Songs that should never be covered

[Adam Blake]

It's not about the way they sing, Dayna, it's about the way that the recorded voice is then treated electronically.

[c hristian]

And here we sit: talking about old Sam Cooke and O V Wright records... (sigh)

without any cocaine (sigh).

[Rob Hall]

It's not about the way they sing, Dayna, it's about the way that the recorded voice is then treated electronically.

I was under the impression that there had been, for some years now, a tendency for singers to confuse melisma with "feeling" irrespective of what gets done to the recorded results.

There's a short piece on how melisma is over-used on 'American Idol' here.

[Dayna]

I don't like that style of singing( at least the way they do it.) & I hate American Idol.

I really do know what Adam meant by the recording though.

[Dayna]

I Hear You Knockin' - Dave Edmunds


Has anyone done it better than that?

[Rob Hall]

Much as I like Dave Edmunds, I'd have to say that the versions by both Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis are preferable to my ears.

[Joe Cushley]

Diamanda Galas did a good version of Dark End Of The Street. Not as great as James Carr's obviously, but more than passable.

For untouchability I'd have to go for Ray Charles's in some ways similar, In The Heat Of The Night.

[Joe Cushley]

Ted wrote of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris...

'More importantly, do they think "Kick Out The Jams" is better than "Back In the USA"?'

Well, they certainly want to "Kick Out The King James Version"...Geddit?!?!?!

[Mags]

(You're my) London Girl, the Pogues, minus Shane.

Just came out of the shadows, shall I just pop back in again?!

[Gordon Neill]

Mags asked:

Just came out of the shadows, shall I just pop back in again?!

No, please stay where you are with your hands in the air. Anything you say may be used against you.

PS How is Sir Cliff nowadays? Do you still keep in touch?

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

"54-46 Was My Number" is Toots Hibbert's song and nobody else should ever touch it!

I came to this conclusion last night watching This Is England, which features it as well as Percy Sledge covering "Dark End Of The Street," which, much as I like old Percy, was not up to the standard of James Carr's rendition. Unless you have an intensely morbid fascination with racist skinheads in early 1980s England, you needn't watch the movie to reach the same conclusion, although it is not entirely bad.

[Adam Blake]

"54-46 Was My Number" is Toots Hibbert's song and nobody else should ever touch it!

You might very well say that, but Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alexander do a monster jazz version on the "Below The Bassline" album. Ranglin has probably been making records even longer than Toots so you gotta say Re-speck, or words to that effect...

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

What can I say? Some days my brain is not fully functioning. Of course, I have Below The Bassline — and love it, all of it! Perhaps I was thinking of the vocal style rather than the tune itself.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

Judging by the collaboration with Jeff Beck on "54-46 Was My Number" from the True Love CD, I'm not even sure that Toots should be allowed to cover his own song! But I did have a dream in which I heard a sort of slow dirty blues version of the song. I think it was a dream anyway. Maybe I was some other place I don't remember too well.

[Rod B.]

Just read on the Observer website that actress Scarlett Johanssen is about to release a CD of covers of Tom Waits songs (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/observermusic/2008/03/the_cover_girl.html), with David Bowie on backing vocals on two of the tracks. Of course we should all avoid knee-jerk rubbishing the CD without even hearing it, but when I think about it, a lot of musicians have covered Tom Waits' songs but I can't think of one version that was really more than just OK. And I certainly can't think of one that got anywhere close to his own version.

So could we add the entire Tom Waits back catalogue to the songs that should never be covered? Or is there a good Waits cover out there I've forgotten or simply don't know about?