Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The third mix of Beatles covers, covering the period between the White Album (partly covered in the second mix) to the final album. The most significant song here is the Beach Boys’ live recording of Back In The USSR, with Ringo Starr guesting. The song was, of course, Paul McCartney’s satire of the Beach Boys. One imagines it was a find piss-take, because by 1968 the Beach Boys had long left the girs-cars-surf scene behine (well, except Mike Love, who never really got past it).

Two songs here, by George Benson and by Booker T & the MGs, come from full reworkings of Abbey Road, while Count Basie comes from a tribute album to the Beatles, and the I Am Sam soundtrack, which consisted of Beatles covers, has been represented on all three mixes. Knowing how a succession of easy listening merchants have sucked the soul out of Something with cheesy arrangements and over-arrangement (yes, Sinatra, too), the notion of Shirley Bassey giving the song a go seems discouraging. Despite a lavish arrangement and moments of enthusiastic emoting, it is a quite splendid interpretation which segues nicely into Nina Simone’s much sparser, and utterly beautiful take of the other Harrison masterpiece on Abbey Road. Simone’s 1971 Here Comes The Sun LP, an album of covers, is well worth seeking out.

More than on the previous compilation of Beatles covers, the 1990s are well represented. It wasn’t planned that way, but Dionne Farris’ version of Blackbird is rather lovely, and Alison Krauss’ tender bluegrass interpretation of I Will, with that sweet voice, is angelic.

I had hopes of putting together a sequence of covers of the Abbey Road side 2 medley. I had enough covers, but not consistently the quality I was looking for. Other songs presented me with dilemmas: Amen Corner’s Get Back, or the Main Ingredient? Randy Crawford’s Don’t Let Me Down or Phoebe Snow’s? Aretha Franklin’ Let It Be or Clarence Carter’s? I hope I’ve made good choices. Incidentally, when I set out to put together the three mixes I set myself a rule not to have any artist represented twice.

TRACKLISTING
1. Beach Boys – Back In The USSR (live) (1984)
2. Tuck & Patti – Honey Pie (1990)
3. Dionne Farris – Blackbird (1994)
4. Alison Krauss – I Will (1995)
5. Micah P. Hinson – While My Guitar Gently Weeps (2009)
6. Phoebe Snow - Don’t Let Me Down (1976)
7. Billy Bragg – Revolution (1997)
8. The Main Ingredient – Get Back (1970)
9. Count Basie - Come Together (1970)
10. Shirley Bassey – Something (1970)
11. Nina Simone – Here Comes The Sun (1971)
12. George Benson – Oh Darling (1970)
13. Booker T and the MGs – I Want You (1970)
14. Elliott Smith – Because (1999)
15. Joe Cocker – She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (1969)
16. Ben Folds – Golden Slumbers (2002)
17. Dobby Dobson – You Never Give Me Your Money/Carry The Weight (1971)
18. Loose Salute – The End (2009)
19. Rufus Wainwright - Across The Universe (2002)
20. Neil Finn & Liam Finn – Two Of Us (2002)
21. Clarence Carter – Let It Be (1970)
22. Gladys Knight & The Pips – The Long And Winding Road (1971)

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Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66

Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-8

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More Beatles stuff

Generally I’m wary of cover versions, especially if the song being covered is already well known in its original form or is otherwise identified with a particular artist. There is not much you can do to improve on, say, Bridge Over Troubled Water other than to strip the song down and rework it completely. Not many artists have succeeded in doing so. But for an example of how a well-known song can be totally reworked, one might look to Otis Redding’s version of Try A Little Tenderness (originally recorded by Bing Crosby). Or listen to what Donny Hathaway does with the standard Misty on this mix.

The songs covered by soul artists come almost exclusively from a non-soul tradition. Some are standards (Don’t Fence Me In, Misty, Nature Boy), some country (King Of The Road, Harper Valley P.T.A.), some were pop or rock hits. Only two songs here were originally soul numbers, though For Once In My Life had traversed genres before Gladys Knight & the Pips released their take in 1973 (see HERE). The other, originally by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, is redone here by Chic man Bernie Edwards in a rather nice poppy way. Merry Clayton (whom we last encountered HERE) may be covering a Rolling Stones song, but it is she who sang on the Stones in the first place, so it’s really half a cover.

I’d be interested to know which covers worked for the listener, and which fell flat. As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R , and a front and back cover is included.

TRACKLISTING
1. The Isley Brothers – Listen To The Music (1973)
2. Merry Clayton – Gimme Shelter (1970)
3. Erma Franklin – Light My Fire (1969)
4. Stevie Wonder - Bang Bang (1966)
5. Jackie Wilson – Eleanor Rigby 1969)
6. The Dells - Wichita Lineman/By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1969)
7. Isaac Hayes - It’s Too Late (1973)
8. The Delfonics – Alfie (1968)
9. Donny Hathaway – Misty (1970)
10. Grady Tate - Don’t Fence Me In (1974)
11. Joe Tex – King Of The Road (1965)
12. Vivian Reed – Harper Valley P.T.A. (1970)
13. Flaming Ember – Spinning Wheel (1971)
14. The Supremes & The Temptation - Got To Get You Into My Life (1968)
15. George Benson - Nature Boy (1977)
16. Bernard Edwards feat. Jocelyn Brown – You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me (1983)
17. Charles Brimmer – We’ve Only Just Begun (1976)
18. Gladys Knight & The Pips – For Once In My Life (1973)
19. Roberta Flack – Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye (1969)
20. Billy Paul - Mrs. Robinson (1970)
21. Voices Of East Harlem - For What It’s Worth (1970)

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More Mixes

I was delighted to see a comment from Jerry Plunk, lead singer and drummer of the Flying Embers, thanking me for including the group’s Westbound #9 in the Any Major Soul 1970/71 mix (and a comment from Jerry Lawson from the Persuasions, appreciating the inclusion of his group’s version of He Ain’t Heavy/You’ve Got A Friend in The Originals Vol. 30). I hope that this series of ’70s soul mixes will create some interest in acts and songs that are not as widely remembered as they ought to be. So this compilation excludes the most obvious picks for the years 1972/73, and includes what I hope are a few great new discoveries, or indeed re-discoveries. As before, it was a struggle to keep the mix down to the standard CD-R length. Read more…

I don’t really care much for Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day, mostly because I’ve had neither mother nor father since I was 18. Still, as a father I damn well expect to get breakfast in bed today. High hopes… Fathers’ Day, of course, does bring to mind my late father, who died suddenly when I was 11. It has occurred to me that I am now at the same age he was when I was born, the fifth of his six children. He doubtless was far more mature than I am now. He probably wouldn’t have written blogs about moustaches in pop and the twattery of Michael Fucking Bolton. But then, I didn’t fight in World War 2, my brother did not die in war, my father was not persecuted by the Nazis, and I’ve never been widowed. Of course he was more mature than I will ever be.

My father was not quite an absentee father, but he was away a lot. The little time he had free, he needed to share between relaxation and a little socialising, wife, and, lastly, children. When he spent time with us, he was very loving, but there never wasn’t enough of him. I’ve learned from my father to make career sacrifices so that I could be a constant presence in my son’s life.

For a few years after my father died, I had occasional dreams that it was all a hoax; that he faked his death and was now coming to fetch us. About a decade after he died, I dreamt about him. He was hugging me, and I could smell him, a scent I had long forgotten (and never thought of). That was the last of my hoax dreams. In fact, twenty years or so on, I don’t think he has ever appeared in my dreams again.

Here then a few song about fatherhood, inspired by a recent series on the subject on the fine Star Maker Machine blog.

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Everything But The Girl – The Night I Heard Caruso Sing.mp3Not so much a song about parental relations than one of despair and hope. Released on 1988′s Idlewild album, the singer notes that just where his father lives in Scotland, the military has set up a missile system. That persuades him that he does not want to be responsible for bringing a child into this ugly world. But then he comes across something of great beauty — a recording of early 20th century opera singer Enrico Caruso — and it changes his notion of fatherhood, about his unborn child and about being the child of a father. It is a very beautiful song from a desperately under-appreciated album.

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Cardigans – Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds).mp3
This quite brilliant 2005 track is an indictment of a really shitty father who seems to have abandoned his family. The song drips with bitterness and anger and sarcasm and a healthy shot of self-pity. “Your autograph’s worthless so don’t send me letters, and don’t mail me cash ’cause your money is no good. What’s left in your mattress is holes that lack of love left, some hair from a horse and none of it is yours, man.” Somebody has Daddy Issues…

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Loudon Wainwright III – A Father And A Son.mp3
Loudon’s children, Rufus and Martha, evidently are not great fans of his parenting style, as we’ll see in the next song. Here, Loudon addresses his teenage son, recalling his own difficult relationship with his father, suggesting that volatile filial interactions are hereditary. He’d rather not fight with his son: “I don’t know what all of this fighting is for; but we’re having us a teenage/middle-age war.” Presumably father and son don’t hold back when screaming at each other. And yet: “This thing between a father and a son — maybe it’s power and push and shove; maybe it’s hate…but probably it’s love.”

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Martha Wainwright – Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole.mp3
Perhaps Loudon can persuade his son, but daughter is disenchanted. He has clearly caused Martha (and, it seems, her mother) so much pain that the breakdown in their relationship is complete: “I will not pretend, I will not put on a smile, I will not say I’m all right for you…” And then the repeated outburst: “You bloody mother fucking asshole. Oh you bloody mother fucking asshole.” No breakfast in bed for Loudon on Fathers’ Day then?

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Gladys Knight & The Pips – Daddy Could Swear, I Declare.mp3
Ah, a father after my own heart. A man of my height (what do you mean “only” 5’7, Gladys) who knows how to swear and a short fuse. But he loved his children. This song, from 1973’s Neither One Of Us album, should resonate with adult children remembering their father through the medium of anecdote: “Ooh, my brothers and sisters still talk about how Daddy lost his temper that day. You see, he built a picket fence from the garage to the house. Well, Sam, tell me what I say, the same day the garbage man backed into the fence and the whole darn thing gave way. You should have been there…”

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Johnny Cash – Daddy Sang Bass.mp3
The family that sings together, stays together. Until somebody dies. Johnny Cash didn’t have a particularly happy family; his father blamed Johnny for the accidental death of his older brother. In this song, written by Carl Perkins, the family enjoys harmony, despite poverty. “Daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor. Me and little brother would join right in there.” Now, however, they’re all dead. Cash remembers the closeness and has the religious convictions to presume meeting them again in the afterlife: “Singing seems to help a troubled soul. One of these days, and it won’t be long, I’ll rejoin them in a song.” Cash died 34 years after recording the song at San Quentin jail.

Here is the second volume of ’60s soul tracks. Some of these songs are pretty well-known, but many others are hidden or forgotten gem. Eddie Holland’s track is as much a gem as it is a historical curiosity; it’s one of the few records he released on Motown before Berry Gordy decided that Eddie, with Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, should work exclusively as one of the label’s in-house writer/producer teams, in particular for the Supremes and the Four Tops . Read more…

.Someone raised the point with me that in this series I seem to have forgotten the rich legacy of Elvis Presley’s interpretations of other people’s songs. Oh, but I haven’t. With the help of my Originals Guru RH, I’m preparing for a big Elvis special, as well as a Beatles one. So hold tight for that.

Cissy Houston – Midnight Train To Georgia
Gladys Knight & the Pips – Midnight Train To Georgia
For all her many accomplishments, Cissy Houston’s major claim to fame is her motherhood of Whitney, and perhaps being the backing singer who caused Elvis to laugh in that hilarious live performance of Are You Lonesome Tonight (mp3 here). By rights, she should also be remembered for her recording of one of soul’s great songs. Cissy’s lovely performance, released in 1972, is miles from her daughter’s corporate histrionics; it is an entirely endearing reading. But it demonstrates something else: the genius of the much ridiculed Pips. What would Gladys Knight’s interpretation a year later be without the interplay with and interjections of her backing singers: “A superstar, well he didn’t get far”, “I know you will”, “Gotta go, gonna board the midnight train…” and, of course, the choo-choo “Hoo hoo”s?

The song was written and first recorded by former All-American quarterback Jim Weatherly (with whose songs Knight populated the Imagination album on which Midnight Train appears) as Midnight Plane To Houston. Seeing as it was going to be recorded by Cissy, record company execs asked Weatherley to change the destination to Georgia, which fortuitously is also Glady’s home state, and the mode of transport. Cissy Houston had mild chart success with it; for Knight and the Pips it became the signature hit. I’ve been trying to locate a link for the great video of the Pips performing their backing vocals sans Gladys on the Richard Pryor special. Perhaps someone with more superior search skills can help us out here and stick a link in the comments….
Also recorded by: Lynn Anderson (1982), Indigo Girls (1995), Sandra Bernhard (1998), Human Nature (2006), Joan Osborne (2007)
Best version: I really like Cissy Houston’s version, but how can anyone compare with Gladys Knight & the Pips?

Jackie DeShannon – Needles And Pins
The Searchers – Needles And Pins
Last night I watched The Commitments on DVD, with the scene at the wedding where the singer belts out a cheesy version Needles And Pins. What struck me is how difficult it is to mess the song up. Even Smokie’s 1977 version was quite good. It is, of course, regarded as a classic in its incarnation by the Searchers (a group I used to confuse with the Seekers, featured above). It was written by Sonny Bono and Jack Nietzsche and first recorded by the vastly underrated Jackie DeShannon in 1963, crossing the Atlantic the same year in Petula Clark’s version before the Searchers finally scored a hit with it in 1964 (actually, DeShannon’s version, while not a hit in the US, topped the Canadian charts). The story goes that the Searchers first heard Needles And Pins being performed by Cliff Bennett at the Star Club in Hamburg and immediately decided that the song should be their next single. It became the second of their three UK #1 hits. They did retain DeShannon’s pronunciation of “now-ah”, “begins-ah” and “pins-ah.
Also recorded by: Petula Clark (1963), Buddy Morrow & his Orchestra (1964), Cher (1965), The Wallflower Complextion (1967), Smokie (1977), The Ramones (1978), Crack The Sky (1983), Tom Petty & Steve Nicks (1986), Mr. T Experience (1998), Willy DeVille (1999), Raimundos (2001), The Commercials (2001) a.o.
Best version: DeShannon’s original has a great energy, Smokie’s I have a nostalgic attachment to, but the Searchers had a moment of pop perfection with their version.

Jackie DeShannon – Bette Davis Eyes
Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes
In 1981, my half-sister’s boyfriend went on holiday to Colorado. For us in Germany, that was tremendously exotic. Although we had by then travelled through much of central Europe, America seemed another world. Where we had medieval churches, all of American architecture seemed to be mirrored skyscrapers (cf. the Dallas titles montage), and where our forests were populated by Rumpelstiltskin, granny-eating wolves and poisonous mushrooms, American woods were run by Grizzly Adams. And, most significantly, new LPs were available in America before they came out in Germany. So when our man came back from Colorado and told of his adventures (in what probably was boring suburbia), his tales were soundtracked by Juicy Newton’s Angel Of The Morning and Kim Carnes’ Betty Davis Eyes. The former has long been pencilled in to feature in this series, the latter joined the list only when our friend RH sent me the original.

I hadn’t known it was a cover version: neither did the song’s subject, who went out of her way to thank first Carnes and then the songwriters for introducing her to a whole new generation (including myself) and giving her cool status among her grandchildren. Davis and Carnes remained friends till the actress’ death. As noted above, Jackie DeShannon was not just an underrated singer, but also a songwriter. She co-wrote Bette Davis Eyes with Donna Weiss, and recorded it in 1975 in a country-boogie woogie style. Her version attracted little attention, but seven years later Carnes’ cover became one of the biggest hits in US chart history, spending nine weeks at #1 (a week less than the year’s top-seller, Olivia Newton John’s Physical). As for the titular eyes which warranted a song, apparently they were the product of a thyroid condition Davis suffered.
Also recorded by: Gwynneth Paltrow (for the film Duets, 2000), Crash Test Dummies (2001), Handsome Devil (2004), Space Cadet (2005)
Best version: The Carnes version reworks the song entirely. The guitar, synth and the somewhat sleazy drums complement Carnes’ raspy voice in the slowed down. That production evokes Davis’ (public) personality better than the original does.

The Highwaymen – Whiskey In The Jar
The Seekers – Whiskey In The Jar
The Pogues & the Dubliners – Whiskey In The Jar
“Musha ring dum a doo dum a da” is gibberish, apparently. And “Whack fol the daddy O” is not slurred ’50s slang. Whiskey In The Jar is an old Irish folk song about a girl betraying the highwayman who loves her. Folk historian Alan Lomax (who among many other things did that recording of Black Betty featured earlier on in this series) suggested that the song goes back, in some form, to the 1600s and might have inspired John Gay’s 1728 The Beggar’s Opera. When the folk revival hit in America in the 1950s and ’60s, Whiskey In The Jar, which had long enjoyed popularity in the US, was among the many traditional tunes to be performed by the likes of The Limeliters and Peter, Paul & Mary. The oldest recordings that I’ve been able to turn up are thise by The Highwaymen from 1962 (thanks to caithiseach of The Great Vinyl Meltdown) and from 1964 by the Seekers. The song is, of course, more famous now as a rock song, thanks to Thin Lizzy’s iconic 1973 interpretation (which took some liberties with the lyrics). The Dubliners, whose 1967 hit with the song returned it to its native land, re-recorded it to fine effect with the Pogues in 1990. Some people talk highly of Metallica’s 1998 Grammy-winning take, but since I boycott those Napster-busting fuckers, it won’t feature here.
Also recorded by: The Dubliners (1967), Jerry Garcia & David Grisman (1995), Pulp (1995), Metallica (1998), Brobdingnagian Bards (2001), Belle & Sebastian (2005), Gary Moore (2006), as well as Roger Whittaker, Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, The Irish Rovers, the Poxy Boggards, Seven Nations, King Creosote, Axel the Sot, and Smokie (a.o.)
Best version: The Dubliners and Pogues nail it.

Albert Hammond – The Air That I Breathe
The Hollies – The Air That I Breathe
I feel very old when Albert Hammond needs to be introduced as “The Dad of the dude from the Strokes”. Hammond Sr is of course the more significant figure in pop, having scored hits on his own and written many more for others. The Air That I Breathe, composed with frequent collaborator Mike Hazlewood, is among those (and at least one more will feature in this series). Hammond’s 1972 recording on his debut album, It Never Rains In Southern California, went by fairly unnoticed. It starts of uncertainly, but mid-way through hits a strange stride. Perfect it is not, but interesting it certainly is. According to Hammond, it was written for a physically unattractive girl while Hazlewood came up with the title upon glimpsing LA’s smog – I rather like that story. The song was then recorded by Phil Everly in 1973, but became a hit in the hands of the briefly resurgent Hollies a year later. Subsequently Hammond and Hazlewood received an unexpected songwriting credit on Radiohead’s Creep for its resemblance to The Air That I Breathe.
Also recorded by: Cilla Black (1974), Olivia Newton-John (1975), José Feliciano (1977), Hank Williams Jr (1983), Julio Iglesias (1984), Steve Wynn (1995), Barry Manilow (1996), k.d. lang (1997), Simply Red (1998), Patti LuPone (1999), The Mavericks (2003), Blue Mule (2005), Tom Fuller (2007)
Best version: It’s a great song to interpret (as Thom Yorke would agree), but the Hollies version is just lush.

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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.

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