Covers that are better than the original

Television talent shows always have young singers doing covers. Alex Parks won a British talent search in 2003.

A bit of sad news: Hazel Dickens has died.

I'm bummed. She was the real deal

She was

Last Kiss by Pearl Jam originally sung by Wayne Cochran.

I think it was J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers who had the hit but you're right, Cochran did it first.
Good one.

I'm not sure this is exactly "cover songs that are better than the originals" but it is a sort of specialized case of "ad music that is better than any ad music they've done up to now"--I was watching this week's "Big Bang Theory" and a Subaru commercial came on and I thought "Damn, who is that, it sure sounds like the Pogues", and I googled it and it was, yes, the POGUES, the anarchistic, drunken sot, rotten teeth, Celtic folk punk rockers brilliant madmen, doing "If I Should Fall from Grace with God", the POGUES doing a car commercial about hockey moms. This world is getting very strange.


and here's the commercial

Many covers of Pete Seeger's songs are better than his orignal. Here are two examples:

The Byrds covering Seeger's Turn turn turn



Marlene Dietrich covering Pete Seeger's Where have all the flowers gone?

kudos to the producer of the ad. Great

Maybe Spider and his wife are financing the house they are building in New orleans.

I just checked, and the song, You Made me Love You, was composed nearly 100 years ago.

Over the years I’ve heard a number of renditions but never, not once, did I like the song at all, until I heard Rebecca Jenkins do it. It’s not on Youtube, but I did find it on her website. While I personally adore the entire performance, I might have given up on it, if I had stopped just a few bars in. It’s from the 1989 Bye Bye Blues movie soundtrack.

Here’s a link to the song:

http://www.rebeccajenkins.ca/MusicSounds/ByeByeBluesCD/14%20-%20You%20Made%20Me%20Love%20You(1).mp3

Try this.
http://www.rebeccajenkins.ca/MusicPages/ByeByeBlues.htm

edit. Not working either.
edit. working

edit. She's fabulous

Oh, damn. My link worked perfectly for me in "my documents" but you're right, I buggered it somehow when I posted here. Your link did work though..scroll down just a little - song # 14. Takes just a second or two to load. Thanks!

I think so too (she's fabulous)

If you like her that much...she must be a Canuck

I believe she IS actually

Certainly the film was Canadian (but don't let that stop you -- I thought it was quite good, too).

I think it might be heresy to say that this version is better than the original. It is different. The song -- Leon Rosselson's The World Turned Upside Down, from as late as 1975 -- was an instant favorite of mine from my first hearing of it.

While you might not know Rosselson's name, you surely know of a project in which he was involved that spawned a similar one in the US: Rosselson wrote satirical songs for the original British show, "That Was the Week That Was," which began just after the Profumo scandal broke. The host David Frost brought the show to America during the heady times that we thought were "the early days of a better nation," to quote another song.

Although I love Rosselson's own version, his voice and guitar playing aren't strong. Dick Gaughan does a magnificent version and Billy Bragg has also covered it (haven't heard his version). Gaughan and Rosselson sing it as a ballad. The Oysterband returns to their roots and do it as a dance number.*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPb6J45CISM

Speaking of oysterband, I put together a Pandora account a long time ago and established one station, Christie Moore. Then I didn't return. I'm going to see Bruce Cockburn (finally) a week from today and had a hunger for his music. I turned to Pandora rather than youtube. I like Pandora but the software provides you not just with songs from the artist you seek but with "similar" artists. Some of them are just not similar enough. When I tired of Pandora's Cockburn clones, I started a new station for the oysters. The first number up was an oysterband cover of a Cockburn song. I had no idea they covered him.

So while we're at it, why don't I give you Gaughan's version. If he looks impossibly young, it is because this a BBC presentation from 1982. His guitar is powerful and so is his very Scots voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWzzvnPOyTM

The incomparable June Tabor performs early Dylan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvIdPe34JTI&feature=my_favorites&list=FLzRFUSnDizy0

Agree on both, although I still have my Seeger album. I've somehow seen Dietrich singing that before, and it gave me a chill just to see the youtube photo now, not even playing it yet. (Went over to youtube and favorited it).