Cover Genres: Banjo

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Apr 212023
 

Cover Genres takes a look at cover songs in a very specific musical style.

banjo

Yes, it’s true–banjo isn’t really a genre, per se, as it encompasses more than one musical style. Way more. But this category could use a kickstart, and what better instrument to provide the kick with?

Now, I love the banjo, but I know full well how many don’t. Indeed, only the bagpipes and the accordion have been the butt of more jokes. My goal, then, is to take you the reader beyond the backwoods and blue grass, and to show you the other vistas where a banjo can not only play, it can also rule.

So then, banjo, do yer worst!
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Aug 312022
 
Eddie Vedder – Long Shadow (Joe Strummer cover)

This month, Joe Strummer would have turned 70. In a few weeks, Dark Horse Records will release the compilation Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years. To promote it, director Lance Bangs filmed a video of Eddie Vedder covering the posthumously-released Mescaleros track “Long Shadow.” It’s a simple fireside performance, similar to Vedder buddy Neil Young’s lockdown videos, and hopefully will bring more attention to a lesser known non-Clash track from the Strummer catalog. Continue reading »

Sep 012020
 
clash tribute

The Clash are arguably one of the pioneers of punk rock, laying down the formation for the next 50 years of punk and its derivatives. In honor of what would have been Clash lead signer Joe Strummer’s birthday last week, New Jersey-based alternative rock band Lost in Society have released the EP Casbah Club. The EP contains covers of three Clash songs: “Police on my Back”, “Rock the Casbah” and “Death or Glory.” Continue reading »

Aug 212020
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

Joe Strummer covers

John Graham Mellor was born on August 21st, 1952 in Ankara, Turkey. He entered a boarding school in London at the age of 9. He was obsessed with music and went by the nickname “Woody” (he was quite the Woody Guthrie fan). In 1970 he had to identify his brother’s body after his estranged sibling committed suicide three days prior – something that would haunt him forever. After graduating he attended the Central School of Art and Design in London, and in 1973 he moved to Newport, Wales where he played guitar and sang for a band called The Vultures. In 1974 he moved back to London and started the band The 101ers. The following year, he told his mates to stop calling him Woody Mellor. He had adopted a new moniker, and for the rest of his life he would be known as Joe Strummer.
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Jun 052015
 

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

bobmarley

His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation. – Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga, in his eulogy to Bob Marley

Maybe it’s a cheat to include a greatest hits album in the Full Album Covers category, but when the suggestion of Legend was put forward, I was intrigued. Only as I started searching did I perhaps discover why this best-of was the album suggested, instead of Catch a Fire, say, or Natty Dread. One of Bob Marley’s “normal” studio, or even live, albums might have been, well, a much duller choice, actually. If not dull, then uninnovative and samey, because anyone can do karaoke, and by golly, there are a lot of copycat Marley covers out there! By focusing on Legend, at least there is  opportunity to steer a little clearer of identikit versions.
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Apr 222015
 

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: What’s a favorite country & western cover of a non-country & western song?
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