{"id":2498,"date":"2022-04-16T21:56:13","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T21:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2498"},"modified":"2022-04-18T20:22:51","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T20:22:51","slug":"ftv-cover-me-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2498","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Cover Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Reading Bill DeMain\u2019s excellent introduction to <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine\u2019s <\/span><\/i>feature on <\/span>Rock\u2019s Greatest Cover Versions <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>CRM # 298 – March 2022<\/span><\/i>), it dawned on me that 95 percent of musicians get their start playing cover versions of other people\u2019s music.\u00a0 The other 5 percent (and that may actually be an overly generous slice of the pie) might go right to performing their own material, but even they had to be sneaky about it.\u00a0 Most venues hiring bands wanted \u2018hits\u2019 to entertain their patrons, so bands wanting to perform their own songs would employ a variety of tricks.\u00a0 Playing a snippet of a popular song inserted into an original was not uncommon.\u00a0 So was announcing, \u201cHere\u2019s a Rolling Stones song,\u201d before playing one of the band\u2019s own songs.\u00a0 If the club owner was not paying attention and\/or their clientele was buzzed enough, a band might get away with it (or they might suddenly be unemployed).\u00a0 Even the biggest names in the music industry (I will let you construct your own list here) got their start playing covers and as we shall see, many continued the practice long after they had their own catalog of songs to perform.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the fifty plus years I have played in bands (off and on), only one of them attempted to write an original tune.\u00a0 My old guitar player Barry says he does not remember this at all, but I do.\u00a0 Early on, before we had played a paying gig, our line up had gelled and we had a name.\u00a0 Barry said he had been inspired to write a song to match our new, heavy sounding name (Sledgehammer).\u00a0 He had a chunky riff we started to jam on, words for at least one verse, and a tag-line\/title promising, \u201c<\/span>We\u2019re gonna knock down the opposite wall<\/span><\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 It sticks in my mind because my comment was, \u201cHey, we could have used this with my last band, too,\u201d which happened to be called Knockdown.\u00a0 Barry said he wasn\u2019t satisfied with it and needed to write a couple of more verses.\u00a0 We never went back to it and, as far as Barry not remembering it at all, I assume the song was never finished.\u00a0 We were more than happy to spend our time polishing covers of other band\u2019s music, which in the end, is enough to keep most semi-professional bands working.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the period after World War II, it was a common practice for record labels to blatantly copy hits from other labels.\u00a0 If a song was popular, a label would rush its own artists into the studio to do a cover version.\u00a0 It was not uncommon to see the same song title on sale by different artists from multiple labels side by side in the record racks.\u00a0 This method sold a lot of records, but I can not be sure how much of the profits made it back to the original artists and\/or songwriters.\u00a0 Music publishing was a rather ruthless business run by enough shifty, shady characters in the early days, it is a wonder some musicians could even make a living.\u00a0 With that said, most musicians made their living playing live shows back in the day and viewed any record sales (or airplay) as a form of public relations they didn\u2019t have to pay for.\u00a0 As long as the practice brought people out to their shows, they could live with it.\u00a0 Very few artists had control of their publishing and recording deals back then.\u00a0 The same kind of applies today.\u00a0 Musicians don\u2019t profit much when music is being traded for free on the internet.\u00a0 If they are lucky, the wider exposure will help them attract larger audiences for their live shows and perhaps spur sales on digital music platforms that do charge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Among the famous musicians who cut their teeth playing covers, DeMain mentions, \u201cDavid Bowie playing everything from Elvis tunes to Slim Whitman\u2019s <\/span>China Doll<\/span><\/i> as a member of the Kon-Rads; Bruce Springsteen in The Castiles playing <\/span>Purple Haze<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Suzanne<\/span><\/i> at school dances; Steven Tyler\u2019s band The Strangeurs having business cards promising \u2018English Sounds, American R&B\u2019 which meant everything from <\/span>Bits and Pieces <\/span><\/i>to <\/span>She\u2019s a Woman<\/span><\/i>; and Bluesology pianist Reg Dwight (en route to being Elton John) singing Jim Reeves songs, Cliff Richard songs, anything that was popular.\u201d\u00a0 Even The Beatles populated their first five UK-released albums (before <\/span>Rubber Soul<\/span><\/i>) with them;\u00a0 20 of the 69 songs (28 percent) they put down being covers.\u00a0 The Rolling Stones ratio was even higher with a 70\/30 percent split between covers and originals.\u00a0 How about Van Halen\u2019s <\/span>Ice Cream Man?\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Yes, it is a cover of John Brim\u2019s 1953 track that was little known nor remembered until David Lee Roth\u2019s over the top version appeared on VH\u2019s debut album (along with their cover version of The Kink\u2019s <\/span>You Really Got Me<\/span><\/i>) in 1978.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bob Seger had a hit song right out of the box with <\/span>Ramblin\u2019 Gamblin\u2019 Man<\/span><\/i>, but he had little success selling records or retaining a label afterward.\u00a0 In the period before he began his run of top selling albums, he was touring with the organ\/drum duo Teegarden & Van Winkle.\u00a0 When I saw them perform at Northern Michigan University, they started the show with Seger playing an acoustic set, followed by the T&VW set.\u00a0 They finished up with a third set playing as a trio.\u00a0 Their heavy dose of cover tunes included classics like <\/span>Who Do You Love<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>If I Were A Carpenter<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Years later, they released an album of mostly covers (in 1972 – a release I missed) and then it was reissued by Capitol Records as a CD (in 2005 when I finally caught up with it).\u00a0 The title, <\/span>Smokin\u2019 O.P.s, <\/span><\/i>was taken from a slang phrase for those who smoke other people\u2019s cigarettes (which explains the packaging that made the album look like the iconic Lucky Strikes logo).\u00a0 Here, the meaning was a little different: <\/span>\u00a0Smokin\u2019 Other People\u2019s Songs<\/span><\/i> and yes, the album featured mostly covers of songs written by other artists.\u00a0 Two tracks were Seger originals (<\/span>Someday <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Heavy Music<\/span><\/i>) but the rest came from the likes of Bo Diddley, Stephen Stills, Tim Hardin, Leon Russell and Chuck Berry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bill Haley and the Comets are usually credited with the first true rock and roll hit (a topic open to some debate by music historians), but even <\/span>Rock Around The Clock <\/span><\/i>was a cover.\u00a0 It had been released by Sonny Dae & His Knights in 1954, but with a much jazzier arrangement.\u00a0 Haley\u2019s version hit No. 1 on the\u00a0 U.K. and on American charts a year later.\u00a0 It remains the most widely known out of the fifty or more covers of the song that have been released since.\u00a0 Two other artists who pushed rock and roll records to the fore-front of the music industry in the 1950s were Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly.\u00a0 Both wrote their own songs and the number of cover versions spawned by this pair over the last seventy years is truly astounding.\u00a0 There are more than 200 versions of Berry\u2019s <\/span>Johnny B. Goode<\/span><\/i> alone.\u00a0 Sampling part of a tune became vogue in the late 1980s and into the 1990s and should not be confused with a band doing a full on cover version of a song.\u00a0 Regardless, James Brown\u2019s beats and licks have appeared on more than five thousand recordings, but that is another story for another day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> devoted forty pages to the topic of <\/span>Rock\u2019s Greatest Cover Versions<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 What follows are a few of the back stories that made these songs hits or misses for the bands that covered them.\u00a0 We will avoid the ridiculous ones like William Shatner\u2019s mangling of <\/span>Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds<\/span><\/i> and try to stick to songs that improved in value as covers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1982, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts had a chart smashing hit with <\/span>I Love Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/span><\/i> and over the last forty years, she hasn\u2019t gone out of her way to correct the liner notes of the many compilations crediting her for the song.\u00a0 Jett had in fact heard the song seven years before her version climbed the charts when a US\/UK band based in London (The Arrows) performed their song on their eponymous TV series.\u00a0 The monster riff and lyrics were penned by The Arrows\u2019 bassist\/vocalist Alan Merrill and guitarist Jake Hooker.\u00a0 Hit making producer Mickie Most from RAK studios had asked them to write, \u201cA rousing, three-chord anthem in the vein of <\/span>Summertime Blues <\/span><\/i>or <\/span>Wild Thing.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The original lyric, \u2018<\/span>Put another coin in the jukebox baby,\u2019 <\/span><\/i>was changed at Most\u2019s suggestion (\u201cNo, make it a \u2018dime in the jukebox\u2019, because you\u2019re American\u201d) but when Most used it as a \u2018B\u2019 side, it went mostly unheard.\u00a0 Most\u2019s wife suggested re-cutting the tune as an \u2018A\u2019 side single, but even after it got them noticed enough to get on TV, the song still didn\u2019t sell.\u00a0 Merrill later said underpromotion by the label and a legal dispute with their management kept the single from wider airplay or record sales.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After the band split under less than happy circumstances in 1977, Merril went on to play with Meatloaf and around 1978, he recalls meeting Jett several times when he lived on the same street as her office.\u00a0 She told him when she first heard the song on TV while touring England in The Runaways, she sent a roady out to buy the record.\u00a0 She later tried to get a version on tape with an unlikely band of musicians including former Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook.\u00a0 Merrill was a member of Rick Derringer\u2019s band when he reconnected with Jett in Florida as her second attempt was climbing the charts (this time recorded with The Blackhearts).\u00a0 Both agreed the second time might be the charm and the song might actually become a hit.\u00a0 They remained friends in spite of <\/span>The Runaways<\/span><\/i> biopic that left the impression that <\/span>I Love Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll <\/span><\/i>originated with Jett.\u00a0 In the movie, Kristen Stewart (who played Jett in the flick) is shown brooding in her room, obviously deep in thought.\u00a0 As the song plays in the background, she appears to get an idea and before long is standing on her bed rocking to the song she had apparently \u2018written\u2019 during this scene.\u00a0 Before he passed away in 2020, Merril stated, \u201cI didn\u2019t get rich on <\/span>I Love Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/span><\/i> until it was covered by Britney Spears,\u201d but he himself never tired of performing the song:\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t tire of it, because I never sing a song the same way twice.\u201d\u00a0 I am sure the royalties didn\u2019t hurt, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Clash\u2019s EP <\/span>The Cost of Living<\/span><\/i> came out in 1979 and featured a song many mistook to be another typical British punk song.\u00a0 In truth, Texas guitarist\/songwriter Sonny Curtis penned <\/span>I Fought The Law <\/span><\/i>in 1959 when he was all of twenty one.\u00a0 The now 84 year old Curtis explained how the song came to be:\u00a0 \u201cI was sitting in my living room, about three in the afternoon, in a little town called Slaton, Texas, outside of the city of Lubbock, where Buddy (Holly) and a whole bunch of us started out.\u00a0 It was a real windy day, which happens a lot in west Texas.\u00a0 The sand was blowing outside.\u00a0 I picked up my guitar and I can\u2019t imagine where the idea came from, but I just started writing this song, <\/span>I Fought The Law.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It only took about twenty minutes.\u00a0 You can tell that it didn\u2019t take a rocket scientist to come up with those lyrics, but it\u2019s my most important copyright.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Curtis never wrote the song down and it remained in the back of his head for future use.\u00a0 He had re-joined The Crickets before Holly died and they were on the way to New York City to record when he sang a snippet of <\/span>I Fought The Law<\/span><\/i> in the backseat as they searched for songs to record.\u00a0 The band rearranged the tune a bit in the studio but like, <\/span>I Love Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll, <\/span><\/i>it ended up as a \u2018B\u2019 side and the story could have ended there.\u00a0 Other regional bands tried their hand with the tune (like Paul Stefen & The Royal Lancers from Milwaukee), but none were able to get the song to break nationally.\u00a0 Only Bobby Fuller\u2019s version was able to crack the <\/span>Billboard Top 10<\/span><\/i> in 1966 but his mysterious death (he was found dead in his car a few months after the song peaked) added a layer of \u2018bad luck\u2019 to the song that would last until The Clash took a stab at it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Clash had a jukebox in their rehearsal room and one of the songs they heard from it frequently was Fuller\u2019s version of <\/span>I Fought the Law<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 They put their own spin on it and if Curtis had thought Fuller\u2019s version had helped him pay some bills, The Clash\u2019s reworking must have seemed like pennies from heaven.\u00a0 According to <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>contributor Henry Yates, \u201cThe Clash changed [Fuller\u2019s clean cut delivery].\u00a0 Faster, leaner, curl-lipped, and now with that rabble-rousing guitar riff replacing the benign opening strum [of Fuller\u2019s take], the track\u2019s riotous gallop was only underlined by the section at 2:10 where the instrumentation drops out, then rumbles back to life with Paul Simonon\u2019s bass line.\u00a0 Adding a welcome twist of darkness was Strummer\u2019s habit of swapping \u2018<\/span>left my baby\u2019 <\/span><\/i>for \u2018<\/span>killed by baby\u2019 <\/span><\/i>(as heard on the live version from London\u2019s Lyceum Theater).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What does Curtis really think about The Clash version?\u00a0 \u201cI sorta have a bone to pick with The Clash,\u201d he says now.\u00a0 \u201cI think the song would have been even more famous if they would have gone on TV and played it.\u00a0 But they eschewed some of the top TV shows, because they were sorta anti-establishment.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not mad at The Clash.\u00a0 I\u2019m really proud they cut my song, and I love that version of it.\u00a0 It just had the feel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Part 2 of <\/span>Cover Me,<\/span><\/i> we will look at more tales of songs we have grown to love even if they were covers.\u00a0 Before that, I will leave you with a twist on the whole topic of covers.\u00a0 When guitarist Jeff Beck teamed up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice (both from Vanilla Fudge), they recorded one album and many assumed they would be the next super-group power trio.\u00a0 Beck, Bogert, & Appice made some waves with their self titled release and the standout track <\/span>Superstition.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It didn\u2019t dominate the airwaves as it should have, however, as <\/span>Superstition <\/span><\/i>had been released five months earlier by Stevie Wonder.\u00a0 Are you confused yet?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Stevie Wonder recorded most of the instruments for his albums himself, but he was known to bring in guitar players to the sessions.\u00a0 He had heard Jeff Beck express admiration for his work so Beck was invited to take part in the recording of Wonder\u2019s <\/span>Talking Book<\/span><\/i> album.\u00a0 They crafted an agreement where Wonder would return the favor and write a song for Beck to use on his new BB&A album.\u00a0 The track in question was, naturally, <\/span>Superstition.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Beck began playing the opening drum beat over which Wonder improvised the clavinet riff that became the backbone of the song.\u00a0 The rough demo they created that day was eventually polished into the finished track.\u00a0 The song was intended for the debut BB&A album.\u00a0 BB&A were supposed to get first crack at releasing the single but their album ended up being delayed for a variety of reasons (which was fine with Motown\u2019s Berry Gordy).\u00a0 Gordy had predicted the song would be a big hit so he made sure it was\u00a0 quickly released as the lead single for <\/span>Talking Book<\/span><\/i> in October of 1972.\u00a0 <\/span>Superstition<\/span><\/i> shot to the top of the <\/span>Billboard Hot 100<\/span><\/i> by January of 1973 (Wonder\u2019s first number one hit since 1963).\u00a0 The song garnered two Grammy Awards (Best Rhythm & Blues Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male) while spurring massive sales for <\/span>Talking Book<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 All of this put a bit of a damper on the BB&A single when it was released in March of 1973 and no doubt confused some of the record buying public:\u00a0 Why would they release another version of Wonder\u2019s hit so soon after it had hit No. 1 on the charts?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My question is this:\u00a0 Wonder wrote <\/span>Superstition<\/span><\/i> for Beck but released it first and had a big hit with it before BB&A got their record released – so which version is the \u2018cover version\u2019?\u00a0 Stay tuned for more tales about cover songs in Part 2.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Okay, I could not find a live version of BB&A doing\u00a0Superstition,\u00a0<\/em>but I found a more recent BB&A (Bonamassa, Bogert & Appice) performing a spirited version – sorry JB, best we could do – Bogert is in fine funky voice!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Reading Bill DeMain\u2019s excellent introduction to Classic Rock Magazine\u2019s feature on Rock\u2019s Greatest Cover Versions (CRM # 298 – March 2022), it dawned on me that 95 percent of musicians get their start playing cover versions of other people\u2019s music.\u00a0 The other 5 percent (and that may actually be an overly generous slice of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions\/2501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}