Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.
Jimmy Somerville, should you need reminding, was the idiosyncratic voice of both Bronski Beat and the Communards, a high and pure countertenor, falsetto even, frayed at the margins. His was an altogether extraordinary instrument, capable of drawing an emotive heft other ranges can’t always supply. With Bronski Beat very much derived within an electro footprint, the Communards cast a much wider musical palate, with textures freely shared out between HI-NRG, R’n’B and chanson, all with an ear on commercial hooks and sheer joyous exuberance. Which, given some of their subject matter, was a feat in itself.
It is somehow galling to appreciate that “Smalltown Boy,” likely Somerville’s most recognized song, stems from all of 40 years ago. He left Bronski Beat the following year, the duration of the Communards then merely three years. While his solo career never quite hit the heights of either of those two bands, the six albums he released between 1989 and 2015 showed he was still in the game. He has also dabbled in acting and busking, and he’s remained the political firebrand, often for gay causes. Indeed, his last recorded work was a 2021 cover of “Everything Must Change,” for London-based charity End Youth Homelessness, which shows his voice remains as striking as ever.
Somerville released a cover album, Suddenly Last Summer, in 2009. It didn’t chart anywhere, even in France, the French aways holding his torch reliably until then. It is both easy and hard to see how it sank with such little trace. Easy? Well, with little to trouble any sweaty clubbers, the acoustic format and the choice of material might prove too demanding for casual fans. Hard? Maybe my bias, but the eclecticism of the songs, featuring songs better known by The Doors, Deep Purple, Cole Porter and Patsy Cline, amongst others, is dauntingly brave, the often spare arrangements starkly impressive and, how can I put this any more simply, his voice. He nails ’em. Or the vast majority of them.
The chances are that many readers will be unfamiliar with Suddenly Last Summer. The songs on it were all chosen by Somerville personally, all songs close to his heart, rather than the ideas of his producer or management. This, and the evident passion from within the grooves, make it one that should at least invite curiosity.
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Well, the last thing anyone would ever accuse Van Morrison of is predictability, so seeing his name and his new album on this particular website shouldn’t surprise as much as it actually does. The famously taciturn Belfast crooner is known, after all, for his own compositions, and he has built up a vast legacy of work over his 60 years of prodigious activity. But every so often, usually to demonstrate his love for the songs he heard in his youth, good Sir Ivan will cobble together a set of standards, usually performed in his own idiosyncratic style, and leave everyone gasping. One such was Irish Heartbeat, a set of trad Irish folk that he made with the Chieftains in 1988; another, 2006’s Pay The Devil, looked (if less memorably) at the country and western songbook. Furthermore, he has dedicated an album to the music of Mose Allison (who appeared with him for that) and made collaborations with bluesman John Lee Hooker and, more recently, jazz organist Joey Francesco.