Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

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Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby jon » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:49 pm

As I mentioned in another thread, Pat St. John, in his fourth week on SiriusXM Sixties on Six, has been doing a great job of presenting songs generally assumed to be "Original" back to back with earlier releases of the same song. In essence, "exposing" them as Cover Songs.

The Olympics did a great version of "Good Lovin'" before The Young Rascals recorded their famous hit version. He didn't mention it, but my personal opinion is that it wasn't funny enough to be a novelty record, and Top 40 Music Directors would have pigeon-holed The Olympics as a novelty act.

Today, Pat played a really nicely edited (i.e. - made it sound like a complete, but very short, song) version of the original recording of "California Dreamin'" just before the hit version we all know. Lou Adler produced it as Barry McGuire's follow-up to "Eve of Destruction". The Mamas and the Papas did the background vocals.

As Pat tells it, after the Barry version fell flat on its face, John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas convinced Lou to let them record their own version, which became their first hit. Listening to the Barry version, it is clearly the same musical/background vocal arrangement, although a few elements have been added, including Bud Shank on flute.

Do you have any examples you'd like to talk about? One that immediately comes to my mind is Jimmy Cliff's "Wild World", which I heard and played on the air before Cat Stevens released his own hit version. I've always found Cat's version just too boring/repetitive. Jimmy really cooks with it.

There are some parallels between "Wild World" and "California Dreamin'". Both were huge hits for the folks that wrote the song. Both were first released by others but with heavy involvement of their writers: Cat produced Jimmy's version; and The Mamas and the Papas did background vocals on Barry's version. Both were released on the same label: Dunhill for both versions of "California Dreamin'" and A&M for "Wild World.

One trivia note: a BBC interview states that, in the stereo version, you can hear a bit of Barry's lead vocal at the start of The Mamas and the Papas version.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby skyvalleyradio » Tue Mar 04, 2014 2:04 pm

fun topic jon! I can think of lots of examples but the first that came to mind was the "No-No Song" a big hit for Ringo Starr. Country singer Hoyt Axton wrote it & recorded the original. This includes a hilarious cameo appearance by Cheech & Chong who try to convince Hoyt to have just a few more tokes and a few more snorts, but the singer refuses. I much prefer the original from Hoyt's 1975 album "Southbound" to Ringo's hit version :groovy:
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby pave » Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:22 pm

No. I mean, really. Does YouTube have everything!?
Here's Hoyt, Cheech & Tommy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzVee5CVOBA
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby Toomas Losin » Tue Mar 04, 2014 9:31 pm

In my opinion, when a band covers a song it should take some effort to be original. My favourite example of this is The Who's version of Young Man Blues. Mose Allison's original isn't too obscure but it won't get any air time on a rock station. The Who did the right thing with their cover: They made the song their own.

To quote Swan from Phantom of the Paradise:

    Drop an octave here, change a line there.
    Give it a beat! Make it completely yours.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby jon » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:04 pm

Toomas Losin wrote:In my opinion, when a band covers a song it should take some effort to be original.

While I see your point, I also think that the most sincere form of flattery, when it comes to cover songs, is when the cover version sounds almost exactly like the original. To me, that says to the original artist: "you really got it right, you made the perfect song, and no one could do better than that."

A good example is "Mountain of Love" by Johnny Rivers. Harold Dorman wrote, recorded it, and released it in 1960, and it blew me away the first time I heard it -- just a few years ago -- and how close it was to the Johnny Rivers version I had grown up with.

Haven't heard it, so cannot comment on it, but just discovered that Country legend David Houston's first charted Country and (Bubbling Under) Hot 100 hit was "Mountain of Love", in 1963. Between, chronologically, the original and the Johnny Rivers version.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby jon » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:22 pm

Interesting. I just did a little more looking. And discovered that the David Houston "Mountain of Love" is a completely different song.

I didn't check that earlier because Joel Whitburn's 2010 edition of Top Pop Singles lists it as the same song; Whitburn is very careful to separate different songs with the same name. Except in his index of album tracks where he freely admits it just wasn't feasible.

Wikipedia's David Houston entry stated so, and I confirmed it by listening to this YouTube recording off David's original '60s LP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIkuwjwRV28
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:40 pm

Plenty has already been cited regarding Led Zeppelin's plagiarism of both Muddy Waters and songwriter Willie Dixon with their rendition of Whole Lotta Love but, to defend the indefensible, they actually covered it more directly from a 1966 version by The Small Faces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpnF62TNYoM

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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby radiofan » Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:07 pm

One of my favorite obscure originals is from 1963 ... it's Bessie Banks and the original version of "Go Now" which became the first hit single for The Moody Blues in 1965 ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZkC8tlOcEk
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby skyvalleyradio » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:24 am

Mose Allison's songs were covered by a number of British bands - not just the Who. The Yardbirds, Georgie Fame & Manfred Mann all did covers of his songs, as did Johnny Rivers in the U.S. Another obscurity just came to mind: pop group The Buckinghams had a hit with "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" - a jazz classic written by trumpeter Nat Adderley and first performed with Cannonball Adderley's group. I'm not much on the cover version, but a huge fan of the original which did make it as a single on the R&B charts.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby jon » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:31 am

Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" was heavily played on Top 40 stations and made it to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Buckingham's version didn't do that much better, peaking at #5.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby jon » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:48 am

Although the original wasn't obscure, "Grazin' in the Grass" is a really interesting example of a cover version. Hugh Masekela recorded the original, and it was #1 for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

A year later, The Friends of Distinction wrote their own lyrics (the original only ever had music written for it) and got their first hit out of it, peaking at #3 on the Hot 100.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby radiofan » Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:40 am

jon wrote:Although the original wasn't obscure, "Grazin' in the Grass" is a really interesting example of a cover version. Hugh Masekela recorded the original, and it was #1 for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

A year later, The Friends of Distinction wrote their own lyrics (the original only ever had music written for it) and got their first hit out of it, peaking at #3 on the Hot 100.


Likewise with Cannonball Adderley and The Buckinghams. His version was basically an instrumental, the Buckinghams added lyrics.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby skyvalleyradio » Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:13 pm

...and Queen Latifah does the best vocal version of "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" IMO. Ok time for another: Elvis' 1967 hit "Guitar Man" was written by & first performed by country guitarslinger Jerry Reed. While I love Elvis' version, Jerry's beats it hands down as it's basically a 'vehicle' for some serious picking during the instrumental break
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby dial twister » Wed Mar 05, 2014 8:47 pm

An obscure original that I've liked since the first time I heard it in 1967 was Harry Nilsson's original version of 1941. Vancouver's Tom Northcott had a good sized hit in Western Canada and
the US West Coast in 1968 with his cover version, but IMHO Nilsson's is best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89hX5QvmZSU

Nilsson has never gotten the credit he deserved.
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Re: Cover Songs and Their Obscure Originals

Postby drmusic » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:17 pm

Gladys Knight's hit "Midnight Train to Georgia" was originally "Midnight Plane to Houston"
Recorded by the composer Jim Weatherly
http://youtu.be/J3_JQr6RqWs
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