cover song landscape in 2011, but Two-Aught-Twelve saw no similar galvanizing figure. Yes Lana Del Rey got covered a lot, but Leonard Cohen and Arcade Fire also seemed to garner an unexpected landslide of great covers (and speaking of landslides, so did Fleetwood Mac). “Call Me Maybe” was a huge hit that didn’t lead to much in the way of classic covers, and few seem to have even bothered attempting the Korean raps on “Gangnam Style.”

Which means that cover songs in 2012 were more diverse, ambitious, and left-field than ever before. A given YouTube search or Hype Machine browse would be as likely to turn up forgotten hits or underappreciated songwriters as it would the latest Top 40 smash. Find a sampling of all the diversity in Cover Me’s official Best Cover Songs of 2012 countdown. Start with #40-31 on the next page, and check back daily as we’ll be adding more til we hit #1.

Watch: Uke Master Jake Shimabukuro Shreds on “Rolling In The Deep”

Posted by James McManus at 10:00 am No Responses »

Feb 292012

Few musicians (if any) have re-defined the technique of their instrument the way Jake Shimabukuro has with his revolutionary ukulele arrangements. He introduced himself to the world when his technically-ambitious reworking of The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” hit YouTube in 2006, and he has continued to release a steady stream of equally impressive covers and originals since. Inspired by Adele‘s Grammy sweep, Jake recently brought his unique style to her massive single “Rolling In The Deep,” which he performed recently in an exclusive for Perez Hilton’s website. Continue reading »

Moptop Madness: Jake Shimabukuro’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” vs. Joe Cocker’s “With a Little Help from My Friends” [Final Four]

Posted by Ray Padgett at 8:00 am 2 Responses »

Apr 032011

This March, we pit 64 Beatles covers against each other in what we call Moptop Madness.

Yesterday’s winner: Elliott Smith, “Because”

So it begins. The Final Four. The Semi-Finals. Sixty matches down, three to go. Hard to believe that one of today’s contestants, both of which have dominated their respective brackets, will leave us at day’s end. At first glance, the two couldn’t be more different. Jake Shimabukuro had an unlikely YouTube hit with his solo ukulele cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” while Joe Cocker blew open eardrums – and had an unlikely YouTube hit himself – with “With a Little Help from My Friends.” However, both reinvented oft-covered songs, taking them to places barely hinted at in the songs’ original forms.

Listen to both songs below, then vote for your favorite. For added sway, try to convince others to vote your way in the comments. Voting closes in 24 hours. Continue reading »