music Archives - Page 113 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

A song that’s a cover version

I have LOTS of cover albums.

Coverville The next musical prompt is: “A song you like that’s a cover by another artist.” A cover version is “a new performance or recording by someone other than the original artist or composer of a previously recorded, commercially released song.”

I’m a very big fan of the podcast Coverville with over 1250 shows. “Listen to music so good, you’ll feel like you’re cheating on the original versions!”

I have LOTS of cover albums, including of Aerosmith, Johnny Cash, Elton John, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Richard Thompson, Elektra records, and Motown, among many others. I own at least two dozen albums of just Beatles covers, including re-creations of most of the Fab Four output.

There are those songs you never knew were covers – well, YOU knew – such as the obvious classics: Hurt – Cash, Respect – QoS, and All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix.

Listen to:
Strawberry Letter #23 – Brothers Johnson (#5 pop. #1 RB in 1977); OA: Shuggie Otis (1971)
Remove This Doubt – Elvis Costello (1995); OA: the Supremes (1966- b-side of You Keep Me Hangin’ On)
Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic – Shawn Colvin (1994); OA: the Police (She- #3 for two weeks in 1981)
Got to Get You Into My Life – Earth, Wind, and Fire (#9 pop, #1 RB in 1978); OA: the Beatles (1966; #7 in 1976)

Baby, Now That I Found You – Alison Krauss (#49 CW in 1995); OA, The Foundations (#11 pop, #33 RB in 1968)
The Mercy Seat – Johnny Cash (2000); OA: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1988)
Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now – Van Halen (1982); OA: Margaret Young, accompanied by Rube Bloom (1924).
Jump – Aztec Camera (1984); OA: Van Halen (#1 for five weeks in 1984)
Spanish Harlem – Aretha Franklin, #2 for two weeks pop, #1 for three weeks RB in 1971 OA: Ben E. King, #10 pop, #15 RB in 1961
My Heart – Audra McDonald (2006) OA: Neil Young and Crazy Horse (1994)

All chart action from Billboard (US); RB – rhythm and blues/soul; CW – country
OA – original artist

The Best Cover Songs of 2018 according to Cover Me

50 Cover Songs Way Better Than the Original

K-Chuck Radio: Thou Shalt Not Cover Motown (if you don’t know what you’re doing)

June rambling: hope, not optimism

Libraries Are ‘Second Responders’

TheFour

We need hope, not optimism

In Baltimore and Beyond, a Stolen N.S.A. Tool Wreaks Havoc

Alarm Over Use of Facial Recognition as Groups Demand Federal Moratorium

This is not sustainable: Analysis shows massive gap between CEO and workers’ pay is getting worse

Trade Wars: A Real-Life Game of Thrones

The tax cuts effect

The Arctic Is Thawing So Fast, Scientists Are Losing Their Measuring Tools

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Medical device approval process and the Equal Rights Amendment

Amy Biancolli: Women always know their bodies are not their own

The Catholic Church spent $10 million on lobbyists in a fight to stymie priest sex abuse suits

Auschwitz Is Not a Metaphor – The new exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage gets everything right — and fixes nothing

Human remains on Canadian beach are Irish famine victims from 1847

How archaeologists found the last American slave ship and one famous descendent of that passage

Let Your Voice Be Heard! Radio: A Criminal Injustice Story – The Central Park Five have been exonerated and their story is finally being heard. But, there is still so much work to be done and Why I Can’t Bring Myself to Watch “When They See Us”

Why Narcissists And Gaslighters Blatantly Lie — And Get Away With It

When Libraries Are ‘Second Responders’

Vlogbrothers: On Sharing the Walk

Dooky Chase owner Leah Chase

What James Holzhauer’s Jeopardy Streak Meant

To Evade Pre-Prohibition Drinking Laws, New Yorkers Created the World’s Worst Sandwich

How to Prepare Your Bedroom for an Emergency

8 City Names We Bet You Can’t Pronounce – Skaneateles, NY, U.S.A. I can, actually

The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years

What’s My Line? – Doris Day’s FIRST Television Appearance in 1954

This film was entirely made with AI

When you get that ‘friend request’ from someone… who’s really not your ‘friend’

Now I Know: The Goalie Who Wouldn’t Stop and Why You Shouldn’t Tick off a Tiger and Where No Kidney Stone Has Gone Before and Why you may be playing basketball in your slippers and The Casual Slur in Your Utility Drawer and The Coffee Brand That is a Total Lie and The Desert’s No Fly Zone

MUSIC

Why We Build the Wall – Original Cast of Hadestown

‘Be More Chill’ parody of Michael in the Bathroom

2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dr. John on Letterman

The Monster Song – Freezepop

Bitter Sweet Symphony – The Verve

Dog Breath Variations of Frank Zappa

A tone poem from the symphonic cycle Ma Vlast (My Country), From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields – composed by Bedrich Smetana

Propane – Pinkard & Bowden

I’m Still Standing – Sonny Vande Putt

Africa and If I Needed Someone – MonaLisa Twins meets Mike Massé

That Year – Brandi Carlile

First Suite in E-flat – Gustav Holst

Coverville 1264: Cover Stories for Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle and CeeLo Green

People who sing daily live longer

THE FIRST YEAR AND THE WHO yes, we mean Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey

Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony Completed Using AI

Singer Lionel Richie turns 70

He has sold over 90 million records worldwide

Lionel Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute where his grandfather worked. He attended the Alabama school on a tennis scholarship.

I knew him initially as a member of the soul group the Commodores. Early on, their songs were quite danceable. But eventually, Richie wrote and sang more sometimes syrupy ballads. It was probably inevitable that he’d become a solo artist in 1982, and he became even more commercially successful.

“Over the course of his musical career, Richie has sold over 90 million records worldwide, making him one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. He has won four Grammy Awards including Song of the Year in 1985 for ‘We Are the World’ which he co-wrote with Michael Jackson…”

He composed “Lady” for Kenny Rogers, which hit #1 pop and CW in 1980 and he wrote and produced “Missing You” for Diana Ross (#10 Pop, #1 RB) in 1984.

“In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award.” He received one of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, which he threatened to boycott if the White House resident attended.

I haven’t watched American Idol for over a dozen years. Yet I’m oddly pleased that he has been one of the judges for the past couple seasons. He is still touring; his “epic 33-date Hello Tour across North America” started May 10th and runs through August.”

Lionel Richie turns 70 on June 20.

Commodores

Brick House – #5 pop, #4 RB in 1977
Easy – #4 pop, #1 RB in 1977
Three Times A Lady – #1 pop AND RB for two weeks in 1978

Solo

Endless Love, with Diana Ross – #1 for nine weeks pop, #1 for seven weeks RB in 1981
All Night Long – #1 for four weeks pop, #1 for seven weeks RB in 1983
Hello – #1 for two weeks pop, #1 for three weeks RB in 1984
Say You, Say Me – #1 for four weeks pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1985, won the Oscar for Best Song, from the movie White Nights
Dancing on the Ceiling – #2 for two weeks pop, #6 RB in 1986

Plus

We Are The World – USA for Africa, #1 for four weeks pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1985, sold over four million copies in the US

TD Ameritrade TV Commercial, ‘All Evening Long’

His official website

(RB – soul/rhythm and blues; CW – country; stats from US Billboard charts)

Some songs I like from the 1970s

I could link to the entire oeuvre of Stevie Wonder or Paul Simon from the decade.

Songs I like from the 1970s I’m going pick a few tunes from the 1970s, the decade far most represented in my record collection, the physical manifestation of which I still own.

The caveat is that I wrote nearly a dozen posts just about the music of 1971 not long ago. I’m trying to avoid folks I’ve written about relatively recently, such as Fleetwood Mac or David Bowie.

I could link to the entire oeuvre of Stevie Wonder or Paul Simon from the decade. It always makes me laugh to recall Paul thanking Stevie for not releasing an album that year in his Grammy acceptance speech for Still Crazy After All These Years.

Loves Me Like a Rock – Paul Simon (#2 in 1973). My favorite solo P Simon song.
As – Stevie Wonder (#36 pop AND soul, 1977). My favorite Stevie song
Tell Me Something Good – Rufus (#3 pop AND soul, 1974). Written by Stevie Wonder.
Staple Singers – Respect Yourself (#12 pop, #2 RB in 1972). “If you don’t respect yourself…”

Lucky Man – Emerson, Lake and Palmer (#48 in 1971 and #52 in 1973). When I was in college, I used to be able to do, just with my mouth, a fair representation of the synthesizer at the end of this song.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – Genesis (1974). I heard this song on WQBK-FM in Albany a lot, six or seven years after it was released.

Dirty Work – Steely Dan (1972). David Palmer, lead vocal.
More Than a Feeling – Boston (#5 in 1976). Yes, I did buy that eponymous album.

Gloria – Patti Smith (1975). Lead song from the Horses album.
Uncontrollable Urge – DEVO (1978). The first cut on “Q. Are We Not Men…”
A Message to You, Rudy – The Specials (1979, #10 in the UK)

The final song from the 1970s is The Jungle Line -Joni Mitchell (1975). It’d be easy to pick something (or EVERYTHING) from Blue or Court and Spark. I opted for this cut from The Hissing of Summer Lawns. It was an album a Joni fan I knew did not particularly enjoy. I told her, “Well, then give the album to me!” She did not.

Leon Redbone (Dickran Gobalian), RIP

He crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127

As far as I know, the first time I ever heard of Leon Redbone was when I bought one of those Warner Brothers Loss Leaders album, either Desert Blues (Big Chief Buffalo Nickel) from THE WORKS or more likely, Polly Wolly Doodle from THE PEOPLE’S RECORD.

The music had a timeless quality. The VOICE was always intriguing. A Rolling Stone article in the early 10970s, before he even had a recording contract, “described his performances as ‘so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78 rpm].'”

His whole persona was a mystery. “‘It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th, 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127,’ said a statement from Redbone’s camp.” He was 69 when he died, according to most sources. His own family never got an explanation of his nom de musique.

“According to a Toronto Star report in the 1980s, he was once known as Dickran Gobalian [of Armenian origin], and he came to Canada from Cyprus in the mid-1960s and changed his name via the Ontario Change of Name Act… His parents lived in Jerusalem but moved in 1948 to Nicosia, Cyprus, where Redbone was born. By 1961, the family had moved to London, England, and by 1965 to Toronto…”

“Redbone usually dressed in attire reminiscent of the Vaudeville era, performing in a Panama hat with a black band and dark sunglasses, often while sitting at attention on a stool, with a white coat and trousers with a black string tie.”

He was never the guy with the big hit on the charts. Seduced got all the way to #72 on the US Billboard charts. But he was a working concert performer who also appeared in several commercials as well as in movies and TV.

His Top 5 Greatest Hits (!)

Seduced

Polly Wolly Doodle

Mississippi Delta Blues

Just You And I

Or spend a bunch of time on his Tribute Channel

John Beaudin tribute