Tag: Three Dog Night

Hair covers, er, covers of songs from Hair

blond, brilliantined, Biblical hair

I have had the musical Hair stuck in my mind since a friend of mine sent me links to some hair covers. I mean, covers of songs from Hair. And there were a LOT of them, only some of which are represented here.

Fifty-five years ago, Hair debuted off-Broadway (October 17, 1967). It opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Like certain phenomena – Laura Nyro for a brief time, and The Beatles forever, the songs were covered by a variety of artists.

I saw a production of Hair in Binghamton c. 1975, and I was captivated by it. Conversely, when I saw a technically superior production at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady in the 2010s, it was less satisfying. It felt as though the performances treated the material as nostalgic camp. And maybe it is. But it generated some great songs. You may find even more versions listed at Secondhand Songs.

Tunes

Aquarius – The Undisputed Truth
Sodomy – Stan Kenton (!)
Ain’t got no/I Got Life – Nina Simone, #94 pop in 1969; I have this
Hair – The Cowsills, #2 pop for two weeks in 1969. The group took some heat for excising one verse. Did people think this verse was going to appear on the radio in 1969?

They’ll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair

My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don’t my mother love me?

Easy to Be Hard – Jennifer, #128 pop in 1969; Three Dog Night, #4 pop in 1969; of course, I have this
Frank Mills – Lemonheads
Hare Krishna – James Last
Where Do I Go? – Carla Thomas, #38 RB, #86 pop in 1968; I own this

Walking in Space – Quincy Jones
Good Morning Starshine – Oliver, #3 for two weeks pop in 1969; Strawberry Alarm Clock, #87 pop in 1969
The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) – Jennifer, B-side of Easy To Be Hard

Munich: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring / White Boys / Love to Love You Baby – Ariana DeBose, from Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In – The Fifth Dimension. #1 for six weeks pop, #1 for two weeks adult contemporary; #6 RB in 1969. I love the story about how the group came to record the song, involving a lost wallet.
Querschnitt, 20 videos

Jennifer became Jennifer Warnes, an excellent interpreter of the music of Leonard Cohen

Cover songs again? (Burgas edition)

Eli’s Comin’

lesley gore
Lesley Gore

I must blame Greg Burgas. Cover songs again? I wrote about them in 2019. But I forgot that I had ALSO done a post back in 2013 as well as one in 2021 that I did as a response to a meme.

But Greg wrote: “My Question of the Week is a pretty easy one, I think: What’s your favorite cover song?” EASY? Is he out of his mind? (Don’t answer that.)

ALSO, my friend Mary is currently studying cover songs. She tells me that Steven Van Zandt, he of the E Street Band, discussed in his biography what makes a great cover. He said it differs from the original by having a different tempo, different arrangement, different or slightly different genre, is sung by someone of a different gender from the original, and/or a different style.

In any case, I’m going to list MORE cover versions. I believe I haven’t written about them in my previous cover posts, though I may have noted them in pieces about a particular artist.

Oh, yeah, there is something called a re-cover, in which the artist covers their previous recording. One of my favorites is You Don’t Own Me by Lesley Gore. Here’s the original and the remake.

Seven Separate Fools

I think that Three Dog Night was one of the best cover bands ever. Mark Evanier wrote about them recently.

Chest Fever: The Band;  3DN
The Loner: Neil Young; 3DN
Lady Samantha: Elton John; 3DN
Mama Told Me Not to Come: Randy Newman; 3DN
Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here: John Hiatt; 3DN
I wrote a whole post about the history of Black and White, which is not my favorite 3DN track

13th Confessional

Most of the songs of Laura Nyro I first heard by someone else.

Eli’s Comin’: Nyro; 3DN
Stoned Soul Picnic: Nyro; The Fifth Dimension
Wedding Bell Blues: Nyro; The Fifth Dimension
And When I Die: Nyro; Blood, Sweat, and Tears

JT

James Taylor did some nice covers. Here’s a list, though some are re-covered. Not all were better than the originals, and in fact, to me, his COVERS album was not that great.
Mockingbird: Inez and Charlie Foxx; JT and Carly Simon
How Sweet It Is: Marvin Gaye;  Taylor
Up On The Roof: The Drifters;  Taylor
Handy Man: Jimmy Jones; my favorite Taylor cover

Fabulous

Money: Barrett Strong; The Beatles
Chains: The Cookies; The Beatles
Got To Get You Into My Life: The Beatles; Earth, Wind, and Fire                      We Can Work It Out: The Beatles; Stevie Wonder

QoS

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman:  Aretha Franklin; Carole King, the co-writer
I Say A Little Prayer: Dionne Warwick;  Aretha Franklin
Piece Of My Heart: Erma Franklin; Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring Janis Joplin

What’s the best B-side in music history?

CSNY, Beatles, Petty, The Clash

Super Black Market ClashGreg Burgas, curse him, asked “What’s the best B-side in music history?” Wait, it gets harder.

“I should clarify that I’m looking for songs that don’t appear on any of the band’s albums (unless it’s on a compilation from years later).” OK, let me think about this.

Greg came up with Hey, Hey, What Can I Do, the B-side of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song from 1970, which is a fine choice.

The first ones I thought of were a pair very much on the nose. The B-Side by Blotto is the flip of When The Second Feature Starts. Of course, I own this vinyl relic of the Albany-based band. It later shows up on a Blotto CD collection. Our “B” Side  I first heard on Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965-1975. B-side of Shambala.

Find The Cost Of Freedom is a simple but effective song on the B-side of Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Actually, NEITHER song was on a studio album until a greatest hits collection. Both do appear in live versions on their 4-Way Street double album.

Some radio stations I listened to liked playing Sugar Mountain by Neil Young in the early 1970s because of its seemingly mysterious origins. The live cut was the B-side of The Loner (1969) before it showed up on the Decade collection in 1975.

Fab

Dealing with The Beatles was complicated because there are a number of songs that were on US LPs but not initially on UK albums. Sticking to the US criteria, I am a sucker for I’m Down, which the Beatles performed at Shea Stadium, then ABC-TV aired the following year.

Some songs I’d count ended up on that Hey Jude/Beatles Again album: Rain (B-side of Paperback Writer),  Old Brown Shoe (w/ The Ballad of John and Yoko), and Don’t Let Me Down (w/Get Back). I remember that Kelly correctly highly praised the latter.

And speaking of Beatles, sort of, One Day At A Time is a John Lennon song that Elton John put on the B-side of his version of – can you guess? – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.

I have a certain fondness for Surfing and Spying by the Go-Gos, the B-side of Our Lips Are Sealed. It’s in part because when I saw the band at J.B. Scott’s in Albany in the early 1980s, it was the ONLY song they performed that wasn’t on their debut album, Beauty and the Beat.

Time to cheat

OK, there are tons of B-side ALBUMS, e.g., here which reminds me of other B-sides I own.

Elvis Presley Blvd. – Billy Joel is on the flip side of Allentown. It’s an OK tune.

There’s a slew of tracks I like on The Best Of 1980-1990 by U2.

Gator On The Lawn – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the B-side of “A Woman in Love (It’s Not Me),” July 1981 a great rockabilly song at 95 seconds. It’s on the boxed set. Greg, I may have put this on one of those mixed CDs we used to exchange.

One of Greg’s commenters suggested The Kinks’ I’m Not Like Everybody Else. The  A-side is Sunny Afternoon.  I have it on a compilation.

But, and I may be missing some, I’m going to select Mustapha Dance by The Clash. It is a dub version of Rock the Casbah, and the B-side of that 1982 single. It appears on Super Black Market Clash, an album I love.

Finally, I recommend to you Attack Of The Killer B’s. This is NOT the Anthrax album, but rather a 1983 Warner Brothers various artists compilation. It contains, among others, the very weird Walk The Dog by Laurie Anderson, the B-side of O Superman.

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