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Cover Versions

The Chambers Brothers - People Get Ready

Written by the great Curtis Mayfield and released by The Impressions as a single on ABC-Paramount in 1965.

The Chambers Brothers released their first cover of the song on the album "People Get Ready" in 1966, a live record compiled of sessions at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles and The Unicorn in Boston.
One year later they followed with a studio version on their Columbia album "The Time Has Come".

 
The Geraldine Fibbers - Fancy

Bobbie Gentry's original was released as a single in late 1969, and was included on her 1970 album "Fancy".

The Geraldine Fibbers were an alt-country band that released a handful of singles, EPs and albums between 1994 and 1997. The band's founder and lead singer Carla Bozulich later formed the band Evangelista. She also released some records under her own name, amongst them "Red Headed Stranger" (a cover of the classic Willie Nelson album).

 
I refuse to acknowledge most of these as 'covers'. They are simply 'versions'. Love For Sale for e.g. is a 'standard'. It was written by Cole Porter in 1930. It has been recorded by numerous people since,( Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Anita o'Day, Billie Holiday, etc., etc., so whose version is Costello supposed to be 'covering'? Answer. Nobody's. He is simply doing his own (and in my personal opinion not great) version.

A cover version is very specifically a recorded version of a current or very recent hit,by a different artist/band in order to 'cash in ' on its popularity. Read, for e.g., any number of concurrent versions of American hits by UK artists in the 1960s.

Following the logic of the current and IMHO, wrong/illogical usage of the term 'cover' to its logical conclusion, it is only a matter of time before we start hearing "Have you heard the LSO's cover of Beethoven's 5th?" It's ludicrous.

I understand that the useage of the term 'cover version' has changed. But it's still wrong.
 
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I refuse to acknowledge most of these as 'covers'. They are simply 'versions'. Love For Sale for e.g. is a 'standard'. It was written by Cole Porter in 1930. It has been recorded by numerous people since,( Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Anita o'Day, Billie Holiday, etc., etc., so whose version is Costello supposed to be 'covering'? Answer. Nobody's. He is simply doing his own (and in my personal opinion not great) version.

A cover version is very specifically a recorded version of a current or very recent hit,by a different artist/band in order to 'cash in ' on its popularity. Read, for e.g., any number of concurrent versions of American hits by UK artists in the 1960s.

Following the logic of the current and IMHO, wrong/illogical usage of the term 'cover' to its logical conclusion, it is only a matter of time before we start hearing "Have you heard the LSO's cover of Beethoven's 5th?" It's ludicrous.

I understand that the useage of the term 'cover version' has changed. But it's still wrong.

When Miles Davis did an album of songs he didn't write, they were "standards". When Three Dog Night did songs from the musical "Hair", they were covers. When The Smithereens recorded a whole album of Beatles tunes, they were covers. When Frank Black did a Larry Norman tune, it was a cover.

When Beyonce does a song that was written by Max Martin, it's neither.
 
Time is the issue. For a cover to be a cover it needs to be released pretty much concurrently with the original. It is all about cashing in on a hit.. at the time it is a hit.

Guy Mitchell/Tommy Steele -Singing the Blues. US/UK

The Moonglows/MacGuire Sisters - Sincerely US Black/US White/UK White

Dionne Warwick/Cilla Black - Anyone Who Had a Heart US Black/UK White

Crazy Elephant/Whichwhat- Gimme Gimme Good Lovin.

All above concurrent covers of US hits by British artists, except Sincerely, which I suspect wasn't issued in UK by the Moonglows until much later.

Beatles/Emmylou Harris 'For No One' Album tracks recorded about ten years apart. Emmylou's recording is a version. Not a cover. Neither artist had a chart hit with the song as a single, though Emmylou's 'Here There and Everywhere' reached No.30 in the UK ten years after Beatles album release. The song was never a single chart hit for the Beatles.
 
I refuse to acknowledge most of these as 'covers'.

You ‘refuse’ away. Meantime, back at the ranch, a cover version I was listening to just yesterday was Rod Stewart’s take on Mama You’ve Been on My Mind. Naturally, I almost don’t like to mention it. In the pantheon of cool, poor Rodders has long been toxic, and rightly so - if not for all the terrible records since 1972, then for the lurex pantaloons. Nevertheless for a few fabulous moments at the turn of that decade his antennae twitched in all the right places, and this was one of them.
 
Wow! If I've got this right, old Rod, who you rightly say made some wonderful recordings before the 70s glam thing infected him too... actually managed to 'cover' Mama You've Been on My Mind, 19 years before old Bob's recording was released, and 6 years after it was written.

Not a cover. Just a version.

Depending on your perspective, the first complete recording of Beethoven's 5th was made in either 1910, or 1913. There have been a lot of 'covers' since then. :D:D:D
 
Honestly, if you have ever heard a more moving and soulful rendition of this classic then I'd love to hear it - especially when you consider the singer and his own personal battles and tragic death.

 
Wow! If I've got this right, old Rod, who you rightly say made some wonderful recordings before the 70s glam thing infected him too... actually managed to 'cover' Mama You've Been on My Mind, 19 years before old Bob's recording was released, and 6 years after it was written.

Not a cover. Just a version.

I think what he was (politely) implying was that neither he, nor 99.99% of the world's population, care a single hoot about the difference between a 'cover' and a 'version', and indeed will use the terms interchangeably, as in 'cover version'.

I'm in two minds about Rod's early covers/versions. On some, he overdoes things a bit, particularly the Temptations' songs which in Rod's hands are bombastic and lose the subtleties of the originals, but 'Mama ...' is great, as is 'Reason to Believe'.
 
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The Walkabouts - Cello Song

Wonderful Nick Drake song from his debut album "Five Leaves Left".

The cover is by the Seattle band The Walkabouts.
It was included on the Nick Drake tribute "Brittle Days - A Tribute to Nick Drake", released on Imaginary Records in 1992.

 
Following the logic of the current and IMHO, wrong/illogical usage of the term 'cover' to its logical conclusion, it is only a matter of time before we start hearing "Have you heard the LSO's cover of Beethoven's 5th?" It's ludicrous.

I refer the right honourable gentleman to my musings on the incomparable Mike Flex on another thread...

Fans of Mike Flex’s Classical Spot on Radio Active will remember when he couldn’t find the original of ‘Chopin’ by Les Sylphides, only a cover version. Instead he decided to play “the greatest piece of classical music ever - Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells.’”
 
I don't think I've put these ace Wire covers in here before:

Laika covering German Shepherds

My Bloody Valentine covering Map Ref 41N 93W

 
What about Joe Cocker version of with a little help from my friends
And Bryan Ferry’s jealous guy
Both stonkers.
 


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