James Brown Archives

Pons Release Noise-Rock Cover of James Brown Deep Cut

Posted by Riley Haas at 9:00 am No Responses »

Jun 112024

“Can’t Stand It” is a deep cut from James Brown’s 32nd album Hot Pants, basically a remake of his 1968 single “I Can’t Stand Myself When You Touch Me.” (Let’s pause to wonder how someone could release 32 albums in 13 years. Remaking songs probably helped.) It’s certainly not one of his better known songs but it is classic early ’70s James Brown funk, lean and full of his classic exhortations, including demanding horns which don’t show up until three and half minutes into the song. Continue reading »

Five Good Covers: “Strangers in the Night” (Frank Sinatra)

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 1:30 pm No Responses »

May 062022

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

SecondHandSongs says that the two most-covered songs written in 1966 were by the Beatles – “Eleanor Rigby” and “Here, There and Everywhere.” That’s no surprise. The next two most-covered songs from that year were written by another songwriting team; Burt Bacharach and Hal David came up with “The Look of Love” and “Alfie.” Also no big surprise.

But then comes the fifth-most-covered song of 1966: “Beddy Bye” by Bert Kaempfert. Ring any bells? If not, perhaps you’ll recognize it from the movie it appeared in – the James Garner comedy-thriller A Man Could Get Killed. Still no? Well, at the time it had no lyrics, but once they arrived, and once Frank Sinatra sang them, it became immortal as “Strangers in the Night.”
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Review: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit’s ‘Georgia Blue’

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm 1 Response »

Oct 182021

When Joe Biden was bidding for POTUS, Jason Isbell declared his support by tweeting a promise. If the state of Georgia, his home state, went blue (Democrat), a possibility hitherto deemed impossible, he would record a cover album of Georgia-related songs for charity, “and damn is that gonna be fun.” As Isbell would later say, he had been looking for an excuse to record such a record for some time, but this now offered the ideal opportunity.

Well, Georgia went blue, against the odds and expectations, and with the release of Georgia Blue, three organizations are the better off for it, with all the album’s proceeds going toward Black Voters Matter, Georgia Stand-Up and Fair Fight.
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Aretha Franklin’s Best Cover Songs Ever

Posted by Staff at 10:00 am 6 Responses »

Mar 252020

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

August 16 has long been a day of infamy in the history of American popular music. It started in 1977 when Elvis Presley, the King of Rock n’ Roll, passed away. Forty-one years later, another member of rock royalty also died: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. Though she was older and her death less of a shock to the cultural landscape, I still remember the exact moment when I heard the news. I was with my family driving home from Sesame Place in Pennsylvania listening to the Beatles channel on SiriusXM. The DJ interrupted to tell us the sad news and in Franklin’s honor played her version of “Let It Be.” Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: What’s your favorite cover you learned about on Cover Me?

Posted by Staff at 12:00 pm 1 Response »

Jul 172019

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 Mike Misch: What’s a favorite song you learned about on Cover Me?
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Cover Classics: Cat Power’s “The Covers Record” and “Jukebox”

Posted by Seuras Og at 2:00 pm No Responses »

Dec 072018

Cover Classics takes a look at great covers albums of the past, their genesis and their legacies.

Black Friday may have gone, but here’s a twofer bargain.

Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, has produced two near-full album cover classics in her career (so far), which doesn’t even begin to fully address her never-more-quirky approach to the songs of others. Not that she is lost for any words of her own! She’s got a back catalogue stretching across many styles and many genres, from raw scratchy indie through slinky southern soul, a touch of electronica and back again, yet always unmistakably herself. Her career has seen her seemingly beset by internal demons; many had written her off until her triumphant return this fall with Wanderer, containing ten of her own songs, and one contender for our Cover Songs of the Year post.

But it is back to 2000 we first go, to The Covers Record. Allegedly a disappointment to her record company, who had appreciated this was an artiste worth their investment, but even with lackluster promotion it became a slow burning triumph. Praise and plaudits accumulated over the years, not least as box set dramas required ever more diverse musical accompaniments.
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