Best Covers

Robert Hunter has made a couple good albums with Jim Lauderdale, a real fine Bluegrass/Hard Country singer/songwriter.

@bdp24

After The Band’s 1969 second s/t album---routinely cited as the first "Americana" album---sent shock waves through the Rock music world, suddenly The Dead---and a lot of other bands---followed suit, but none with the depth The Band possessed and exhibited.

I’m not a deadhead but I enjoy and admire the Band and the Dead’s Americana phase equally. Personally, I don’t perceive the Band’s tunes, overall, displaying a greater "depth" but each to his/her own. I do regard Hunter and Garcia as a significantly underrated songwriting team.

As far as the Dead being first and foremost psychedelic, here is a pertinent quote from the New Directions In Music site:

... Robert Hunter was not just a poet... and lyricist; he was genuinely steeped in traditional American folk music and he and Jerry Garcia were playing the cafe scene together before there even was a Grateful Dead. From Garcia, he learned a lot of traditional songs from the bluegrass and jug band genres and he knew how to structure his lyrics to fit these musical forms.

Am I the only one who loved Manfred Manns earth bands two covers of Bruce Springsteen?

Blinded by the light

Spirits in the night

and while you’re in the way back machine roll ‘For you’ also.

Before giving this song a listen, think about where Rock music was in 1968, the year this song appeared on the debut album of The Band. In ’68 everyone I knew was listening to Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, etc. Sure, there was also Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and a few other Rock Groups incorporating Country elements into their music, but nothing like the Hard Country of a Lefty Frizzell song.

Hard fans of The Grateful Dead always claim that band wasn’t playing "catch-up" when they recorded and released their Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty albums in 1970, but in ’68 and ’69 they were still deep in Psychedelic territory, with their Anthem Of The Sun and Aoxomoxoa albums. After The Band’s 1969 second s/t album---routinely cited as the first "Americana" album---sent shock waves through the Rock music world, suddenly The Dead---and a lot of other bands---followed suit, but none with the depth The Band possessed and exhibited.

"Long Black Veil" had been a Country & Western hit by Lefty---cited by Merle Haggard as a major influence---in 1959, but it was new to me when in 1968 I heard Music From Big Pink. What an odd choice for a cover song, ay? Brave, daring, and evidence of a deep-rooted sense of identity.

The Band---then still known as The Hawks---spent all of 1967 in the basement of the Big Pink house with Bob Dylan, recording all manner of songs. I’ll bet this was one the fellas worked on. Absent was drummer/singer Levon Helm, who had quit The Hawks part way through the Dylan world tour of 1965-6 (two guys I was later in a band with saw Dylan & The Hawks in the San Jose Civic Auditorium, the rat bastards 😉), no longer wanting to be in anyone’s back-up band, nor playing for booing audiences. He went down to the Gulf Of Mexico and worked on an oil rig, that job ending when bassist Rick Danko called Levon to tell him Capitol Records had offered them a million bucks to record an album. Levon was on the next plane to Upstate New York. 😊

Los Lobos: Bertha

https://youtu.be/1CDuQmhTyD4?si=-zdeb-RlyjpwssG0

Saving Escape covering Alabama Shakes "Gimme All Your Love".

Siouxsie and the Banshees: Dear Prudence.

"Papa was a Rolling Stone" David Lindley & El Rayo-X

"By the Time I Get to Phoenix" Isaac Hayes 

5 stars (of 5). Steve Howell & the Mighty Men - 991/2 Won't Do. 2024 release of cover songs. I may be biased because I like everything these cats have done.

Pet Shop Boys - Always on my mind

Eyelids "Good Times Roll"

The Budos Band " reppirT yaD" 

Day Tripper

Eddie Vedder "Drive"

"Downtown" B-52's 

Absolutely killer cover of Deep Purple’s “When a Blind Man Cries” by Metallica!

The Melvins "I Fu$& around" 

Beach Boys uh... cover of "I get around"

"Mr Bojangles" Sammy Davis Jr.

Luna Sweet Child of Mine

Covers are sometimes superior.  Sinatra could frequently improve upon originals

Jimi Hendrix playing “All Along the Watchtower (so good Dylan changed the rhythm it to be more like Jimii)

and both JH and Whitney Houston’s covers of the Star Spangled Banner - more creative, expressive and emotional than any version before.

Bauhaus doing Ziggy Stardust

Siouxsie and the Banshees doing The Passenger

P.S. "Burning Down The House"

Bonnie Raitt covering anything James Taylor or John Haitt did was always good.

I just discovered the album "Here it is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen.  This is  jazz oriented. Here's a cover for you: Mavis Staples singing "If it Be Your Will".  I cannot express how moved I am by Ms. Staples cover. Take a listen.

WET, WET, WET “Love is All Around” covering THE TROGGS original 60’s release

The Bird and the Bee ‘A Tribute to Hall and Oats’. Never personally been a big fan of Hall and Oats but this is a worthwhile album.

After much thought

Me And Mrs Jones (Minneapolis Version)
Sarah Jane Morris

How about Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of Iggy Pop's The Passenger.

@Richmon: You are right! I also learned that consequently to my post. As you said, still a great song! Anyhow, thanks for the correction. - Best, Andy8400.

Lanie Gardner's cover Stevie Nicks' Dreams is getting lots of play. I don't think I have heard anyone do this song better.

(2) Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - White Rabbit (Live) - YouTube

. . . and now I remember buying a Tom Russell CD (Indians, Cowboys, Horses And Dogs) for his cover of Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts.

A few more covers that Bob Dylan did that I remember I liked in my childhood were Lily Of The West, Spanish Is The Loving Tongue, and Big Yellow Taxi. 

"Come Together" by Michael Chapdelaine

Harry Nilsson- 'Without You'.

Dylan did a slew of covers when he played a famous 4 hour show at Toad's Place in New Haven in 1990 including:

Help Me Make It Through The Night

Key to the Highway

Lonesome Whistle

Dancing in the Dark

Across the Borderline

Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie

Trouble No More

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

. . . and on that note, I will recognize Bob Dylan's cover of Mr. Bojangles.

Janis Joplin covering Me And Bobby McGee, maybe?

There was a poster on the dimeadozen torrent site several years ago who was a huge Dylan fan and he put together a compilation series of various artists performing live versions of Dylan covers.

@ezwind  , that made me think of Bob Dylan covering I Can't Get You Off Of My Mind on the Hank Williams Tribute CD.

I actually bought that CD for the Lucinda Williams cover of Cold Cold Heart.

Not related to either cover:  but back in the early/mid '90s when I first started buying "better quality/better sounding" CDs, I bought The Raven by Rebecca Pidgeon with a delightful cover of Spanish Harlem.

@immatthewj

"I am like you in the respect that I like good covers...."

There was a poster on the dimeadozen torrent site several years ago who was a huge Dylan fan and he put together a compilation series of various artists performing live versions of Dylan covers. There were usually 15 to 20 different covers in each volume and as I recall he torrented somwhere around 40+ volumes! I think I still have at least a dozen of them on thumb drives lying around somewhere. I can't remember where I got them but I also downloaded a 9 volume set of songs that Dylan covered in live shows during the course of his career.

. . . here’s another one I just thought of that used to blow me away:

from Dave Alvin And The Guilty Men’s Interstate City CD: the Jubilee Train/Do Re Mi/Promised Land medley absolutely rocks!

. . . which makes me think of Jathintha's cover of Fire And Rain. 

And although I realize it is probably blasphemy, I like the covers that both Jacintha and Patricia Barber recorded of Light My Fire.

. . . @bgross 

@immatthewj  - Sundays covering "Wild Horses" was also mentioned on 2/8. Excellent 90's vibe - good call 

I found where you listed that one on 2/4 . . . as I typed:  I either missed it the first time or forgot about days later.  I am like you in the respect that I like good covers and I have many CDs I bought simply for a cover that was on them.  Not to mention the CDs I own that are complilations of covers.  Not to mention the CDs (fewer) that are by artists that pretty much only do covers.

Rock on!

@bgross  , my eyesight is bad and getting worse every day, and I do not see it on 2/8.  But no matter, if it is, it is, and a beautiful haunting rendition, such as that one, deserves being mentioned at least twice.

How about Joan Osborne's live cover of Son Of A Preacher Man?

The Cures' cover of "Purple Haze". Heavy "stuff" (is that acceptable enough for you, AI Bot?).

@immatthewj  - Sundays covering "Wild Horses" was also mentioned on 2/8. Excellent 90's vibe - good call 

Lucinda Williams and David Crosby covering Return Of The Grievous Angel is another one of my favorites.

@capojacko that reminds me that “The Ghost of Tom Joad” by RATM is outstanding as well.

I also really like “Night and Day” by U2