Last month, Bob Dylan wrapped up the most recent leg of his “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour. And at his show in Belfast, he wrapped up the night with a Van Morrison song. Sorry, let me rephrase that; he wrapped up the night with a recent Van Morrison song.
At his November 20th show at Waterfront Hall in Belfast (Morrison’s hometown), Dylan ended the show with a performance of “Going Down to Bangor.” The track originally appeared on Morrison’s 2016 album Keep Me Singing. Dylan is a stickler for phones not being allowed at his shows, but an enterprising fan was still able to get a pretty good recording of it. Did anyone in the hall recognize the song? It’s hard to say, but, at the very least, you can tell that the response wasn’t overtly enthusiastic. Morrison himself has only played the song live a few times since releasing it.
Dylan has covered Van Morrison in the past, including “Into the Mystic” at a show in Spain in 2023 and the two toured together in 1998. In a Twitter post, Dylan promised more “R&RW” shows in 2026.
Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.
To celebrate the entry of Joe Cocker into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame, possibly the only way to celebrate this sometimes consummate interpreter of song, is to drill down into one of his many albums. Organic was a bit different, even by his standards; as well as a selection of songs new to him, producer Don Was got him to revisit some of his earlier covers. Quite a risk, as the now 52-year-old singer was widely seen, by then, as merely functional, going through the motions with a gruff bluster and a camouflage of backing singers.
Rewind to 1969. Arms flailing and eyes tight shut, the sight of the ex-gas fitter as he transformed “With a Little Help From My Friends” from skip-over track, into a searing ceremony of the soul; it was an astonishing moment. It had already captured the hearts of listeners at home, a number one UK single in 1968. But, played out on stage to thousands at Woodstock, the film then made sure it was then seen by millions worldwide. Suddenly he was a star, seemingly from nowhere.
For a while he could do no wrong. Blessed by a crack team of London’s best session men, his first two albums are a remarkable salvo of intent, matching his sublime vocals, Ray Charles with a little more frailty, with some of the best playing of the day. He even wrote a bit back then, but it soon became far more apparent that his strength lay more in what he could bring to the songs of others. On the back of these albums, and buoyed by Woodstock, he hurtled next into the Leon Russell helmed Mad Dogs & Englishmen circus, a carnival of excesses that went on a 48-date tour. Cocker, already exhausted by his earlier whirlwind ascent to fame, self-medicated his way around America on pills and booze, became a wreck by the end of it.
That could have been that, and nearly was; he needed two years away from music to even begin to recover. However, good friend Chris Stainton lured him back to the limelight. The return to the treadmill, and all its attendant vices, nearly and should have killed him. So much so that, when Michael Lang agreed to become his manager, in 1976, this was only on the condition of his sobriety, a condition which, against both odds or expectation, he came to fulfill.
From that time, and almost up to the time of his death, his workload remained formidable. Dipping between styles, he would follow up an album with the Crusaders, heavy with horns, with a bevy of soundtrack anthems, to wave lighters in the sky to. Quality varied and it was hard to know quite to whom he was aiming his appeal. But, by and large, his bread and butter was in the melodic songs of the ’60s, songs by Dylan and the Beatles, who suited his soulful timbre. Retaining healthy audience numbers, they were forgiving his fraying range, right up until he died, aged 75.
So, back to Organic. Don Was, the maverick musician, record producer, music director, film composer and documentary filmmaker, had already shown a Midas touch with his ability to revitalise flagging careers and/or add new pep to those then needing a lift. Iggy Pop, Bonnie Raitt, Brian Wilson and the Rolling Stones can all owe a degree of debt to the bassist from Detroit, they all ahead of Cocker, with many more after. His idea was to revisit some of Cocker’s greatest moments, tacking on a few new songs to cover in addition. A veritable who’s who came out to add their instruments to the album, headed by the ever faithful Stanton, also including Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Darryl Jones, and Greg Leisz, with even cameos from Randy Newman and Dean Parks. Additional, let’s say, buffering vocals came from the likes of Merry Clayton.
Sadly, at the time, the album did not fare well, and failed, at least in the U.S., to chart. Nonetheless, worldwide sales eventually exceeded the million mark, as it went gold in several European territories. I think it has needed the sands of time to sift over it, ahead of this belated decontextualisation of its worth. Ready? Continue reading »
Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Is there a ghastlier song than “Send In the Clowns”? The epitome of musical thea-ter (dahling), a go-to for any and every luvvy guesting on a TV show, invited then to sing us a song. Unspeakably vile, it is a song that must surely have some redeeming feature, to be drawn out of its saccharine turgidity. I mean, the bible of cover songs, Second Hand Songs, lists five and a half hundred iterations of the damned song, so surely there must be a “5 Good Covers” amongst them? Surely? I fear the title of this piece reveals the sickly truth.
Let’s get the details out the way. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say: “‘Send In the Clowns’ is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles Of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life.” Two shocks there. First: I thought it came out a lot longer ago than 1973. Second: Bergman? It seems impossible to imagine the dour Swede having much truck with such lightweight frippery. But that is merely my view, with untold experts subsequently citing the song’s magnificence. It took a while for it to transcend the stage musical, not broaching the Billboard charts until Judy Collins brought it to #36 in 1975, and to #19 in 1977.
Frank Sinatra, in the meantime, had released it on his comeback album, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, setting the song along the road to it becoming a jazz standard. Sure, Sinatra tackles it with characteristic brio, and, vocally, it can’t faulted. It is just the wretched source material. Jazz, of course, in the context of standard does not generally equate with anything exciting or innovative, or indeed anything much to do with what I call jazz, it smacking more of big band MOR, easy listening for the easily pleased. Sure, otherwise reliable artists have given it a go, as an instrumental, but, even shorn of the pompously execrable lyrics, most come up short, shackled by the limitations of the melody. (Honorable exception is country maverick, Tyler Childers (here), who found a pearl within the snail shell.)
Disclaimer: I didn’t listen to every version. I couldn’t, on health grounds, and would challenge anyone of a normal disposition so to do. But I did take a look at the list, in no small detail, cherry picking names of those who might be able to step outside of expectations. Indeed, in particular, I had high hopes for Pete Burns and for Stan Ridgway. Burns, the flamboyant frontman of Dead and Alive, must be able, I thought, to buff it up into something idiosyncratic and memorable. Wrong. And Ridgway, the Wall of Voodoo man, turning then to oddball narrative songs, he’d give it some grit. Also wrong. So that’s my 5 gone for a burton.
I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day’s work. – Van Morrison
When I wrote my first post for Cover Me, it was in celebration of Van Morrison’s 66th birthday. In it, I called him “perhaps the most incantatory singer in rock history; the words tumble from his mouth so fast they become never-quite-meaningless sounds, or they emerge bound and struggling themselves raw, or they flow out like brook water. Truly, he’s mastered what he calls ‘the inarticulate speech of the heart.’”
Fourteen years later (my gosh, has it been that long?), as Morrison reaches his four score, that still holds true. He is rock’s most spiritual curmudgeon, inscrutable and evocative, grouchily but magnificently folding into the mystic. His songs tap into their listeners in ways that would be eerie if they weren’t so universal. You don’t listen to Van Morrison’s music – you respond to it.
Today we’re looking at thirty responses, in the form of cover songs. These artists felt the hand of Van and responded accordingly. We think you’ll find them to be worthy rejoinders, what with their acuity and grace. They will make you feel good, and they will make you feel whole, when their spirit moves you and fills you through and through.
Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.
Fear not, this is no obituary; Delbert McClinton is still around, a mere stripling of 84. Still, given that it’s been three years since his last album and more since he toured, I’d hate to have him slip away on me before I got the chance to celebrate him here.
Delbert who? That’s the response from most when I laud McClinton, his name having surprisingly little traction despite a career as long as my entire life. To answer the question, he’s a good ol’ boy from Lubbock, Texas, with a laissez-faire attitude to genre type-casting. Many of his records went top 20 positions in the US blues and country charts at the same time. We first heard of him playing his distinctive harmonica riffs on Bruce Channel’s “Hey, Baby.” In 1962! (That year he toured the UK with Channel; the Beatles were their opening act, and John Lennon famously got some playing tips from McClinton that he put to use on “Love Me Do.”)
That wasn’t even where McClinton began. He played Texas bar-bands from his teens, backing some of the blues legends then still on the road — Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins just to name a few. A hit with his own band, the Ron-Dels, “If You Really Want Me To, I’ll Go”, came in 1965, followed by a three-year partnership with Glen Clark, 1972-5, before striking out on his own. He was nominated for eight Grammy awards and won four — not too shabby. And let’s not forget his own songwriting, something he may even arguably be better known for. Emmylou Harris’s “Two More Bottles of Wine” was his, as well as many others that led to his 2011 indictment in the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame.
But it is his gravelly, gritty renditions of the songs of others that we celebrate today, vocals that sound they have spent years in the saddle, ahead being trampled underfoot in a bar brawl, buried and then brined for posterity. Imagine a mix of Johns Fogerty and Hiatt, gargled with a sandpaper side, and you pretty much have it. A laryngologist’s nightmare, and perfect for his tramples over blues, country and rock and roll. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
“You Are My Sunshine” is an old warhorse of a song. It’s been around for so long and in so many forms as to, now, be quite beyond categorization. Until recently it has been unfairly parked under hokey old cornball music for old folk, even if the many cheesier versions out there have deserved and drawn such scorn. I know that I thought it dreadful old nonsense, until I was recently forced to accept and re-evaluate it as a song of some pathos and persuasion. You may still share my earlier view, so I put it to you: Can any of these covers shift that opinion?
To celebrate the entry of Joe Cocker into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame, possibly the only way to celebrate this sometimes consummate interpreter of song, is to drill down into one of his many albums. Organic was a bit different, even by his standards; as well as a selection of songs new to him, producer Don Was got him to revisit some of his earlier covers. Quite a risk, as the now 52-year-old singer was widely seen, by then, as merely functional, going through the motions with a gruff bluster and a camouflage of backing singers.
