Coverville Archives - Page 28 of 30

C is for Cover songs

For arcane reasons, I listen to a lot of Beatles covers in the month of July, in honor of Ringo Starr’s birthday.

A cover song is a version of a recording released subsequent to the original one. Sometimes the most popular version is a cover: Good Lovin’ by the Young Rascals [LISTEN] was initially recorded by someone dubbed Lemme B. Good, then was a minor hit by The Olympics [LISTEN], which I own. I Heard It Through the Grapevine was a massive hit for Marvin Gaye [LISTEN], though the original by Gladys Knight and the Pips [LISTEN] (my preferred version, actually) went to #2 on the US charts a year earlier.

What makes a good cover song is that it is not merely a slavish imitation of the original. Otherwise, what’s the point? The version of You Keep Me Hanging On by Vanilla Fudge [LISTEN] had been criticized as excessive, but it’s sure different than what the original Supremes [LISTEN] put out.

Sometimes a cover is SO good that even the originator will bow to the successor. Otis Redding [LISTEN] acknowledged that Aretha Franklin [LISTEN] had “stole” Respect from him, meaning it was now hers, though he wrote it and sang it first. Likewise, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails realized that Hurt has become a Johnny Cash [LISTEN], not a NIN [LISTEN], song.

For arcane reasons, I listen to Beatles covers in the month of July, in honor of Ringo Starr’s birthday. There are a LOT of them; by the time the Beatles broke up, there were over 2500 versions of Yesterday alone, most of them boring.

I have about three dozen Beatles’ cover albums. There are classical, Latin, bluegrass, country, soul collections. I have whole albums covered by various artists, some compiled by MOJO magazine, plus whole albums by the Smithereens, Big Daddy, and others. My friend Fred Hembeck put together some compilations; the worse version among them, Hey Jude by an uninspired, off-key Elvis Presley. I made a few collections myself, from CD that have Beatles-inspired cuts.

Arguably the best Beatles interpreter is Joe Cocker. He came to fame at Woodstock singing A Little Help From My Friends [LISTEN to the studio version]. He’s made a whole song out of the Abbey Road-segued She Came Into The Bathroom Window [LISTEN]. But my favorite of his takes is You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away [LISTEN].

I should mention again my favorite music podcast, Coverville, which comes out twice a week. One episode is a cover story of a particular artist, while the other might be a request show, some independent artist hodgepodge, or based on a theme.

September Rambling: Frank Doyle’s daughter, and pie v grief

Congrats to Brian Ibbott of Coverville. Also, kudos to Arthur@AmeriNZ.

My old college friend Claire is 55 and Still Alive. Her late father, BTW, was awarded the Bill Finger Award at Comic-Con 2012.

Jaquandor’s review/reflection about the book Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie by Beth Howard, which is about processing grief. And dessert. Check out her website.

Gemuetlichkeit: Dachau.

9/11: Another View.

Legal Analysis Outlines Potential Crime In Mitt Romney’s Financial Disclosures

“Recent DNA and genealogical evidence uncovered by Ancestry.com researchers suggests that President Obama is a descendant of one of America’s first documented African slaves. What surprised many is that Obama’s connection to slavery is through his white mother, not his black father.”

The Strange Story Of The Man Behind ‘Strange Fruit’.

Wells Fargo mistakenly forecloses on the wrong house, destroys elderly couple’s entire lifetime’s worth of possessions. Oops. And if it HAD been the right house, would the action be justified? (My answer is NO.)

The truth comes out: CEO says ‘stupid’ consumers deserve hefty fees.

Gay rights, free speech, politicians and the NFL.

Leo Meets His Internet Troll.

Son of a Bigot. His dad founded the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Nate Phelps is dedicated to reversing that legacy of hate.

I am a First Year, First Semester, M.Div.

Under 18, or know someone who is? Name that asteroid! The deadline is December 2.

Kickstarter for MAN ON THE MOON exhibit at Space Center Houston.

The Big Daddy Kickstarter is still going on. I mentioned it before, but Mark Evanier has mentioned it again and again, so I shall as well.

Harvey Pekar statue to be dedicated at Cleveland Heights’ Lee Road library next month.

Cerebus: The Fantagraphics offer and the Dave Sim response. Follow the thread about other Sim-Fantagraphics product possibilities here.

1922 Kodachrome film.

The Last Record Store Standing?

George Martin: He Had You Hooked on the Beatles.

David Byrne’s How Music Works.

Emily Dickinson ages.

Congrats to Brian Ibbott of Coverville, who recently podcast his 900th show. One of the tunes on that episode was David Garrett – Vivaldi Vs Vertigo.

Also, kudos to Arthur@AmeriNZ, who has been blogging for six years. He’s been musing about modern technology.

Glamour is different on the other side of the pond if Emma Watson is the example.

Bug Comic: Rise and Whine, an insomniac’s lament.

People stuck on an escalator.

Music product placement?

An oldie, but goodie: Troy (MI) Library’s book burning campaign.

Jaquandor answered my questions here and here and here. Which reminds me: you can still Ask Roger Anything.

GOOGLE SEARCH

Visible light communication could simplify car electronics
A team led by Prof Roger Green is planning to demonstrate how visible light communication (VLC), which is already used as an alternative to wireless internet transmissions, could simplify and lighten the electronic systems in cars.

BOWLS: Moulton edged out in centenary match
In the battle of the presidents, Moulton’s Roger Green came out on top on rink four against Stuart Lake winning 24-17. But Green’s rink were pipped for top honours by Tony Keating who led his home quartet to a ten shots success.

Denver “folk & roll” songstress Esmé Patterson is releasing her solo album November 20th
Making appearances on the album are Nathaniel Rateliff, Roger Green (formerly of the Czars), Ben Desoto (Czars, Nathaniel Rateliff, Bare Bones), Genevieve Patterson and Sarah Anderson (Paper Bird), Carrie Beeder, Eric Moon, Mike Fitzmorris, Will Duncan, and many more.

Fixing the Internet, episode 1057

In the course of my job, I’m on the Internet. A LOT. And invariably, I find items that are incorrect. Whether I bother to correct them depends on whether I think it’s substantial enough that someone else might assume it’s correct and restate it as fact.

I’ve only fixed two things on Wikipedia, as far as I can recall. One, which I did with Steve Bissette, was a major overhaul of the FantaCo post; still imperfect. The other was back in 2006 when someone indicated that the next Presidential campaign was in 2007, rather than 2008. But I do not find the need to add something insubstantial; e.g., another advertisement that made use of a cover of the Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night.

I’m listening to my favorite music podcast, Coverville. Episode #894 is an all-request show. The second song is listed as She’s All Liquored Up by Dash Rip Rock, a cover of the Mojo Nixon original [listen]; I’m not familiar with either version. But the song sounds very much like Dizzy Miss Lizzy, the old Larry Williams song covered by the Beatles [listen], which appeared on Beatles VI, the very first LP I owned, as well as the UK Help! album. Now, I’m not positive, because songs do get adapted and changed.

As it turns out Amazon lists the samples for the Tiger Town album by Dash Rip Rock, at least for tracks 5-9, one song off:
5. says True Drunk Love, IS Fallin’ Apart
6. says Shine A Light, IS True Drunk Love
7. says Dizzy Miss Lizzy, IS Shine A Light
8. says All Liquored Up, IS Dizzy Miss Lizzy
9. says Livin’ Breathin’, IS All Liquored Up

The sorta good fortune is that the error created an unintentional Beatles-related medley:
Gimme Some Truth by Sam Phillips (orig. John Lennon)
Dizzy Miss Lizzie by Dash Rip Rock (orig. Larry Williams, made famous by the Beatles)
Revolution by Grandaddy (orig. Beatles)

Host Brian Ibbott noted the error, and mentioned me, at about the 18-minute mark of the next show, Episode #895 featuring Van Morrison. He also mocked Amazon’s spelling of Martha Reeves’ name (as Reeeves) on this item, from which he culled a song for the show.

I’m trying to get Amazon to rectify these problems. Fixing the Internet: a full-time task.

Woody Guthrie would have been 100

The centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birth has turned out to be more significant to me than I would have thought 20 or 30 years ago.

As I have noted, my father was a singer of folk songs when I was growing up in Binghamton, NY. I did not usually know the source of the tunes that he performed, though I have subsequently have been discovered some of this information.

Back around 2002 or 2003, The Wife and I went to see Woody Guthrie’s American Song at Capital Rep Theatre, when this brace of songs, Worried Man and Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way came up. Both of them were in my father’s repertoire, especially the former. This was a couple of years after my father died, and I just lost it. The Car Song was also a Woody tune my dad sang, I’ve come to realize.

Of course, I was a big fan of This Land Is Your Land, mostly the versions by Guthrie’s good friend Pete Seeger. But it wasn’t until later when I learned all those great verses that one didn’t usually hear, such as those about No Trespassing, and the relief office.

But in the 1960s and 1970s, I was probably more a fan of Woody’s son Arlo, of Alice’s Restaurant fame. Woody had died in 1967 and was a remote figure to me.

Woody came alive again for me, though, because of a pair of albums that came out at the end of the last century, Mermaid Avenue, volumes 1 and 2, where Billy Bragg and the band Wilco completed song fragments by Woody. The albums have been re-released with additional material.

The centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birth has turned out to be more significant to me than I would have thought 20 or 30 years ago.

Woody singing:
Jesus Christ
Do Re Mi
This Land Is Your Land

Coverville 884: The Woody Guthrie Cover Story

Michael Eck’s Top 10 Woody Guthrie Collaborations

Woody Guthrie at 100 by Jim Hightower

Woody Guthrie at 100: The Return of a Pariah by Billy Bragg. “Woody Guthrie was shunned by his home state. Now Oklahoma can finally embrace the singer-songwriter’s work.”

Where’s Woody when we need him? He’s right there, inside each of us.

Obama v. Romney

Sometimes I want to just take on the system, sometimes I want to write in quiet contemplation; much of the time, I worry about the fate of the planet.

Answering more Ask Roger Anything questions:

Tom the Mayor, who I know personally, pondered:
Here is a hard one Roger! Who do you think will win the presidential election?

I went to 270towin.com. The map there suggests that Obama has 217 likely electoral votes, and Romney with 191 electoral votes, with 130 electoral votes listed as a tossup. Three states in that latter category are hugely important – Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), and Ohio (18). I suspect that whoever wins at least 2 out of 3 will probably win the White House.

Some statistical piece – I can’t find it presently – states that the Republicans were far better controlling the argument in the media than the Democrats regarding the presentation of the healthcare law dubbed Obamacare. The GOP was able to stay on message, using the same keywords, while the Dems were more diffuse. This tends to be true on other issues as well.

I mention this because, even when the Democrats have good issues, they don’t seem to be able to capitalize on them. Obama’s support of gay marriage can’t really help him much; those supporters weren’t going to Romney. Obama’s announcement that he wouldn’t go after illegal immigrants who were brought to the US by their parents might have been popular with some Hispanics, but Republicans managed to turn it into a Constitutional overreach by the President.

FOX News blamed Obama for rising gas prices, and incorrectly predicted worse. Now that they are actually falling, FN notes that they are signs of a “looming global economic crisis.” Ya can’t win. And people with selective memory recall that Obama’s to blame for all of it.

Now, I think that Romney has been amazingly non-specific about what he would DO as President on many issues, save for building that pipeline. But if the economy is still weak – and the Dow Jones lost 250 points the day you posted the question…

If the election were held today, I think Romney wins. Of course, the election is NOT today, so things could change. I’m not optimistic about Obama’s chances at this moment.

Tom also asked:
Did you get the new Paul McCartney Album? What do you think of it?

I assume you are referring to Kisses on the Bottom, rather than the reissue of Ram. In general, the less I knew the song, the more I liked it. I don’t need another version of It’s Only a Paper Moon or I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, and I don’t think Sir Paul added much to those. But I liked tunes such as My Very Good Friend the Milkman, Get Yourself Another Fool, and The Inch Worm, plus a couple of original songs. I think my decision to buy a Macca album depends on the reviews.

BTW, there are nice Coverville podcasts for Paul McCartney and for Brian Wilson/the Beach Boys that you might want to check out; for the latter, I made a couple of requests that were played.
***
Chris from Off the Shore of Orion wonders:

Is there a limit on the number?

Yes, no more than 37 at a time. So you’re safe – so far…

What historical figure do you most identify with?

Oh, it varies, depending on the issue, and my mood: Nat Turner, Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson. Sometimes I want to just take on the system, sometimes I want to write in quiet contemplation; much of the time, I worry about the fate of the planet.

Something at work reminded me of this: when I was 9 or 10 and wanted to wrap presents, I would get the Sunday funnies from the newspaper and use those. I would be severely mocked, even/especially by my own family. These days, what I did is considered environmentally cool, but then as doofy, a word one of my sisters used A LOT in describing me.

Who do you think was the most evil person who ever lived?

Oh, there are so many. The obvious ones such as Genghis Khan or Hitler.
So, I’ll pick US President Andrew Jackson, whose support of slavery, and especially his Indian removal policy should get him removed from the US $20 bill.

What’s the most heartbreaking novel you’ve ever read?

A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. That said, I don’t read a lot of fiction these days. I was very affected by Maus by Art Spiegelman. I had actually met him a couple of times before that book was released. He was publishing this eclectic, oversized magazine called RAW; boy, I wish I had kept those.