Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Sutherland Brothers – Sailing.mp3
Rod Stewart – Sailing.mp3
Our friend RH has supplied me with scores of lesser known originals. The biggest surprise of these perhaps was that Rod Stewart’s Sailing was in fact a cover version. Written in 1972, it was first recorded by the Sutherland Brothers. Having joined forces with the band Quiver, the brothers were also responsible for another possible inclusion in this series, Arms Of Mary, which readers of a certain vintage are more likely to associate with Danny Wilson’s1988 hit (and others, perhaps, as a hit for Chilliwack in the ’70s). The Sutherland Brothers’ version has a apposite shanty feel, with the keyboard player especially having fun experimenting with his toy. Rod’s version is richer and warmer. The old soul lover recorded it, and the rest of the ludicrously cover-designed Atlantic Crossing, in that incubator of great soul music: Muscle Shoals, Alabama. As I mentioned in my Pissing Off The Taste Police With Rod Stewart post last week, I’ve had an emotional attachment to Rod’s Sailing ever since it facilitated my first slow dance as an 11-year-old, so I instinctively love the song. Frankly, I can think of no good reason, other than its overexposure, why Rod’s Sailing seems to be so widely reviled.
Also recorded by: Joe Dassin (as Ma Musique, 1975), Robin Trower (1976), Joan Baez (1977), The Shadows (1981), Richard Clayderman (1988), Rock Against Repatriation (1990), The Gary Tesca Orchestra (1995), Khadja Nin (1998), Stina Nordenstam (1998), Smokie (2001), fucking Helmut Lotti (2003) a.o.
Best version: Holding the lovely Antje in my arms to the sounds of Rod Stewart singing Sailing…what do you think?

Jacques Dutronc – Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi.mp3
Mungo Jerry – Alright Alright Alright.mp3
This one is a bit of a contentious inclusion. Mungo Jerry didn’t so much cover Jacques Dutronc’s song as re-write it. There are songs billed as original compositions that bear a greater resemblance to another song than Alright Alright Alright does to Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi. Both are first-rate songs. Dutronc’s 1964 hit anticipates Plastic Bertand by 14 years and probably is more punk than the Belgian ever was. Mungo Jerry are often remembered as a bit of a novelty act or – worse and inaccurately– as a one-hit wonder. Fine songs, every bit the equal of In The Summertime, such as Lady Rose or Baby Jump, are often forgotten. Summertime’s b-side, Mighty Man, should be regarded as a classic, if only for singer Ray Dorset’s ad libbing sound effects. As for Dutronc, the man married Francoise Hardy. He is a lucky man.
Also recorded by: Nobody I’ve heard of.
Best version: Oh, they’re both so different… At a push, Mungo Jerry’s for the way Dorset sings “Awride awride awridaridaride”. And the Boo-pee-doop-doops.

Tommy James & The Shondells – I Think We’re Alone Now.mp3
Tiffany – I Think We’re Alone Now.mp3
Teenage singer Tiffany scored her 1987 debut hit I Think We’re Alone Now by performing it at malls. One wonders if the kids’ parents, seen in the video looking on bemusedly at Tiffany’s exploits, recognised the song as Tommy James & the Shondells’ 1967 US #4 hit (apparently described by Lester Bangs as “the bubblegum apotheosis”). Curiously, Tiffany’s cover was followed at the US #1 by another Tommy James cover, Mony Mony by Billy Idol. And before that, Joan Jett had a hit with a cover of Tommy James’ Crimson And Clover. Tiffany at 16 was the youngest female singer to top the US charts.
Also recorded by: The Rubinoos (1977), Lene Lovich (1978), “Weird Al” Yankovic (1988, as, “hilariously”, I Think I’m a Clone Now), Kanda (2003), Girls Aloud (2006), The Birthday Massacre (2008) a.o.
Best version: I used to loathe Tiffany’s version on principle but rather like it now. Still, Tommy James’ original is far superior.

Carson & Gaile – Something Stupid.mp3
Frank & Nancy Sinatra – Something Stupid.mp3
Sung by Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy, Something Stupid is just a little less creepy than Natalie Cole duetting with her long-dead father (I note that she’s at it again). Lee Hazlewood, who produced it, recalled that he phoned Frank to tell him that he was going to duet the song with Nancy if Frank wasn’t. It seems that in the mid-’60s people were not freaked out by such things yet, so Frank called dibs on hisdaughter. And you can’t really argue with the result: it’s a lovely easy listening production. It had been recorded by several artists in the months between its first recording in early 1967 by the song’s composer C. Carson Parks with Gaile and the Sinatras’ production in September that year (including a version by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell in August). But it is Frank and Nancy’s version that is remembered. Carson & Gaile’s original recording – posted here courtesy of our man RH – isn’t wildly different; it has the acoustic guitars and tempo of the Frank ‘n Nancy production. Come to think of it, there isn’t much one can do it, as Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman showed when they returned the song to the UK #1 in 2001.
Also recorded by: The Amazing Dancing Band (1967), Ray Conniff (1967), Sacha Distel & Joanna Shimkus (as Ces mots stupides, 1967), Tino Rossi (as Ces mots stupides, 1967), Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967), Tammy Wynette & David Houston (1967), Andy Williams (1967), Artie Butler (1968), Ali & Kibibi Campbell (1995), Lu Campbell (1998), Dana Winner & Jan Decleir (1998), The Mavericks with Trisha Yearwood (2001), Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman (2001), Steve & Lauryn Tyrell (2005) a.o.
Best version: Sideshow Bob and Selma Bouvier

The Leaves – Hey Joe, Where Are You Going.mp3
Love – Hey Joe.mp3
Tim Rose – Hey Joe (You Shot Your Woman Down).mp3
Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe.mp3
The genesis of Hey Joe is disputed, with some claiming it is an old traditional folk song. There seems to be wide consensus, however, that it was written in the early 1960s by a folk singer called Billy Roberts, who may well have borrowed from a 1950s country song by the same title written by Boudleaux Bryant. Something of a cult classic on LA’s live scene and reportedly propagated by David Crosby, Roberts’ song was eventually recorded by The Leaves (though some claim that the Surfaris recorded their version first, but released it after the Leaves’ version came out). Where The Leaves rock out in a psychedelic fashion, Jimi’s version’s, recorded in December 1966, is said to have been based on the slower folk-rock treatment by Tim Rose (who once was part of a folk trio including someone called Jim Hendricks, as well as Mama Cass Elliott), though Arthur Lee insisted it was the Love recording of September 1966 that inspired Hendrix (which with the Leaves’ version shares a riff very reminiscent of the Searchers’ Needles And Pins). Whatever the stimulant – Rose’s vocals certainly seem not to dissimilar to Jimi’s interpretation, and also compare the drumming – it turned out to be a claustrophobic affair which communicated the intensity of the lyrics: friends discussing a murder of passion.
Also recorded by: Swamp Rats (1966), The Cryan’ Shames (1966), The Surfaris (1966), The Standells (1966), The Byrds (1966), Love (1966), The Shadows of Knight (October 1966), The Music Machine (1966), Cher (1967), Tim Rose (1967), Johnny Hallyday (1967), Marto (1967), Johnny Rivers (1968), Marmalade (1968), The Mothers of Invention (as a satire titled Flower Punk in 1968), King Curtis (1968), Deep Purple (1968), Wilson Pickett (1969), Fever Tree (1970), Les Humphries Singers (1971), Roy Buchanan (1973), Patti Smith (1974), Alvin Lee (1979), “Weird Al” Yankovic (1984), Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1986), Seal (1991), The Offspring (1991), Willy DeVille (1992), Buckwheat Zydeco (1992), Paul Gilbert (1992), Reddog (1992), Eddie Murphy (1993), Band of Joy (1996), The Hamsters (1996), Helge & The Firefuckers (1999), Medeski, Martin and Wood (2000), Roy Mette (2001), Popa Chubby (2001), Robert Plant (2002), Cassie Steele (2005), Gabe Dixon Band (2005) a.o.
Best version: Gotta be Jimi Hendrix’s

Rock legend Rod Stewart is going to play concerts in South Africa, the morning radio DJ announced breathlessly. In our celebrity-starved land, that is big news. Amplifying the public joy is the certain knowledge that it will be the real Rod coming to our shores, not a tribute act pretending to be the real article, as happened when “Earth, Wind & Fire” toured the country. Our boy Rod is a real superstar. At least in South Africa. He always was. That’s why he could draw an audience to Sun City, the cheeky little cultural boycott breaker.

He is also entirely irrelevant these days. Today, Stewart’s output – mostly karaoke performances of the standards – is squarely aimed at the audience that has followed him faithfully ever since Sailing. The really obsessive reader of this little seed in the blogospheric silo may recall that I have great memories of Sailing – it was the soundtrack to my first (and last) slow dance with the first love of my life, the lovely Antje. So I ought to find it in my heart to forgive everybody’s favourite faux-Caledonian a lot of things. Like skin-tight leopard-print trousers and women’s legs growing out of his body. But it’s not as uncomplicated as that. You see, Rod Stewart made a meaningful contribution not only to my romantic vocation, but also was a protagonist in my socio-musical development.

Let me explain by backtracking to the 1977/78 season. That’s when the man who’d become my stepfather appeared on the scene. I was 11 going on 12, and he was very old indeed. I was still finding my way musically. I’d cheerfully listen to Showaddywaddy, Neil Diamond, Sham 69, Hot Chocolate and Jethro Tull, not yet realising that as an aspiring teenager it was my obligation to choose sides as a vehicle for the expression of my individualism. When stepfather began insinuating himself with us, it emerged that he really liked Rod Stewart. I was thrilled: so did I. And if an old man of 33 years liked what I liked, then I must have been achieving musical maturity. I was like a grown-up, at least musically. So out with the Bay City Rollers and Harpo records, let’s dig Rod together. But then came the awareness that if a really old dude of 33 liked Rod Stewart, then Rod Stewart had to be past it, uncool. Stepfather, who at his advanced age must have been past it too, certainly did not appreciate the cool music produced by the Stranglers (who included that fresh-faced stripling Jet Black). The peroxided hair and Da Ya Think I’m Sexy were the last straw. Rod was out of my good books, and would not return into them until I approached the geriatric age of 33.

Stewart’s romantic life did little to attract atonement for his descent into musical cliché. His cortege of blond partners seemed like evictees from the Playboy Mansion. I found few of them attractive – least of all Britt Ekland, who looked like a curious amalgam of porn star, soap actress and desperate housewife. Had Rod Stewart been born 25 years later, his affairs doubtless would have been the subject of reality TV shows on the E! Channel. Starring Jessica Simpson (and what exactly do people see in that preened-up boil?). I cannot deny my superficiality in dumping favourite singers once they become household names not for their music but for their notoriety. Rod Stewart, I decided, would have struggled to pull a toothless hooker in a crackhouse had he not stumbled upon success by singing other people’s songs badly and his own even worse. And, alas, Rod Stewart rarely gave me much reason to believe that I was wrong. Oh, I could have liked Young Turks or Baby Jane in 1983, but on principle I didn’t. Dad Pop, I’d scoff. And look at his fucking housewives’ hair!

Only later, in my 30s, did I revisit the music of Rod Stewart (who by then was through plundering the catalogue of Tom Waits). I had deprived myself. It should really be an article of musical faith that “Early Rod” was magnificent. Maggie May, You Wear It Well, Handbags And Gladrags, Angel or Reason To Believe are all wonderful songs performed superbly, though not necessarily invariably superior to alternative versions. But when exactly does the early period end? Some might say in 1975 with Sailing, which was followed by his disposable version of This Old Heart Of Mine. But that can’t be right: a year after Sailing, Stewart released The Killing Of Georgie, one of the earliest chart hits explicitly about homophobic violence (Rod the Mod merits our appreciation for his courage to sing about homosexuality). In 1977, he had hits with fine cover versions of I Don’t Want To Talk About It and The First Cut Is The Deepest, followed by the perfectly amicable sing-along number You’re In My Heart (which rocks for comparing his lady love to Celtic and [Manchester] United). Now that I am over 33, I’m down with Step-dad Rock.

So the cut-off to cool Rod must be 1978. The dreadful Hot Legs (a hit in ’78, though an album track from 1977) and that World Cup song for Scotland’s ill-fated Argentine adventure presaged the departure from sanity that was the grammatically criminal Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, a vaguely prurient discofied jingle aimed at people over 30 desperate to retain their youth by swinging their arthritic hips and waving their flabby arms to the unfunky beats of self-parody. Or so my analysis went for nearly 30 years. It is not a great song by any means, but it does not merit the detraction so cordially solicited by the sleeve on which Rod covers his companion’s eyes, thereby precluding the statement of her candid and informed opinion in response to his question, practically coercing an affirmation. The song, it must be said, is quite catchy in the way songs that are great to sing in the shower usually are. If ever I need to own up to having a “guilty pleasure” – I feel no guilt over musical pleasure – this song might be it.

Stewart had his last stab at pop relevance with his two 1983 hits, and then settled into the comfort zone of singing bland and pointless songs for housewives and chartered accountants who conspired to make his impertinent cover of Tom Waits’ Downtown Train a UK Top 10 hit. More recently, Rod enjoyed a revival with his American Songbook series, the first of which, beautifully arranged, was actually pretty good (not that anybody needs Rod Stewart’s interpretations when we can listen to the originals by Robbie Williams), before our boy reverted to flogging that particular equine cadaver to the point of decadent extremes.

When the b

ell tolls for Rod Stewart, as it does for every man, our obituaries will probably deviate wildly. There will be those of us who liked the Mod, those of us whose barely pubescent testicles stirred to the strains of Sailing, those of us who got the disco fever from Rod, those of us who thought he was the heir to Waits or Sinatra, and indeed those of us who despised the old fraud… What we all should agree upon, however, is the timeless charm and warmth of Rod Stewart’s music before he hit 33, as these eight songs show.

Rod Stewart – The Killing Of Georgie (Parts I & II) (1976).mp3
Rod Stewart – You Wear It Well (1972).mp3
Rod Stewart – Tonight’s The Night (1976).mp3
Rod Stewart – I Don’t Want To Talk About It (1977).mp3
Rod Stewart – Gasoline Alley (1970).mp3
Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story (1971).mp3
Rod Stewart – Maggie Mae (1971).mp3
Rod Stewart – You’re In My Heart (1977).mp3

Previously on Pissing off the Taste Police:
Bay City Rollers
Counting Crows
Simply Red
John Denver
Barry Manilow
Lionel Richie
The Carpenters
Billy Joel
Neil Diamond
America

Delaney & Bonnie – Groupie (Superstar)
Carpenters – Superstar.mp3
Luther Vandross – Superstar.mp3
Sonic Youth – Superstar.mp3
The genius of the Carpenters resided with their ability, through Richards’s arrangements and Karen’s emotional investment, to make other people’s songs totally theirs. In the case of Superstar, they not only took the song, but also usurped its meaning. Sung by Karen Carpenter it no longer is the groupie’s lament it was written as. Indeed, in its first incarnation, by Delaney & Bonnie in 1969, the song was titled Groupie (Superstar), and included more explicit lyrics (“I can hardly wait to sleep with you” became “…be with you”). Released as a b-side, the song was written by the original performers with Leon Russell, and Eric Clapton featured on the recording. A few months later, former Delaney & Bonnie backing singer Rita Coolidge recorded it. According to Leon Russell, she had come up with the concept for it and Delaney Bramlett said she had helped with the harmonies. But it was Bette Midler’s performance of the song on the Tonight Show in August 1970 that alerted Richard Carpenter, who hadn’t heard the song before, to it. It is said that Karen’s first take, read from a napkin, is that which made it on to the record. In 1983 Luther Vandross recorded a quite beautiful epic version of Superstar; while a whole new generation was introduced to the song through Sonic Youth’s 1994 cover which forms part of a plotline in Juno.
Also recorded by: Cher (1970), Vikki Carr (1971), Colleen Hewett (1971), Bette Midler (1972), George Shearing Quintet (1974), Woody Herman (1975), The Shadows (1977), Elkie Brooks (1981), Richard Clayderman (1995), Dogstar (Keanu Reeves’ group, in 2000), Ruben Studdard (2003), Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (2004), Usher (2005) a.o.
Best version: I’m sure Richard Clayderman’s version fucking rocks, but Karen Carpenter could sing the Horst Wessel Lied and bring a tear to my eye, so – with apologies to the late Luther Vandross – it must be the Carpenters version.

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Betty Hutton – Blow A Fuse.mp3
Bjork – It’s Oh So Quiet.mp3
That Bjork, she is a bit mad, isn’t she? How crazy is It’s Oh So Quiet (the only one of her post Sugarcubes songs I actually like)? Only Bjork, eh? Actually, Betty Hutton’s 1951 original English version of the song, titled Blow A Fuse, is no less maniacal than Bjork’s 1995 cover. It’s fair to say that back in the day Hutton was a bit of a cook in her own right; her goofy performance in the musical Annie Get Your Gun (with which you apparently can’t get a man) testifies to a certain lack of restraint which is very much on exhibition on Blow A Fuse. The song was itself a cover of a 1948 German number by jazz musician Horst Winter, who knew it as Und jetzt ist es still (And now it’s quiet).
Also recorded by: Lisa Ekdahl (1997), Noise For Pretend, Lucy Woodward (2005)
Best version: The arrangement on Bjork’s version is superior.

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Pete Seeger – Turn! Turn! Turn!.mp3
The Byrds – Turn! Turn! Turn!.mp3
For all their songwriting genius, the Byrds were something of an über-cover band. Few acts did Dylan as well as the Byrds did. Some songs they made totally their own. One of these was Turn! Turn! Turn!, a staple of ’60s compilation written by Pete Seeger (co-written, really: the lyrics are almost entirely lifted from the Book of Ecclesiastes). Before Seeger got around to record it in 1962, a folk outfit called the Limelighters put it out under the title To Everything There Is A Season. The first post-Seeger cover was by – you guessed it – Marlene Dietrich as Für alles kommt die Zeit during the actress’ folk phase which also saw her record German versions of Blowin’ In The Wind and Where Have All The Flowers Gone. The same year, 1963, Judy Collins also issued a version, arranged by Roger McGuinn, then still Jim McGuinn, who had played on the Limelighters recording. After Collins’ version, McGuinn (still called Jim) co-founded the Byrds, for whom Turn! Turn! Turn!, released in October 1965, became their second hit. Jim turned turned turned into Roger in 1968.
Also recorded by: Jan & Dean (1965), The Lettermen (1966), The Seekers (1966), Mary Hopkins (1968), Nina Simone (1969), Dolly Parton (1984), Lou Rawls (1998), Bruce Cockburn (1998), Sister Janet Mead (1999), Wilson Phillips (2004) a.o.
Best version: The Byrds’ version was put to perfect use on The Wonder Years, one of my all-time favourite TV shows (the grumpy Dad was just incredible, and the annoying older brother was perfectly written).

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Racey – Kitty.mp3
Toni Basil – Mickey.mp3
I have been told that there is a practice in the cinema of pornography whereby seasoned thespians of the genre dress up in schoolgirl uniforms (temporarily, one should think) and pigtails and pass themselves off as teenagers. So it was with the video for Toni Basil’s 1982 hit Mickey, in which the 39-year-old dressed up as a teenage girl, doing an energetic routine approximating cheerleading. But if Stockard Channing could pass as a high school student in Grease… Mickey was unaccountably popular – it’s a pretty awful song, actually – eclipsing the original by British faux greasers Racey, who recorded on the RKA label. Their 1979 original version of the song was called Kitty, written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (who also wrote hits for the likes of Sweet, Smokie and Suzi Quatro). It was not a hit, and neither Toni Basil nor her record company evidently thought much of it when she recorded it soon after, also in 1979. For two years it languished in the reject tray before some bright spark decided to inflict the number on us, against Basil’s misgivings. In my view, they should have listened to the singer.
Also recorded by: Weird Al Yankovich did a version called Rickey, which I’m sure split sides coast to coast. And B*witched also did a version, which can’t have been great.
Best version: The Racey song is actually not bad.

Apart from the phenomenally popular Christmas mix, the first two volumes of Any Major Funk have been the most downloaded mixes on this blog. Acting on apparent demand, here is Volume 3, with a fourth installment in the works. Like all my mixes, this one is timed to fit on a standard CD-R. As before, these tracks cover the golden age of disco-funk, 1978-83. So put your hands up in the air and shake ‘em like you just don’t care.

TRACKLISTING
1. Stephanie Mills – Never Knew Love Like This Before
2. McFadden & Whitehead - Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now
3. Skyy - Let Love Shine
4. Narada Michael Walden – Shoulda Loved Ya
5. B.B. & Q. Band – On The Beat
6. Shalamar - I Can Make You Feel Good
7. Booker Newberry III – Love Town
8. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway – Back Together
9. Champaign - Can You Find The Time
10. Earth, Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove
11. The Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head
12. Chic - I Want Your Love
13. Odyssey - Inside Out
14. Heatwave - Groove Line
15. Roy Ayers – Don’t Stop The Funk
16. G.Q. - Disco Nights

DOWNLOAD

Everly Brothers – Love Hurts.mp3
Roy Orbison – Love Hurts.mp3
Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris – Love Hurts.mp3
Nazareth – Love Hurts.mp3
Don McLean – Love Hurts.mp3
Paul Young & the Q-Tips – Love Hurts.mp3
Monsieur Mono & Mara Tremblay – Love Hurts (direct DL)
It is possibly the greatest songs ever written from the perspective of heartbreak, with some gloriously bitter metaphors, and yet it took a long time to become a proper hit – and then in one of its worse incarnations. Love Hurts was written by Boudleaux Bryant who co-wrote several Everly Brothers hits. Love Hurts, however, was only an album track on the siblings’ 1960 LP A Date With The Everly Brothers. In 1965, they recorded a more upbeat version, but their mid-tempo 1960 rendition was sufficiently mournful for Roy Orbison to cover it tremulously the following year, releasing it as a b-side. Thereafter, the song remained dormant for 13 years, until Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris delivered the definitive version. Their sweet harmonies are drenched in the hot blood of a broken heart, Parsons perfecting the art of spitting his bile with tender vulnerability.

A year later, the song finally became a hit, in the misplaced hands of hard rockers Nazareth whose singer sounds mortified at having to sing these intimate lyrics. It sounds like he lost a bet at karaoke night. More covers followed soon after, but it was Don McLean in 1981 who returned the song the sensibilities of the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison, probably aware that an imitation of Gram Parsons’ take was impossible. One of the more interesting propositions, the same year, was Paul Young recording the song with the Q-Tips before going solo. One can imagine how well this underrated singer (who did much to feed the dim views of his artistry) might have interpreted the song. In the event, it is a rendition of curious interest rather than a competitor, sounding more like an Ultravox arrangement than a soulful lament. He apparently re-recorded it in 1993, hopefully nailing it the second time around…
A late addition, thanks to L’Homme Scalp, is a rather lovely 2005 French version of the song.
Also recorded by: Cher, Jim Capaldi, Jennifer Warnes, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Bad Romance, Kim Deal and Bob Pollard, Corey Hart, Barbara Dickson, Little Milton and Lucinda Williams, Robin Gibb, Pat Boone, Emmylou Harris, Stina Nordenstam, Sinéad O’Connor, Rod Stewart, Paul Noonan & Lisa Hannigan, Clare Teal a.o.
Best version: Parsons’ version is one of my all-time favourite song…

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Jacques Brel – Le Moribond.mp3
Rod McKuen – Seasons In The Sun.mp3
Terry Jacks – Seasons In The Sun.mp3
I might do my reputation no good at all when I confess that I can’t understand the vitriol levelled against Terry Jacks’ 1974 hit. Yes, it’s sentimental and drenched in syrup, but it hardly is the only offender among its contemporaries in that respect. Cheesy though it may be, it is difficult to denounce a song that originated in the mighty catalogue of the unassailable Jacques Brel. The Belgian king of the vivant recorded the song as Le Moribund in 1961. In Brel’s version, and in poet Rod McKuen’s translation, the cause of the impending death could be natural but well might be a suicide note (there are strong hints that the singer’s wife had an extramarital affair). The English version was soon recorded by the Kingston Singers, and later by the Beach Boys. The latter’s version was not completed or released, but featured among its session musicians Terry Jacks (who, some accounts suggest, introduced the Beach Boys to the song). The Canadian-born singer changed the lyrics, introducing Michelle, his little one, into the proceedings and lightened the tone of the song considerably. The comparative cheerfulness of his version seems to eliminate the notion of suicide; unlike Brel or McKuen, Jacks sounds like a man who has made peace with his mortality.
Also recorded by: The Fortunes, Nana Mouskouri, Nirvana (you won’t see that sequence too often), Bad Religion, Black Box Recorder, Pearls Before Swine, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Westlife a.o.
Best version: I really like McKuen’s version, which I received from our friend RH

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Dee Dee Warwick – You’re No Good.mp3
Linda Ronstadt – You’re No Good.mp3
Linda Ronstadt’s big country-rock hit of 1974 started life as a ’60s soul number. Written by the British songwriter Clint Ballard Jr, it was first recorded by Dee Dee Warwick, Dionne’s younger sister, in 1963. The same year Betty Everett (of Shoop Shoop Song fame) scored a minor hit with it. Ronstadt took the song out of its R&B context altogether, creating a new template on which future covers would be based. That is probably a sign of a really good cover artist: the ability of appropriating a song, changing it so much that it really will feel like a different song. These two versions are a great example of that attribute.
Also recorded by: Swinging Blue Jeans, José Feliciano, Van Halen, Elvis Costello, Wilson Phillips, Lulu, Jill Johnson a.o.
Best version: Ronstadt’s, probably.

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The McCoys – Sorrow.mp3
David Bowie – Sorrow.mp3
Speaking of covers, it is a vaguely amusing coincidence that albums of cover versions by David Bowie and Bryan Ferry – icons of cool both at the time – entered the British charts on the same day in November 1973. Proof, if any was needed, that the covers project is not a recent phenomenon in pop music. David Bowie scored only one hit from the Pin Ups album, Sorrow, which had been made popular in the UK seven years earlier by the Merseys. The original version of it, however, was by the McCoys, the US group better known for their big hit Hang On Sloopy, which also provided the title for the 1965 album which featured Sorrow.
Also recorded by: Status Quo, Tribal Underground, Powderfinger
Best version: Bowie’s shades it.

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Sting – I Hung My Head
Johnny Cash – I Hung My Head.mp3
Who would have thought that Sting could write a really excellent country song. Of course, Sting’s original of I Hung My Head is only notionally country – the arrangement could be by somebody like Tim McGraw, whose country music often is infused with rock music. It’s not a bad version at all, and I say so as somebody who generally holds old Gordon in less than high esteem. But it took Johnny Cash on his landmark 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around to give the song the country spin it really requires. Where in Sting’s version, the spine-tingling story drowns in overproduction, Cash slows it down and delivers it as if he had sung it as a bluegrass number since he was a little boy.
Also recorded by: Blue Highway
Best version: Cash, of course

Oh, my week was made by the lovely responses I received to my lament about not getting enough comments. I really wasn’t angling for compliments, but those that came really built me up, buttercup. People reading my semi-coherent ramblings to their computer-illiterate aunts in Canada… Wow! So I’m deeply touched and very grateful for all the nice comments. Don’t be shy, shower me with comments. Comments are fuel for the blogger. But, as I admitted, I’m guilty of not always commenting myself, so this series is probably as much about assuaging my own feelings of Catholic guilt by giving props to bloggers whose work I appreciate as it is about promoting them. As always, if your blog has not been featured yet, it might do so in the future.

dustysevens
The name gives it away: another blog dedicated to the glories of crackling vinyl. A few weeks ago, when choosing songs for my contribution to the Vinyl Record Day blogswarm, I was torn between uploading the clinical CD rip of Je t’aime…moi non plus, or a vinyl rip I got from who knows where. I went for the CD rip, but the crackling of the latter recreated the memory of growing up with the song in ways the digital version couldn’t. ally of dustysevens has some pretty rare stuff, and some that’s fairly easy to find . Take Sad Sweet Dreamer by the Sweet Sensation. If you need to have the digital version, it’s HERE. But if you grew up with it, you might want to capture what I might call the Birkin Effect, where the crackle is part of the instrumentation and, indeed, atmosphere of the song. For that, visit dustysevens (and other vinyl blogs). And if you don’t really dig vinyl rips, you can still visit to sample ally’s lovely, slightly off-beat humour and some of the surprising illustrations she finds (hand shadow tips, anyone?). The song dedication to ally’s blog is a vinyl rip I made last night, from the apparently rare-on-the-Internet Save The Children soundtrack of a docu on the 1972 PUSH Expo concert in Chicago featuring the cream of African-American musicians, including Sammy Davis Jr singing one of my all-time favourites.
Sammy Davis Jr – I Gotta Be Free (live) (vinyl rip).mp3

All Eyes And Ears
This is a blog I discovered after its owner commented to my No-Comments lament. What made me check out All Eyes And Ears was Dane’s remark that she was thinking of chucking the blog biz because of low hit and feedback rates. So I wanted to see if she should do so. Oh, but she shouldn’t. There are, of course, a lot of photography blogs about, and quite a few that combine photos and music, as Dane’s does. The excellent Art For Art’s Sake springs to mind. What I really like about All Eyes And Ears is the subject matter of photos: apparently unremarkable landmarks in humdrum Ohio brought to life with a keen eye for atmosphere, structure and symmetry. Who knew that a washed-out sign on a filthy wall next to a horribly dull building could be so beautiful? Dane’s art has style. And the songs she selects to illustrate her illustrations are so well-judged: Monkees, Brigitte Bardot, Glen Campbell, Carly Simon, Chuck Berry and so on. But hurry, it’s all on YouSendIt. I am still looking for a good pic of a financial institution located at a riverside in Dane’s homestate… (thangyooverymuchfolks, I’ll be here all week)
Olivia Newton-John – The Banks Of The Ohio.mp3

Bob Evans Recording Album #3 in Nashville
I’m a great fan of Bob Evans’ second album, Suburban Songbook, which I picked up at a gig he played in Cape Town (supporting the excellent Farryl Purkiss) last year. So I am very much looking forward to the Australian singer-songwriter’s third album, which he is currently recording in Nashville, where he also made Suburban Songbook. My anticipation is tickled further by his blogiary (is that a word for a blog-diary? Hey, in the cyberworld you can make up your own words), his account of how the recordings are going, where he gets drunk and who paid for supper. Even if that sounds a bit mundane, it’s not boring, because our man Kevin – for his Mom does not call him Bob – is quite an amusing chap, in a self-deprecating manner. I think it’s great to read about the process of recording an album from the first-person perspective of a normal musician, rather than the tales of excess involving groupies, drugs and debauchery. Not that Mr Mitchell – for his parents are not Mr and Mrs Evans either – would necessarily object to those elements of stardom. Bob/Kevin doesn’t read my blog, I don’t think, so I shall dedicate one of his own songs to him.
Bob Evans – The Great Unknown.mp3

Retro Kino
Do you remember the ’80s film The Legend Of Billie Jean? Oh yeah, now that I mention it, you do. Helen wotserface was in it, right? We all thought she’d be a big star. Yeah. OK, Summer School? No? Mark Harmon teaches a bunch of proto-slackers in a summer camp? Ring a bell? Did you fancy Kirsty McNichol or Tatum O’Neal (or, indeed, Matt Dillon) in Little Darlings? Nah, I preferred Kirsty – though she probably wouldn’t prefer me (alleged and rumoured lesbians are funny that way. Anyway, probably for the better we didn’t get married). Andrew McCarthy. Whatever happened to him? I quite liked him, y’know, but I reckon Weekend At Bernies II killed his career flat. He was in Weekend At Bernies II, wasn’t he? Ah yes, if you were young in the ’80s, then Retro Kino is going to bring back memories, some good and some perhaps unwelcome. A fairly new blog – just two months old – it provides well-written and informed comments on the almost forgotten piece of ’80s cinema, plus posters and some video clips. A splendid trip to some kind of wond

erful nostalgia destinations. The dedication is from a film which surely will feature on Retro Kino at some point.
David Foster – Love Theme From St. Elmo’s Fire.mp3

Retro Music Snob
Retro Music Snob surfs the blogs so you don’t have to. The blog’s deal is to highlight posts of interest from other blogs, with a summary of said post. For the reader it is, of course, a great way of discovering new blogs, and for the blogger it’s a useful exercise seeing at a glance what other bloggers are up to. Earlier I said that comments are fuel for bloggers. Spare a thought then for RMS whose gig is quite unlikely to involve a fusillade of reaction. As a regular visitor and one who really appreciates this wonderful and well presented service, I hope to say “thank you” with this tenuously-linked song dedication:
Wings – Listen To What The Man Said.mp3

Previously featured:
Music For Bloggers Vol. 1: Totally Fuzzy, Not Rock On, Serenity Now (RIP), Stay At Home Indie Pop, The Late Greats, Tsururadio, 200percent, Jefitoblog (RIP), Television Without Pity, Michael’s World
Music For Bloggers Vol. 2: Fullundie, Mr Agreeable, Greatest Films, Peanut’s Playground, Just Good Tunes, Csíkszereda Musings, Mulberry Panda, The Black Hole, Secret Love, Hot Chicks With Douchebags
Music For Bloggers Vol. 3: Girl On A Train, Maybe We Ain’t That Young Anymore, Earbleedingcountry, Spangly Princess, Ill Folks, Deacon Blues, One-Man Publisher, CD Rated
Music For Bloggers Vol. 4: Pop Dose, Todger Talk, Holy Goof (RIP), Echoes In The Wind, Sunset Over Slawit, The Hits Just Keep Coming, The Ghost of Electricity, Guitariotabs
Music For Bloggers Vol. 5: The Quietus, Barely Awake In Frog Pyamas, The Great Vinyl Meltdown, Fusion 45, Inveresk Street Ingrate, The Songs That People Sing
Music For Bloggers Vol. 6: my hmphs, Visions of Wrong Terrence, Don’t Burn The Day Away, Mine For Life, 3 Minutes 49 Seconds
Music For Bloggers Vol. 7: Uncle E’s Musical Nightmare, Jens Lekman, Ain’t Superstitious, AM Then FM, Psd Photoshop Disasters, SIBlingshot on the Bleachers, Dr Forrest’s Cheese Factory, NME & Melody Maker

In the third part of this series we look at the originals of songs made more famous by 70s doo wop revivalists Darts, Bobby Darin, Marianne Faithful, Carpenters and Gene Kelly.

EDIT: With DivShare having deleted three accounts, some of the links originally posted are dead or probably will go dead soon. I have compiled the originals of the featured song, except Daddy Cool, in one file:

The Originals Vol. 3
(The Wrens, Charles Trenet, Dr Hook, New Vaudeville Band, Herman’s Hermits, Cliff Edwards & the Brox Sisters)
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Daddy Cool & Come Back My Love
Every decade seems to enjoy a revival at roughly a 20-year cycle. We are slowly emerging from the 1970s revival, are full-on in the 1980s revival (which was officially launched with The Wedding Singer) and the 1990s revival has already begun – though I cannot imagine what there is to be nostalgic about. Essentially, the cultural decision-makers launch a wave of nostalgia to the years of their childhood. And, as this blog proves, I like nostalgia. In the ’70s, the big revival was the ’50s. It started early, with movies such as The Last Picture Show and climaxed with Grease and the death of Elvis. Bands such as Sha Na Na, Showaddywaddy, Racey and Long Tall Ernie & the Shakers had hits cashing in on the nostalgia boom (as did, at the tail-end of the revival, Shakin’ Stevens). All of these were more or less karaoke artists. Not so Darts. They got Rock ‘n’ Roll. They took old (usually obscure) numbers and gave them new life. In the case of both of these featured songs, released in 1977, the Darts revamped and improved on the original – if one overlooks the sample of Little Richard’s The Girl Can’t Help It in Daddy Cool. It is a shame they are not remembered by much more than the original artists.

The Wrens were a  Bronx doo wop trio that never hit the big time. Come Back My Love, recorded in 1954, should have been a massive hit, but (like their other records) never was. The Rays were a short-lived doo wop band who scored a US hit in 1957 with Silhouettes, of which Daddy Cool was the b-side (the Rays’ singer, Guy Darrell re-recorded the b-side as a single in 1961). But it was Daddy Cool which became the inspiration for an Australian ’70s group by that name. The Rays file has been borrowed, with permission, from the excellent Whiteray at Echoes In The Wind, who featured it in this post (and do read Whiteray’s amazing story associated with the song). The Wrens’ version I had been looking for unsuccessfully for a long time. Within minutes of asking my very generous new friend RH (whom we will have much more reason to be grateful to as this series progresses), he sent it to me.
The Rays – Daddy Cool
Darts – Come Back My Love
Darts – Daddy Cool/The Girl Can’t Help It
Also recorded by: The Cardinals/Daddy Cool, Drummond
Best versions: Darts, in both cases.

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The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Shel Silverstein was something of a Renaissance Man: a poet, childrens’ author, cartoonist, screenwriter and composer. In the latter incarnation, Silverstein wrote several hit songs, including A Boy Named Sue and The Ballad of Lucy Jordan. He also wrote a few soundtracks, among them Ned Kelly and the snappily titled Dustin Hoffman film Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? In 1971. Silverstein selected the yet unknown Dr Hook & the Medicine Show to appear on the latter. He proceeded to write the lyrics for many Dr Hook songs, including the notorious Sylvia’s Mother, Cover Of The Rolling Stone and Lucy Jordan. Dr Hook’s 1974 version made negligible impact, but Marianne Faithfull’s cover five years later became a big hit. And quite rightly so: Faithfull’s raspy, slightly desperate voice elicited empathy with the eponymous character’s breakdown, whereas Dr Hook in their perfectly servicable version just told a story. When I posted the Faithfull version previously, I claimed it was about suicide. A reader strongly disagreed. I think the denouement – climbing on the roof, taking the man’s hand, driving away in a white car – can be read in two ways: suicide or institutionalisation. Faithfull has opted for the latter interpretation, but as far as I know, the writer never let on what he meant.
Dr Hook & the Medicine Show – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Also recorded by: Lee Hazlewood, Belinda Carlisle, Bobby Bare
Best version: Faithfull’s.

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La Mer/ Beyond The Sea
It is perhaps unfair to speak of Bobby Darin’s Beyond The Sea, released in 1959, as a cover version of the French song La Mer by Charles Trenet. The melodies coincide, as does the nautical theme. From there on, they are really different songs. Trenet’s version, written in 1943 on toilet paper while travelling by train and released in 1946, floats along merrily; Darin’s take initially sails along similarly but then enters a storm of big band brass and brash bluster of vocals. Before Darin recorded the song, with lyrics by Jack Lawrence, it was released by three acts as Beyond The Sea. I have heard none of these versions, but the notion that Benny Goodman’s orchestra was among them would suggest that there is no truth to the idea that it was Darin’s masterstroke to give it the big band treatment. And yet, whatever sound preceded the 1959 recording, Bobby Darin totally appropriated the song, investing in it so much personality that the number can’t be divorced from him. Most covers are based on Darin’s masterpiece, and nobody who has strayed too far from his template has managed to mess it up completely. Not even Robbie Williams.
Also recorded by: Harry James & Orchestra, Benny Goodman & Orchestra, George Wright, Roger Williams (La Mer), Ray Conniff, Lawrence Welk, Helen Shapiro, Johnny Mathis, The Sandpipers, George Benson, Kevin Kline (La Mer), Django Reinhard (La Mer), Ewan McGregor & Cameron Diaz, Bobby Caldwell, Patricia Kaas (La Mer), Wet Wet Wet, Will Young, Robbie Williams, Celtic Women (yikes!), Barry Manilow a.o.
Best version: Bobby Darin should be regarded the King of Headbanging Big Band Swing, with Beyond The Sea as the anthem.

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There’s A Kind Of Hush
A clean-cut song recorded first by a clean-cut band and covered with greater success by an even more clean-cut act. It’s difficult to imagine it now, but at the height of the British Invasion, Herman’s Hermits were briefly challengers to the Beatles’ crown, ending 1965 as the best-selling act in the US. Peter Noone and pals weren’t quite as successful in their home country, where they nevertheless scored ten Top10 hits (and a solitary chart-topper) in between 1964 and 1970. Herman’s Hermits’ There’s A Kind Of Hush fell smack bang into the middle of that run, becoming a UK #7 and US #4 hit in 1967. The Carpenters’ cover nine years later didn’t do as well as that, #12 in the US, but to many people it is the more familiar version. Richard Carpenter does not have high praise for his own arrangement. The original, he has said, was perfect and could not be improved on (and how I wish that more musicians would have such humility), and he didn’t like the synth in his version. On the other hand, it does feature Karen’s voice, for which I am prepared to forgive anything – even this song. Edit: After posting this, our friend RH sent me the version by the New Vaudeville Band, whose founder Geoff Stevens co-wrote the song, and released in 1966 on the Winchester Cathedral album. In all my research, I found no reference to that until I read up on Stevens.
Also recorded by: Engelbert Humperdinck, John Davidson, Claude François, Dana Winner, Barry Manilow, Deerhoof
Best version: I don’t think the Herman’s Hermits version is perfect, but it certainly is superior.

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Singin’ In The Rain
Singin’ In The Rain, the greatest musical movie of all time, was set in the nascent age of the talkies, giving rise to a couple of incredibly funny scenes involving the efforts to adapt to the new technologies by sound engineers and thespians. The songs in the film were pillaged mostly from Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Bown’s back catalogue of songs written for MGM musicals (Freed’s idea was mainly to cash in on royalties. And why not?). One of these was the title track, performed by Cliff Edwards & the Brox Sisters and originally featured in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a star-studded affair released not long after the transition from silent movies, and MGM’s only second musical. It therefore was an inspired choice to provide the title and centrepiece for the 1952 musical. And the sequence of Gene Kelly crooning it in the rain – filmed while he was running a high fever – can never and will never become a cliché. It is film’s equivalent of the Sistine Chapel (and that sequence in A Clockwork Orange the equivalent of pissing on it).
Gene Kelly – Singin’ In The Rain
Also recorded by: Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland; John Serry Sr, Lena Horne, John Martyn, Sammy Davis Jr, Taco, Lou Rawls, Jamie Cullum, Mint Royale a.o.
Best version: The one you can play while jumping in puddles while wearing shiny shoes, a suit and a hat.

More Originals

Somebody once asked me: “What do get out this blogging thing?” My immediate answer was: “To share the music,” just about restraining myself from rounding off my statement with an emphatic “maan”. My friend knows me as an obsessive mix-tape distributor, and so my agenda was understood. I might have added that I get a kick out of writing about music, hoping my prose and insights find as much favour as the music I discuss. And I love it that blogging puts me in touch with fellow music obsessives, some of whom I would love to have a beer with if I ever find myself in Minnesota, Georgia, Bielefeld, London, Slawit or wherever.

There is another reward to blogging: receiving comments. Any writer thrives on feedback. Unless you are Stephen King, Michael Moore or you blog on US elections, the writer never gets enough of that. For the blogging writer, feedback comes through comments. When a post gets few or, God forbid, no comments, the blogger feels very much alone and unsure of whether that post was spectacularly misjudged or just impoverished in quality. On a music blog, a song might get more than a hundred downloads within a couple of days, and three people might comment – mostly fellow bloggers (whom I wish to thank explicitly), two of whom already have all the songs you posted.

I asked another friend (well, the other friend), who is a blog trawler and enthusiastic downloader of music. “Do you leave comments on blogs you download from?” I asked. “Er, no, not really.” “Why not?” “Don’t know, sometimes I’m in a rush and forget. And sometimes the blogger has said everything already so well, I don’t have anything useful to add.” And sometimes my friend feels intimidated, as if congratulating the blogger on an excellent post is like telling JM Coetzee: “Well done, nice bit of writing. Props, pal.” I understand my friend. There are blogs I enjoy reading, but I have nothing constructive to add. I am grateful that I have learned something new, or that I’ve been entertained, but don’t think just to say “thanks”. And to say “thanks” to every single post on the blogs I read regularly would seem a little silly.

And yet, it would be a good habit to get into. I certainly do appreciate any comment, even if it’s just a note of thanks for a song, or a brief reaction to my writing, or even a bit of criticism. Just to make me feel that I’m not whispering in the wind. OK, Google Analytics shows me I’m not, but it would be nice if some of the other 98,72% of visitors took two minutes to say hello…

And to entice them, here are a few songs that have absolutely nothing to do with comments on blogs, other than a tenuous relationship in their title…

Wilco – Comment (live).mp3
John Mayer – Say.mp3
Bee Gees – I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You.mp3
Rosie Thomas & Sufjan Stevens – Say Hello.mp3*
Lisa Loeb – What Am I Supposed To Say.mp3
The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk I’d Tell You.mp3

Roger Miller – Me And Bobby McGee.mp3
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Me And Bobby McGee.mp3
Kris Kristofferson – Me And Bobby McGee.mp3
Janis Joplin – Me And Bobby McGee.mp3
It is odd when a legend of popular music ends up covering his own song. So it is with Kris Kristofferson who was commissioned to write Me And Bobby McGee by a record label boss.

The song’s first version was recorded by Roger Miller in 1969. His was a mid-tempo country-pop number, rather bereft of emotional engagement, an entirely misjudged drumtrack and, in the carnivalesque “la la la” part some ill-advised ’60s horns and some background whooping. It failed to set the world of music alight, making it to #12 in the country charts, and failing to dent the pop charts. Things could only get better. The next version was by the First Edition, featuring Kenny Rogers, who even in 1969 looked like your middle-aged uncle. If one doesn’t know that version, one can imagine Rogers performing the song in his languid way, the gravelly baritone drawing out all the gravitas of the lyrics. But imagination can be treacherous: the treatment here is light and quirky and much faster than one might think. A bit like Miller’s original.

The following year Kristofferson finally recorded it himself. Introducing a live version of it, KK seems unsure whether it is a country song or not, deciding that if it sounds like it is, then it must be. A couple of country types mucked about with it over the following few months, before Janis Joplin – a former lover and friend of KK’s – decided it was really a blues-rock number. Recorded just a few days before her death, Joplin is initially restrained before launching into a climax of screams and groans, as was her wont. Her take is not lacking in poignancy, especially given the circumstances, and many would regard hers as the definitive version, but – as with much of Joplin’s output – I distrust the notion that histrionics necessarily express true emotion. Indeed, Me And Bobby McGee is a country song; it tells a story whose narration requires no excessive emoting (especially if, as Willie Nelson claims, Bobby McGee is actually a guitar). In the space of three years, the song would be recorded 15 times.
Also covered by: Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Gordon Lightfoot, Bill Haley, Dottie West, Loretta Lynn, Grateful Dead, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam The Sham, Olivia Newton-John, Charlie McCoy, The Statler Brothers, Lonnie Donegan, Gianna Nannini, Skid Row, Willie Nelson, LeeAnn Rimes, Anne Murray, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alison Crowe, Dolly Parton & Kris Kristofferson, Arlo Guthrie a.o.
Best version: Kris Kristofferson nails his own song by delivering a tender, sadly resigned narrative of loss and freedom.

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Kingston Trio – Sloop John B.mp3
Beach Boys – Sloop John B.mp3
One of the biggest Beach Boys hits was in fact an old Caribbean sea shanty about the ship John B which was sunk in a Barbados harbour in 1900. Borrowing from a 1935 recording titled Histe Up the John B. Sail, folk pioneers the Weavers first recorded it 1950 as The Wreck of the John B. But it wasn’t that version from which the Beach Boys borrowed their tune, but the 1958 take by clean-cut, stripey-shirted folk singers the Kingston Trio, who were the first to record the song under its now established title. The Kingston Trio’s version has an appropriate calypso lilt, giving it a lightness that invites a spot of finger-snapping.

One’s digits are safe from being used as a rhythm section in the hands of the Beach Boys, equally famous for their striped shirts (Pendeltones, fashion fans) before adopting the excessively hirsute line of appearance. Al Jardine suggested the song to Brian Wilson on to the song. Legend has it that Brian didn’t know the song, a myth peddled by Wilson himself. The great Kingston Trio fan Wilson of course knew the song — there reportedly are tapes of a young Brian singing the tune with high school friends.

Wilson was initially reluctant to adapt Sloop John B., but eventually mapped out the complex arrangement within a day, one which made the Kingston Trio’s attractive version seem very dull indeed. Its recording and single release preceded the recording of Pet Sounds by a while; which might explain the misguided resistance to Sloop John C by many fans of the album – because it feels out of place on an otherwise coherent set. It was included at the urging of the Beach Boys’ record company, Capitol, who apparently could not see much by way of hit singles on the groundbreaking album, other than the traditional Beach Boys sound of opener Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Sloop may be a cover version, but it is as autobiographical of Brian Wilson — then under the thumb of his Dad-from-hell Murry and the hectoring Mike Love (who did not dig the Pet Shop vibe at all), and quickly disappearing into the world of drugs — as any track on the album. The line “this is the worst trip I’ve ever been on” reflects the mind of the tortured artist; the desperation in the line “I want to go home; please let me go home” anticipates the growing frustration and alienation of Wilson, the genius who was being told how to arrange his music by the musical hack Murry and pressured to keep writing about surfing, girls and cars by cousin Mike — a conflict that came to a head with the aborted Smile album.
Also covered by: Lonnie Donegan (as I Want To Go Home), Tom Fogerty, Roger Whittaker, Johnny Cash, Jimmie Rodgers, Dick Dale, Relient K, Okkervil River a.o.
Best version: You can’t get passed the harmonies of Brian Wilson’s arrangement, even though vocals include the loathsome Mike Love.

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Gladys Knight & The Pips – I Heard It Through The Grapevine.mp3
Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through The Grapevine.mp3
Gladys Knight believes she has good reason to be pissed off. There Gladys and her Pips had delivered an excellent dance number with I Heard It Through The Grapevine, scoring a US #2 hit in 1967, and Motown’s best-selling single up to then. And yet, a fair number of readers will be surprised to know that the song was in fact not a Marvin Gaye original. One has to feel for poor Gladys, but Marvin’s version is flawless in every way. Released a year after Gladys’ hit, it was at first just as an album filler. Marvin appropriated the song, investing himself into it so much that nobody can conceive of it as anything other than a Marvin Gaye number. Look at the list covers: would you really need to hear any of them in any way other than out of curiosity?

If you feel jaded by the song, as I once did, sit down and listen to it carefully again; I still find little surprises with every airing. Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, several Motown stars – including Marvin Gaye as well as Smokey Robinson and the Isley Brothers – tested for the song before Gladys Knight’s version was approved for release. If she had not been upstaged by Marvin (whose single release pipped, as it were, her Motown sales record), her version, not Marvin’s, would feature prominently on all those Motown compilations. Instead it is a neglected stepchild, a point of trivia. It deserves better, but how can it compete against one of pop music’s rare moments of absolute genius?
Also covered by: Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers, King Curtis, The Miracles, The Temptations, The Chi-Lites, Ike & Tina Turner, Young-Holt Unlimited, Ella Fitzgerald, The Undisputed Truth, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Earl Klugh, Average White Band, Joe Cocker, The Slits, The Flying Pickets, Ben Harper, Emmerson Nogueira, Michael McDonald, Kaiser Chiefs a.o.
Best version: I have made my case and hereby close it.

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The Nerves – Hanging On The Telephone.mp3
Blondie – Hanging On The Telephone.mp3
If it is not widely known that Blondie’s 1979 hit Hanging On The Telephone is a cover, then it probably is because the original performers, The Nerves, only ever released a four-track EP in 1976, which included the song. And having obtained it recently, I think it’s a very fine EP it is, too. The Nerves – a trio comprising songwriter Jack Lee, Paul Collins (who’d later join The Beat) and Peter Case (later of the Plimsouls) – were a heavy-gigging LA-based rock band which despite their extremely recording career proved to be influential on the US punk scene. The members of Blondie surely have were aware of the song. A year after The Nerves split, Debbie Harry and pals picked up the song and enjoyed a huge worldwide hit with it. The original hasn’t aged much: it reminds me of the Von Bondies or The Killers.
Also covered by: Mephisto Waltz, Scheer, L7, Germ Attack, Johnny Panic, Cat Power, Def Leppard, Girls Aloud
Best version: Much as I love Blondie, The Nerves’s original is superior. Though I’d like to hear Cat Power’s take.

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Bruce Woolley – Video Killed the Radio Star.mp3
The Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star.mp3
This slice of sci-fi flavoured nostalgia, inspired by a JG Ballard story, was co-written by Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes (then new members of horrible prog-rock band Yes) with Bruce Woolley. So it seemed right that it should be recorded by the two parties – the Yes contingent and Woolley – in 1979. The latter got in there first, with his Camera Club. It is a breathless version with much energy and a quite nice guitar solo at the end, but none of the bombastic detail which made the Buggles’ synth-fiesta a huge hit. The Buggles version is sometimes considered a bit naff, which does great injustice to a catchy song which does everything that is required of a very great pop song. The video of the Buggles version was the first ever to be played by MTV. But the Woolley version is all but forgotten.
Also covered by: Ben Folds Five, The Presidents of the United States of America, Erasure, Jimmy Pops, Rocket K, The Feeling
Best version: The Buggles single is one of my favourite singles of the 1970s…

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James ‘Ironhead’ Baker & Group – Black Betty.mp3
Ram Jam – Black Betty.mp3
My latest greatest chum RH sent me this me. Black Betty is an old African-American folk song favoured by labour gangs. The recording here is the oldest in existence, preceding that by Lead Belly, who often is credited with writing it, by six years. Indeed, it probably dates back to the 19th century. This is a 1933 field recording made by the musicologists John and Alan Lomax in 1933 of the convict James “Ironhead” Baker and backing band of prisoners at Central State Farm in Texas. The Ram Jam version wasn’t even the first rockified adaptation. In 1976, a year before the Ram Jam hit, it was recorded by an outfit called Starstruck, which included future Ram Jam member Bill Bartlett.

Civil right groups boycotted the song because it was thought it insulted black women. Anthropologists are undecided what exactly a “Black Betty”, perhaps a rifle, or a bottle of whiskey, or a whip (as Lead Belly claimed), or a penitentiary transfer wagon, or indeed a prostitute. In the Ram Jam lyrics Betty clearly is a woman, probably of African-American heritage (from Birmingham, Alabama). But it’s difficult to see how they are offensive.
Also covered by: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (going back to the song’s roots as an a cappella blues), Mina, Tom Jones, Spiderbait (#1 in Australia in 2004, non-antipodean fact fans) a.o.
Best version: Oh, I bet ole’ Ironhead would have loved to kick ass with the song as Ram Jam did.

More Originals