May 142021
 

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

Cecilia covers

Eddie Simon started it. He was with his brother Paul at the house on Blue Jay Way where George Harrison had been inspired to write the song of that name. Now Art Garfunkel had rented it for a few months, and there were a few festive evenings there in the summer of ’69. One night, Eddie started banging out a rhythm on a piano bench, and it proved so infectious that everyone there joined in, banging along with whatever they could find. They taped the track, and Paul kept returning to its ebullience. When he brought it into the studio, he and producer Roy Halee made a loop of one section, to which Paul added lyrics that literally went from heartbreak to jubilation.

“The whole thing was a piece of fluff,” he later said. “But magical fluff.” Indeed, the song was as sexy as Simon and Garfunkel ever got, and as one biographer later put it, “the song’s thwacking, thumping battery of percussion felt like an ad-hoc group of street-musician drummers pounding away in Central Park.” As Bridge Over Troubled Water‘s third single, the song went top-five in America and remains a classic rock favorite.
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Feb 282019
 
best cover songs february
Andrew Leahey & the Homestead – Lips Like Sugar (Echo and the Bunnymen cover)


Nashville Americana musician Andrew Leahey first heard “Lips Like Sugar” a couple years ago while touring through Texas. Dozing in the van, he woke up to a bandmate blasting the Echo and the Bunnymen hit. “I remember thinking, ‘I hope we don’t crash right now, because I absolutely need to learn how to play this,'” he said. “We’ve been playing it ever since.” He recorded it for his new album Airwaves, out tomorrow.

Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan – You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra cover)


Guitar great Bill Frisell first recorded the classic James Bond theme a couple years ago for his album (one of our favorites of that year). He revisits it now for a live album with bassist Thomas Morgan. Like any jazz musician worth his martini, Frisell changes and expands the Bond song the second time through. It’s barely recognizable much of the time, but would still be worth a spot on our Best Bond Covers list. Continue reading »

Jun 292018
 

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

beyonce covers

We all know the reason everyone’s talking about Beyoncé this month: It’s the fifteenth anniversary of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love!

Okay, maybe that’s not the only Beyoncé news setting the internet aflutter these days – but it is the reason we initially decided to do this list. So it was extra nice of her to drop a surprise album with her husband, what’s-his-name, to give us something else to tie this into. In tribute, we’re writing this entire post from the Louvre.

There aren’t any Everything Is Love songs covered here, but we can’t imagine the first great “Apeshit” cover is far off. And every other facet of her career is represented, from the Destiny’s Child radio hits to her early solo pop jams to the more recent political tracks from Lemonade and beyond. Appropriately enough, the artists doing the covering represent an equally wide spectrum. I challenge you to find another list on the internet containing both serpentwithfeet and Reba McEntire.

So let’s start the countdown (heh) of the best B covers ever. All hail the Queen! Continue reading »

Mar 292018
 

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

talking heads covers

Let’s start by defining our terms: This list concerns the best covers of the Talking Heads. Because the best covers by the Talking Heads is a very short list.

Here is that list, in its entirety: Continue reading »

Apr 032014
 

In honor of Johnny Cash‘s new posthumous release, “Out Among The Stars,” French filmmakers La Blogothéque put together a beautifully shot tribute to the late artist. Featuring Brandon Flowers of the Killers, Dawes, Father John Misty, and Local Natives, this short film captures the unifying and completely human spirit of Cash’s songs in a desert landscape. Continue reading »