My Playlist: Fab Four Covers

What do you do in music when you run out of ideas? Get “inspired” by the work of others and claim it as your own ingenious creation. And get good legal representation. Just ask Led Zeppelin!

For any first time visitors, I totally dig Zep and Stairway To Heaven. I’m glad they recorded that song, which probably is my most favorite rock tune. Messrs. Page and Plant just should have given credit where credit was due, even if ripping off Taurus by Spirit was a subconscious act. Okay, ’nuff going on a tangent, this is supposed to be a happy post. And guess what? It totally was my idea! 🙂

This morning, I watched a clip of a Paul McCartney appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. At some point, Colbert noted many other artists had done covers of Beatles songs, adding he believed Yesterday was the most covered tune. He then asked McCartney about his favorite version. Thinking about Yesterday, McCartney mentioned Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and his favorite, Marvin Gaye. Then I completely erased the clip from my memory.

Fast-forward 30 minutes. I’m sitting at my computer, and suddenly out of nowhere, a flash of ingenuity hit me. What if I did a playlist of Beatles songs covered by other artists? What a brilliant and original idea, I thought, so here it is!

Got To Get You Into My Life (Earth, Wind & Fire)

Essentially, this was an homage to Motown, which The Beatles recorded in 1966 for the Revolver album. In July 1978, Earth, Wind & Fire released a fantastic cover of the tune as a single. It also was part of the less than stellar feature film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Feel free to snip along!

Yesterday (Marvin Gaye)

I trust this song needs no further introduction. What you may not have known is that none other than the fabulous Marvin Gaye recorded a take of the timeless ballad. And when Marvin sang, magic happened most of the time. He included his version of Yesterday on his tenth studio album That’s The Way Love Is from January 1970. Just listen to this – makes me feel like floating in space!

We Can Work It Out (Stevie Wonder)

We Can Work It Out is a non-album single The Beatles issued in December 1965 as a double A-side with Day Tripper. Stevie Wonder liked the song and decided to record a take for his August 1970 studio album Signed, Sealed & Delivered. Who can blame him? According to Wikipedia, Wonder performed the tune for McCartney on various occasions. Even if you’re Paul McCartney, it’s gotta be cool to witness Stevie Wonder playing one of your songs!

Eleanor Rigby (Ray Charles)

This is one of my all-time favorite Beatles tunes and another track from the Revolver album. I also dig this cover by Ray Charles, which he recorded as a single in 1968.

In My Life (Johnny Cash)

In My Life is one of the most beautiful and moving songs John Lennon has written and a standout on the Rubber Soul album, in my opinion. Gosh, I can’t deny this tune gets me every time! At first, I wanted to feature the cover by Bette Midler, a fantastic vocalist. Then I came across this take by Johnny Cash, which blew me away. There’s perhaps nobody better than the Man in Black when it comes to conveying raw emotion and vulnerability, especially during the later stages of his career. This take is from American IV: The Man Comes Around, a studio album released in November 2002, about 10 months before he passed away.

She’s A Woman (José Feliciano)

José Feliciano is an artist I’ve admired for many years, not only because of his outstanding guitar-playing, but also because of great covers he has done and how he has made them his own. Check out this amazing version of She’s A Woman, which The Beatles initially released as the B-side to their I Feel Fine single in November 1964. Feliciano’s take also first appeared as a single, in 1969. I love how he gave it a Latin jazz type groove.

If I Needed Someone (Roger McGuinn)

If I Needed Someone has become one of my favorite Beatles and George Harrison tunes. And who better to cover it than Roger McGuinn, the man who after seeing George playing a Rickenbacker guitar on TV knew that jingle-jangle sound was made for him and The Byrds. If I Needed Someone is another gem on Rubber Soul. McGuinn recorded his version for his seventh solo album Limited Edition that came out in April 2004. Every time I hear that distinct Rickenbacker sound, I’m getting the same sentiment than listening to a Hammond B3 – I want one. So badly!

I’m leaving you with one more cover, which perhaps is the ultimate rock remake of all time: With A Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker. Cocker has recorded strong versions of various Beatles tunes, but this one from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the crown jewel. It became the title track of his debut album from May 1969.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube

On This Day In Rock & Roll History: November 17

Every time I do another installment of this ongoing series, I’m amazed how many dates I still have left to cover. November 17 turned out to be one of them.

In case you see one of these posts for the first time, the idea is to highlight things that happened on a specific date throughout rock history. By no means are these posts meant to be a comprehensive list of events. Instead, I select stuff I find interesting, mainly focusing on the ’60s and ’70s, my two favorite music decades. With that little disclaimer being out of the way, let’s get to November 17!

1964: The Beatles recorded a session for the BBC radio program Top Gear, which at the time was still a new show that only had debuted four months earlier. In addition to an interview with host Brian Matthew, who by the way worked for the BBC for a whopping 63 years from 1954 until 2017, The Beatles recorded six songs: I’m A Loser, Honey Don’t, She’s A Woman, Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, I’ll Follow The Sun and I Feel Fine. The program first aired on November 24, 1964. Except for I’ll Follow The Sun, all recordings from the show were included on the compilation album Live At The BBC released in November 1994. Here’s I Feel Fine, a song with a great guitar riff I’ve always dug. Credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the tune first appeared as the A-side of the band’s eighth single in the UK. The track hit no. 1 there, as well as in the U.S. and many other countries.

1966: The Beach Boys topped the UK Singles Chart with Good Vibrations, the first of only two no. 1 singles they scored in that country; the second one in 1968 was appropriately called Do It Again. Unlike these days where Britain makes lots of waves, I suppose back then the waters were calm and folks there didn’t care much about surfing and cruising in cars. While I enjoy The Beach Boys’ surfing and car songs, although they all sound very similar, it was always their fantastic harmony vocals that attracted me the most. If I could only choose one song, it would be Good Vibrations. Composed by Brian Williams with lyrics by Mike Love, the tune was recorded in Los Angeles at various studios over a two-month period. Songfacts notes the making of the complex track included 17 recording sessions and many top studio musicians, resulting in an approximate cost of $50,000, making it the most expensive pop song ever recorded when it came out. Widely recognized as one of the most important compositions and recordings of its time, Good Vibrations was ranked no. 6 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011 and included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

1971: Faces, an excellent British band that was always a bit undervalued compared to contemporaries like The Who and The Rolling Stones, released their third studio album A Nod’s As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse. Faces’ second record that year and their second to last album became their best-selling release worldwide, hitting no. 2 in the UK and no. 6 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200. The record also featured the band’s highest-charting single in the U.S.: The excellent Stay With Me, which reached no. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune was co-written by Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. I said it before and I’ll say it again: Stewart once was a smoking hot rocker!

1973: Quadrophenia, the sixth studio album by The Who, entered the British charts at no. 2, a position it held for another week. It was the band’s second rock opera after Tommy from May 1969. Among the record’s distinct features are Pete Townshend’s use of multi-track synthesizers and sound effects, as well as John Entwistle’s layered horn parts. While Quadrophenia was received positively in the UK and the U.S., the supporting tour was impactd by technical issues with taped backing tracks. These tapes provided the album’s instrumentation The Who could not replicate on stage. Perhaps foolishly, Roger Daltrey insisted that the band stick to their four-piece line-up and not add any supporting backing musicians. After various setbacks, the tour ended early in February 1974 . It would take 22 years before Quadrophenia was revived as a live show in London’s Hyde Park in June 1996. Instead of The Who, the performance was credited to Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle. The show also featured actors and other musicians who among others included David Gilmour and Zak Starkey, marking the beginning of the drummer’s ongoing association with The Who. Here’s the album’s powerful closer Love, Reign O’ver Me. I still get goose bumps each time I listen to Daltrey’s crazy vocals on that tune.

1980: The last item in this list of events shall belong to John Lennon, who on that day released Double Fantasy, the final album during his lifetime. The record marked Lennon’s return to music after a five-year break during which he had mostly focused on family life. While I’m admittedly not a fan of Yoko Ono’s music, Lennon’s songs still make this record a great listening experience. After a less than stellar initial reception, Double Fantasy became a huge international success in the wake of Lennon’s murder in New York City three weeks after the album had come out. It’s kind of idiotic how people oftentimes suddenly “discover” musicians after their death, especially if it involved tragedy. Here’s one of my favorite tunes from the record: Watching The Wheels.

Sources: Wikipedia; The Beatles Bible; This Day in Music; This Day In Rock; Songfacts; YouTube