I've always considered Wilson Pickett the best screamer in the history of soul,
R&B, and rock. He lays into “Hey Jude” like he just
accidentally chopped his foot off with a hatchet, while the horn section cooks
and Duane Allman, who was just beginning his career as a session
musician, tears off one of the most brilliant and in-your-face guitar
solos you’ll ever hear. It’s a terrific performance, on a classic album. If the rest of the album was jingles for breakfast cereal and Big Pharma, Wilson and company would have still made a heartfelt album.
Fun fact: at one point during the sessions, Duane Allman dosed the water cooler with mescaline.
'Hey Jude' was recorded In October 1968 at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Wilson Pickett on vocals
Duane Allman on lead guitar
Jimmy Johnson and Albert S. Lowe Jr. on rhythm guitars
Jerry Jemmott and David Hood on bass
Barry Beckett on piano
Marvell Thomas on organ
Roger Hawkins on drums
Gene "Bowlegs" Miller and Jack Peck on trumpet
Joe Arnold and Aaron Varnell on tenor saxophone
James Mitchell on baritone saxophone
The Sweet Inspirations ("Cissy" Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, Myrna Smith and Estelle Brown) on backing vocals
For the freeload, what are some of your favorite cover versions, that to you, are better than the original hits?
Kaptain Kopter & the Fabulous Twirly Birds By Randy California had Rain & Day Tripper (Beatles) and Mother & Child Reunion (Paul Simon) & I Don't Want Nobody (James Brown) I don't know that they are any better than the originals, but they are fun.
ReplyDeleteDo all the versions of Mountain Jam count as covers of Donovan's There Is A Mountain.
ReplyDeleteThen their are all the Vanilla Fudge covers. But the ones that crack me up are the ones I hear piped in at the grocery store.
ReplyDeleteIt's too funny what we hear on elevators and in retail establishments these days. The other day, I heard Steely Dan's 'Time Out Mind' while grocery shopping, and a few hours later in a shoe store, I heard Iggy Pop's 'Candy'. Two odes to Heroin...
DeleteI have listened to "Candy" dozens of times, and it never occurred to me that it was about anything other than a relationship between a man and a woman. I'm not opposed to other interpretations, just never considered that there might be another layer of meaning.
DeleteThe Byrds doing Mr. Tambourine Man is obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe Band's version of "Don't Do It"
Patti Smith on on her album 'The Twelve' did a version of "Within You Without You" that astonished me, since I've always hated that song.
Gbrand
Oh man, that cover of "Don't Do It" knocks me out -- especially the live version on Rock Of Ages with the Allen Toussaint horn arrangement.
DeleteIronically, its Ry Cooder's version of Pickett's 6345789.
ReplyDeleteNot a hit, but Charles Bradley's version of "Stay Away" (Nirvana) is great.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orZABpOFUj4
Oh, also this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiKzKdLk-iQ
Beats the livin' snot out of Seals & Croft (not difficult, but still...)
Taxman by Junior Parker is wonderful, but what about John Belushi covering Cocker, covering A Little Help From My Friends on SNL.
ReplyDeleteYesterday by Marvin Gaye
ReplyDeleteJoe Cocker's When I'm Sixty Four transforms a happy music hall toe-tapper into something extraordinary. From an album bursting with better-than-the-original versions.
ReplyDeleteFT3
I like Nina Simone's version of 'I Put a Spell on You', better than "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins'.
ReplyDeleteNot better per se, but The Stones version of 'Just My Imagination', sounds like a Jagger/Richards written number rather than Whitfield/Strong.
Then there's Trane's version of 'My Favorite Things'. Come to think of it, I like most "Jazzer's" covers of standards and show tunes better than the originals.
I was going to put a jazz version of a modern American standard, but the vast majority of the bebop and post bebop area rests upon that. Simone's version of that song is so damn sublime.
DeleteThe album Native Sons by Los Lobos is an album of cover songs by California artists. All of the songs are done very well with that "from East L. A." panache the fellas have cultivated throughout their 50 year career. While maybe not better than the original hits, these versions are certainly very worthy of many listens.
ReplyDeleteAnother notable cover album by Los Lobos is also memorable, Los Lobos Goes Disney. Thanks Babs.
When I heard Pickett's incendiary vocal on The Falcons' "I Found a Love," it permanently lodged him in the pantheon of great screamers along with James Brown and Tina Turner.
ReplyDeleteFocusing on today’s freeload genre, here are a few that come to mind:
Lou Rawls - Stormy Weather
Otis Redding - Pain in My Heart
Otis Redding - Try a Little Tenderness (live and studio versions)
Aretha Franklin - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Bobby Womack - California Dreaming
R.B. Greaves - Take a Letter Maria
Etta James - At Last
I offer up Pickett's version of "Sugar Sugar" as vastly preferable to the original, which I don't hate, but was overplayed on local radio when I was in 8th grade.
ReplyDeletereading these add Big Bertha to list of maybe better Los Lobos covers Neal t
ReplyDeleteAretha's I Say A Little Prayer is a contender for best record ever made.
ReplyDeleteCharles Mann Walk of Life
Muddy Waters Mojo Workin
My knees buckle every time at Aretha's last "ever" before the out chorus. I think you might be right.
DeleteCooder's "Teardrops will fall" (Dickie doo & the don'ts)
ReplyDeleteLink
ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/t-tJ1yrTX5p2
Spooky Tooth's cover of I Am The Walrus.
ReplyDeleteAretha Franklin did a better job of Respect than Otis original.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ferry did a lot of covers too.
Otis was nonplussed - "Girl stole my song!".
DeleteTalking of nonplussed, that was Wilson Pickett on the way from the airport to Muscle Shoals, seeing people picking cotton.
I've answered this question before with Husker Du's cover of "Eight Miles High". Since the Stranglers have been in heavy rotation lately, how about their version of "Walk On By"? "Bacharach meets The Doors in a dark alley behind CBGB's," is how one Youtube commenter described it.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/jqfqVDHNW6c?si=w5WwJMM0KdEiEZpZ
Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
ReplyDeleteAnimals - House Of The Rising Sun
Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man
Rezillos - I Wanna Be Your Man
Rolling Stones - Route 66
Manfred Mann - If You Gotta Go, Go Now
Moody Blues - Go Now
Lulu - Shout
Beatles - Twist & Shout
Yardbirds - I Wish You Would
Beatles - Money
Swinging Blue Jeans - Hippy Hippy Shake
Swinging Blue Jeans - You're No Good
Herman's Hermits - Silhouettes
Slade - Get Down & Get With it
Misunderstood - Who Do You Love
Beatles Twist & Shout better than the Top Notes, not a patch on the Isleys.
DeleteOne More
ReplyDeleteSlade - Shape of things To COme
And I couldn't go without mentioning these
ReplyDeleteDriscoll / Auger / Trinity - This Wheel's On Fire
Who - Leavin' Here
Birds - Leavin' Here
Hollies - Just One Look
Rod Stewart - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
I'll get me coat......
It's hard to believe that anyone could come up with a wilder version of Little Richard's Tutti-Frutti, but there's this one obscure rocker who came pretty close I think;
ReplyDeleteMickey Lee Lane – Tuitti Fruitti
Judge for yourself:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1UFlXW9j5g
Goin' Back and The Bells Of Rhymney by the Byrds. Mona by the Stones. In fact, ANY cover of any artist that the Rolling Stones recorded. You Don't Love Me by The Birds. One could fill a big book with covers that are an improvement on the original.
ReplyDeleteOOOh no. Rolling Stones' Cherry Oh Baby is nothing short of a travesty. So's Ain't too Proud to Beg.
Delete