<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In <\/span>Cover Me – Part 1<\/span><\/i>, we expanded on some of the cover songs discussed in the forty pages <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine <\/span><\/i>devoted to the topic in March 2022 (<\/span>Issue #298).\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Some covers are better than others, some became more famous than the originals, and just about all have interesting stories behind them.\u00a0 Take Elvis Presley\u2019s well known version of <\/span>Hound Dog<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 The song was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller not long after they had relocated from New York City to Los Angeles.\u00a0 Johnny Otis asked them to write some songs for the singers in his band and after checking them out, they wrote <\/span>Hound Dog.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It was Originally recorded by Big Mamma Thornton in 1952 and climbed to #1 on <\/span>Billboard\u2019s R&B Chart <\/span><\/i>\u00a0in 1953.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Three years later, Elvis caught Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Las Vegas and liked their comedic take on <\/span>Hound Dog.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Presley liked it well enough to add it to his act.\u00a0 His hip swaying version on the <\/span>Milton Berle Show <\/span><\/i>caused a ruckus which in turn helped his <\/span>Don\u2019t Be Cruel<\/span><\/i> single (backed by <\/span>Hound Dog<\/span><\/i> on the B-side) become a two sided hit release.\u00a0 Elvis was not thrilled to have recorded it in the first place, but the cat was out of the bag, so to speak.\u00a0 Stroller and his wife were returning from a European vacation on the Italian ocean liner <\/span>Andrea Doria <\/span><\/i>when it was rammed by another vessel on July 25, 1956.\u00a0 They survived and after the freighter that rescued them docked in New York, an excited Jerry Leiber met them on the pier.\u00a0 The first words out of his mouth were, \u201cElvis Pressley recorded <\/span>Hound Dog!<\/span><\/i>\u201d As I said, there are some interesting stories attached to cover songs, so let us explore a few more discussed in <\/span>CRM #298.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before Fleetwood Mac reimagined themselves as a power-pop juggernaut in the late 1970s, they were an upcoming band doing their best to emulate the American blues artists that inspired a lot of British bands.\u00a0 I heard some of their early stuff back in 1970, including the Peter Green penned <\/span>The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 Fleetwood Mac \u2018turned up the heat\u2019 (as <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>described their evolving sound) on tunes like <\/span>Green Manalishi, <\/span><\/i>acting as a prelude to what would become known as \u2018heavy metal\u2019.\u00a0 The original may have also hinted that Green\u2019s time with FMac was nearing the end:\u00a0 \u201cBy the beginning of 1970, Green\u2019s mental health was in a precarious state.\u00a0 His increasing inability to deal with success wasn\u2019t helped by his LSD use.\u00a0 <\/span>The Green Manalishi<\/span><\/i>, with its air of foreboding and paranoia, captures his state of mind,\u201d according to <\/span>CRM.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The connection between <\/span>The Green Manalishi<\/span><\/i> and the emerging genre of heavy metal wasn\u2019t evident in 1970, but it was after Judas Priest covered the song in 1978.\u00a0 There was no other band flying the HM banner higher than Priest in the late 1970s.\u00a0 The track was included on the US release <\/span>Hell Bent For Leather <\/span><\/i>(retitled from <\/span>Killing Machine, <\/span><\/i>the album released in the UK in 1978 without <\/span>Green Manalishi<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>. Green M<\/span><\/i> was on Priest\u2019s 1979 live album <\/span>Unleashed in the East<\/span><\/i> and quickly became a metal classic.\u00a0 Priest kept FMac\u2019s basic song structure but singer Rob Halford\u2019s delivery was less spooky than Green\u2019s and bracketed by the turbo-charged twin guitars of KK Downing and Glen Tipton.\u00a0 Many people did not know it was a cover let alone a connecting bridge from early 70s Brit-blues and late 70s metal.\u00a0 In 2017, Halford acknowledged the tracks were different, but still great:\u00a0 \u201cA good song will take any kind of interpretation.\u00a0 You can take it and make it into anything.\u201d\u00a0 A great summation of just about any cover song.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How about <\/span>Blinded By The Light?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 If you listened to rock radio in 1976, the name associated with the song would have been Manfred Mann\u2019s Earth Band.\u00a0 The song was all over FM radio but it was not, ironically, high on Mann\u2019s list of songs they wanted to cover.\u00a0 Mann said, \u201cI made a list of three or four songs that I thought could make singles, and <\/span>Blinded<\/span><\/i> was at the bottom.\u00a0 Even when I got round to it, I didn\u2019t really see it.\u201d\u00a0 They worked up a seven-minute version which was tweaked and rearranged from the original.\u00a0 Mann replaced the original soul-revue sax section with swirling keyboards, and then kicked off the song with the chorus.\u00a0 In the end, they had taken Bruce Springsteen\u2019s 1973 debut single and turned it into their own.\u00a0 The biggest change was to take out a couple of Springsteen\u2019s wordier verses (<\/span>CRM: \u201c<\/span><\/i>Springsteen crammed as many words as possible into his version, shooting for prime Dylan but sounding like an English literature undergrad who just swallowed a thesaurus.\u201d) and, to <\/span>CRM\u2019s <\/span><\/i>ears, \u201cMade it unequivocally better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Deep Purple certainly made their mark when th<\/span>e Machine Head <\/span><\/i>(1972) album burst onto the scene but they were not totally unknown at the time.\u00a0 Inspired by Vanilla Fudge\u2019s dramatic rendering of Th<\/span>e<\/span><\/i> Supremes\u2019 Motown hit, <\/span>You Keep Me Hanging On, <\/span><\/i>they decided to give Billy Joe Royal\u2019s <\/span>Hush <\/span><\/i>(1967) a similar treatment.\u00a0 Purple keyboard player Jon Lord had toured with Vanilla Fudge when he was a member of The Flower Pot Men and seeing his Fudge counterpart (Mark Stein) coax grinding chords out of his Hammond organ live made a big impression. \u00a0 Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had seen potential in the song when he heard it soon after Royal released <\/span>Hush<\/span><\/i> in 1967.\u00a0 To make it a Deep Purple track, Blackmore reasoned, \u201c[They only needed] a tougher, bolder arrangement.\u201d\u00a0 Recording at London\u2019s Pye studio in the spring of 1968, they were prepared to get <\/span>Hush<\/span><\/i> down on tape for their debut album, <\/span>Shades of Deep Purple.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Having neglected to score a copy of Royal\u2019s record, they leaned on Purple\u2019s bass player at the time (Rod Simper) to call a friend of his who had been singing the song in his own band.\u00a0 Rod Freeman obliged and, with guitar in hand, wrote down the chords and music for them.\u00a0 Purple wanted their lead single to be The Beatles\u2019 <\/span>Help!<\/span><\/i> but the record company opted for <\/span>Hush <\/span><\/i>instead.\u00a0 It was a wise choice and the single contributed to their breaking out on American radio.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Long time Purple bassist<\/span> Roger Glover adds his spin on how their early roots as a jamming band evolved in part due to the success of <\/span>Hush:\u00a0 \u201c<\/span><\/i>The essence of the band was always great musicians.\u00a0 You had Jon on one side and Ritchie on the other.\u00a0 Then Gillan and I came from a pop band, which was a good thing because you have this naivety balanced with virtuosity.\u00a0 To me, that was the key to what the Deep Purple sound was.\u00a0 And still is.\u201d\u00a0 It only took a cover of <\/span>Hush<\/span><\/i> to show everyone what they had to offer.\u00a0 No doubt the success of <\/span>Hush <\/span><\/i>paved the way for the wider fame they experienced when <\/span>Machine Head<\/span><\/i> made them one of the biggest bands in the world in 1972.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Argent guitarist\/vocalist Russ Ballard wrote the song <\/span>God Gave Rock And Roll To You <\/span><\/i>in 1973.\u00a0 It was first recorded by Argent, but it was inspired by his mother.\u00a0 Ballard recalled having panic attacks during a difficult US tour, \u201cpossibly,\u201d he says, \u201cas a result of working too hard.\u201d\u00a0 He also recalls his deeply religious mother giving him some sage advice when they returned to the U.K.\u00a0 Ballard\u2019s mum would say to him, \u201cGod gave us this, and God gave us that\u201d in the nine months after the tour and his anxiety waned.\u00a0 This was the phrase Ballard had in his head when he sat down at the piano and wrote the song.\u00a0 As performed by Argent, it was a sunny, optimistic song that reached the UK Top 20.\u00a0 Two decades later, KISS would tweak the song\u2019s arrangement and lyrics (\u2018<\/span>You gotta put your faith in loud guitars\u2019<\/span><\/i> never appeared in Argent\u2019s version) when they recorded it for the soundtrack of the movie <\/span>Bill and Ted\u2019s Bogus Journey.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>God Gave\u2026<\/span><\/i> was still a celebration of the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to make it big and Ballard didn\u2019t mind the tweaks to his song:\u00a0 \u201cThey got the tempo right, and their guitar solo was better.\u00a0 Looking back now, I realize that Argent didn\u2019t always pay enough attention to the details of the arrangement.\u00a0 I had no objection [to KISS fiddling with his song] because without them, the song would have been stuck away on a shelf just gathering dust, but now it was part of a massive, high-profile movie soundtrack.\u00a0 Plus, I didn\u2019t have to give away too much of the publishing.\u201d \u00a0 Ballard hopes to get out and tour again after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns of the last two years,\u00a0 He has used the time well, recording a new album he hopes to release before too long.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are artists and bands who have forged careers singing songs written by others.\u00a0 Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Vanilla Fudge, and Three Dog Night come to mind.\u00a0 In the case of Three Dog Night, they managed 21 consecutive Top 40 hits, three of them reaching #;\u00a0 11 and 18 of their\u00a0 songs reached the Top 10 and Top 20, respectively.\u00a0 The Los Angeles based band rounded up the best tunes by mostly undiscovered new songwriters of the late 1960s and put their own stamp on them.\u00a0 Songwriters like Harry Nilsson, Elton John, Laura Nyro, Paul Williams, and Hoyt Axton are but a few of the names that have graced the labels on Three Dog Night\u2019s parade of hits.\u00a0 While songs like Nilsson\u2019s <\/span>One <\/span><\/i>and Nyro\u2019s <\/span>Eli\u2019s Coming<\/span><\/i> were seen as sure hits when recorded, the same can not be said of their 1970 release, Randy Newman\u2019s <\/span>Mamma Told Me Not To Come.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first recording of <\/span>Mamma<\/span><\/i> was done by Eric Burdon in 1967.\u00a0 Released on Burdon\u2019s 1966 solo album, <\/span>Eric Is Here, CRM <\/span><\/i>describes Burdon as, \u201c…bellowing out an unmemorable version.\u201d Newman himself took a crack at it on his <\/span>12 Songs <\/span><\/i>LP in 1970 but he played the lyrics pretty close to the vest.\u00a0 The song was, as described by <\/span>CRM,<\/span><\/i> \u201cthe tale of a straight-laced stiff who has ended up at a dissolute soiree he can\u2019t wait to get away from.\u00a0 [Newman] laid down his own nervy, piano-centered version.\u201d\u00a0 One of TDN\u2019s trio of vocalists, Cory Wells, had heard Newman\u2019s track but had little luck getting the rest of the band on board:\u00a0 \u201cThey kept turning it down, saying \u2018No, it\u2019s not a hit, it\u2019s not a hit.\u2019\u201d All it took to make it a hit was to have Three Dog Night turn the arrangement on its ear.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>CMR <\/span><\/i>described how TDN reinvented the song:\u00a0 \u201cThe key was to keep the original\u2019s spindly musical skeleton, but pack on the muscle, turning it into an enthusiastically funky bar-room blast.\u00a0 Where Randy Newman sounded like he was really regretting coming to the party, Three Dog Night most definitely did not.\u00a0 When Newman sang, \u2018<\/span>I\u2019ve seen so many things I ain\u2019t never seen before,\u2019<\/span><\/i> he meant it.\u00a0 When Wells sang it, he was practically rubbing his hands with glee.\u00a0 Newman\u2019s ironic commentary on LA\u2019s hedonistic party scene was turned into one of the party anthems of the 1970s.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Mamma<\/span><\/i> proved to be the first of TDN\u2019s trio of No. 1 hits, but Newman himself was said to have been a bit miffed by this sort of scruffy bunch from L.A. and their arrangement of his song.\u00a0 That is, at least until the royalties started rolling in.\u00a0 Wells, who passed away in 2017, told the tale of picking up the phone one day.\u00a0 It was Newman, who said, \u201cI just want to thank you for putting my kids through college\u201d before he hung up (Newman denies it happened but Wells stuck to his version until his death).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The origins of the song <\/span>Black Betty <\/span><\/i>are unknown so the credit line simply says \u2018traditional\u2019.\u00a0 The first recorded version, however, dates back to 1933 thanks to noted ethnomusicologists Alan and John Lomax.\u00a0 In their quest to record authentic American music, the Lomax boys traveled across the United States collecting an immense catalog of music that now resides in the Library of Congress.\u00a0 The a-capella version of <\/span>Black Betty <\/span><\/i>they recorded in 1933 was provided by 63 year-old career criminal James \u2018Iron Head\u2019 Baker.\u00a0 The field recording was made at the Central State Farm in Texas, an institution that \u2018employed\u2019 its inmates producing cotton and sugarcane.\u00a0 Baker was a rough, tough character from the streets of Dallas and his rendering of the tune matches his reputation.\u00a0 Lead Belly\u2019s (Huddie Ledbetter) 1939 recording may be more widely known, but he does not quite match Baker\u2019s eerie moan.\u00a0 None-the-less, it was Lead Belly\u2019s version that caught Bill Bartlett\u2019s ear in the late 1970s.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bartlett was a sometime member of The Lemon Pipers (one hit wonders known for the 1968 psychedelic pop song <\/span>Green Tambourine<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 He rearranged <\/span>Black Betty<\/span><\/i>, added a choppy, southern flavored riff, and two extra verses and recorded the track with his band Starstruck.\u00a0 This <\/span>Black Betty<\/span><\/i> didn\u2019t take off nationally, but the regional buzz it caused brought it to the attention of Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz of Super K Productions.\u00a0 They put together a band called Ram Jam around Bartlett and re-released it as a single in 1977.\u00a0 If one has seen the video for this <\/span>Black Betty,<\/span><\/i> Bartlett wants everyone to know the Ram Jam band shown did not cut this song:\u00a0 \u201cIt was\u00a0 Starstruck.\u201d\u00a0 The Ram Jam re-release was a significantly edited and rearranged version of Bartlett\u2019s original recording, but his statement about who recorded the track is true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With so much history, one eternal question remains;\u00a0 Who or what was Black Betty?\u00a0 Historians have made a case that \u2018Betty\u2019 might have been a reference to, \u201c a bottle of whisky, a devious woman, a police car, or the bullwhip that bit at the worker\u2019s backs.\u201d\u00a0 Bartlett has his own interpretation:\u00a0 \u201cMy version is about Bettie Page.\u00a0 She\u2019s not a black girl, she\u2019s a pin-up queen from the fifties.\u00a0 She was the tops.\u00a0 She was my inspiration for writing the last two verses.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what Lead Belly was writing about.\u00a0 That\u2019s up to anybody to guess.\u00a0 But music can be whatever you want it to be about.\u00a0 As long as you\u2019re having a good experience listening to the music, I don\u2019t care what you think it is about.\u201d\u00a0 The Ram Jam release reached No. 18 on the US charts and the Top Ten in both the UK and Australia.\u00a0 It has also been used in many movies.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The final segment of the <\/span>CRM Covers <\/span><\/i>edition takes an extended look at covers of Bob Dylan\u2019s songs, especially Jimi Hendrix\u2019s take on <\/span>All Along The Watchtower.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>With a catalog as deep as Dylan\u2019s it stands to reason there are numerous bands and artists who were attracted to covering his songs.\u00a0 Peter, Paul and Mary latched on to <\/span>Blowing In The Wind<\/span><\/i> within three weeks of Dylan releasing his original version.\u00a0 The Byrds, inspired by George Harrison sporting a twelve-string Rickenbacker electric guitar, turned Bob\u2019s <\/span>Mr. Tambourine Man<\/span><\/i> into a mega hit long before the record-buying youth of America knew who Dylan was.\u00a0 By the time Guns \u2018N\u2019 Roses got around to <\/span>Knockin\u2019 On Heaven\u2019s Door <\/span><\/i>(1991)<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>it had already been given a reggae treatment by Eric Clapton (1975).\u00a0 The odds of the G\u2019N\u2019R version topping both Dylan\u2019s and Clapton\u2019s seems almost unimaginable, but it does.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dylan liked Hendrix\u2019s arrangement of <\/span>All Along The Watchtower<\/span><\/i> so much he began performing the song in a similar manner (as Hendrix) later in his career.\u00a0 For my part, I actually prefer another <\/span>Watchtower <\/span><\/i>cover – the one on Savage Grace\u2019s eponymous first album released in 1970.\u00a0 It may not have charted but the Savage Grace arrangement marked the first time I heard <\/span>All Along The Watchtower <\/span><\/i>performed live.\u00a0 SG turned it into one of their showpiece concert numbers featuring their eighteen year-old bass player, Al Jacquez.\u00a0 Maybe Al will perform an acoustic version\u00a0 during his solo gig at the Ontonagon Theater for the Performing Arts this summer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We have but scratched the surface on the topic of cover songs.\u00a0 Not wanting to make this a \u2018three parter\u2019, we will set it aside for now.\u00a0 With that said, I will explain how I accidently wrote \u2018part three\u2019 a while back when we take up the topic again in the near future.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Speaking of Hendrix and\u00a0All Along the Watchtower –<\/em> here is the version from Isle of Wight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Cover Me – Part 1, we expanded on some of the cover songs discussed in the forty pages Classic Rock Magazine devoted to the topic in March 2022 (Issue #298).\u00a0 Some covers are better than others, some became more famous than the originals, and just about all have interesting stories behind them.\u00a0 Take […]<\/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-2506","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\/2506","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=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}