Full Albums: The Yardbirds’ ‘Greatest Hits’

 Posted by at 4:00 pm  7 Responses »
Sep 082017
 

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

yardbirds

The Yardbirds are back! Sort of. The quintessential R&B-influenced British Invasion band has made a few recent headlines, and any headline from a group that can boast Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page as alums is probably worth checking out.

Last month, the music press was buzzing when Page announced a November 5th release for Yardbirds ’68. The legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist is producing the newly unearthed compilation of live and studio recordings along with outtakes. Rolling Stone has more about it here. Additionally, in early August still-active founding member Jim McCarty and the bands’ current line-up announced a new Yardbirds studio album to be underwritten by a PledgeMusic campaign. The album promises to be “a totally new recording of original songs with a couple of carefully selected covers.” Fans can find out more and get involved here.

We’ll celebrate all this good news with several Yardbirds-related features leading up to the release of Page’s ’68 in November. Today, we’ll pay our respects with a recap of The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits. The first of countless compilations, this one passed a significant 50th anniversary milestone in March. Arguments abound among aficionados as to which Greatest Hits / Best Of / Retrospective is their “best,” but only one can claim to be their highest charting US album; Greatest Hits peaked at #28 on the Billboard chart in 1967 and arguably gave the band a second wind at the time. The album is no longer commercially available in its original LP configuration and packaging, but nowadays it can be put together with just a few taps on the screen/keys.

Included on Greatest Hits are all six of their singles up to 1967, plus three B-sides and a live track. Five tracks were written by at least one member of the band. Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, and Mose Allison are credited with one R&B cover each. Finally, two were written by Graham Gouldman, about whom we’ll have more to say in the near future.

So… let’s get ready, steady, go!

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1000 Followers Strong: Twitter Giveaway

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Oct 152010
 

For anyone interested in the stats game, Cover Me has seen a lot of big, round numbers recently. Yesterday afternoon we put up our 500th post (Eric Lauritsen’s epic roundup of dozens of live covers by Wilco). Then this morning we gained our 1000th Twitter follower (hi @u2acro!). As I’ve been promising on @covermesongs for a while now, that’s an occasion for a Twit-sclusive giveaway. No, scratch that. Five Twit-sclusive giveaways.

Here’s the deal: Tweet out a link to a page on Cover Me. Could be the homepage, could be a favorite post, could be our archives on a favorite artist (find ’em here). Whatever. Include the hash tag “#CoverMe1000” in your post. Do this as often as you like over the next week—as long as you’re tweeting a different page/post each time. Next Friday I’ll pick five tweets randomly. Those five tweet-ers win one of the following:

• CD: John Legend and the Roots’ Wake Up! (more info here)
• CD: Garden on a Trampoline’s new compilation It’s Only Love (three copies, more info below)
• CD: The Morlocks Play Chess (more info here) Continue reading »

Giveaway: The Morlocks Cover Chess Records Hits

 Posted by at 4:30 pm  15 Responses »
Aug 242010
 

At Cover Me, we like to give stuff away. Read on to learn how that stuff can be yours.

Tribute albums to famous artists are a dime a dozen. Tribute albums to famous labels though…well, that’s something else entirely. The Morlocks Play Chess is a great title with a greater concept behind it. San Diego garage rock quintet the Morlocks cover the hits of Chicago’s legendary Chess Records. And what hits! Without the 45s of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and other Chess artists, rock and roll wouldn’t be where it is today.

Though shut down in 1975, the label has experienced something of a revival in the popular imagination recently. The 2008 film Cadillac Records spotlighted the label with help from Adrian Brody (who played Leonard Chess), Mos Def (Chuck Berry), and Beyoncé (Etta James). Just a few weeks ago Chicago podcast Sound Opinions devoted a whole show to unearthing some of the label’s history.

Enter the Morlocks. The band first popped up in southern California in 1984. Three years and a few local hits later, things collapsed. They returned a decade later with their raw garage sound as frenetic as ever. The Chess Records catalog fits them perfectly and they know it. Continue reading »