Uncovered - the original version

Ooh, didn't know that one Panz - thanks!

I don't believe this has been covered.

Phil Specter was listening as Vikki recorded this song. Then he organized his own group to make it a hit.

But he still credited The Crystals even though it was Darlene Love backed by The Blossoms.
The Crystals must have been mighty surprised when they found out they had a new hit single.

Gene Pitney had originally written "He's a Rebel" for The Shirelles, but they declined. Spector learned that Vikki Carr was soon to record the song for Liberty Records as her debut single, and decided he had to rush his own version to stores. The Crystals were touring on the east coast at the time, and so Spector instead had Darlene Love sing lead on the track, backed by The Blossoms, a Los Angeles-based group. Spector gave The Crystals credit on the record; Mary Thomas later recalled that "our mouths fell open" when she and her groupmates heard a radio disc jockey announce "the new Crystals song." The quintet was then obliged to add "He's a Rebel" to their live repertoire, even though lead singer Barbara Alston's soft voice could not mimic Love's hearty delivery. For this reason, fifteen-year-old Dolores "LaLa" Brooks was promoted to the role of lead singer the following year starting with their follow-up single "Then He Kissed Me".

A bizarre video but a great original: Little Willie John wrote it or maybe Otis Blackwell in the Brill Building.
Anyway, a big hit 2 years later for Peggy Lee.

Ha, now your covering me!
http://able2know.org/topic/171829-5#post-4603726

I also did the Fever story on letty's radio thread.

This song was originally done by field hands in Jamaica. This is the first recorded version. There were many covers, but Harry Belafonte had the most popular version.

That is brill EB, thanks for digging it up.

First came to me as Janis Joplin song....

Well I'll be Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis did a fine version of this but the original was by Aretha Franklin's sister Erma hoodathunk?

"Mean Woman Blues" is a 12-bar blues song written by Claude Demetrius. It was recorded by Elvis Presley as part of the soundtrack for his 1957 motion picture, Loving You. Presley also released the song on Side 2 of a four-song EP record. The Elvis Presley version of "Mean Woman Blues" went to number eleven on the R&B charts

Jerry Lee Lewis recorded it in 1957 and this was the b-side to the UK release of his hit "Great Balls of Fire." Jerry Lee's version differed a lot lyrically to the Claude de Metrius composition.

In 1963, the song was recorded with "Blue Bayou" as a 45rpm single by Roy Orbison that went to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 music charts. Roy's version used the lyrics from the Lewis version.

Note that Roy mimics Jerry on his record.

Neil Diamond wrote and first recorded I'm A Believer. The Monkees had a bigger hit with it and the version for the movie Shrek was also very popular.

Tico, A revelation. Thanks for posting this. I never heard Cohen's original. Said a silent "wow" after I heard him perform.

Cool. These covers are the ones that really astonish me, those that were done was i was alive and paying attention. I was no big Neil Diamond fan, but neither was i unaware of him. I had no idea he had recorded that song.

This is a great thread.

Just came across this - so used to Led Zeppelin ripping off Willie Dixon et al, nice to know they weren't averse to ripping off the odd white guy too!



Apparently Jake Holmes supported the Yardbirds in New York in 1967 - then guitarist Jimmy Page apparently forgot where he got the idea from and didn't give credit on his next band's debut lp.

Not too well apparently

Yeah...I stumbled upon this last year. What an odd story.

I just posted Bowie's It's No Game on the commute thread and found this by accident - the song 'It's No Game' morphed from written some ten years earlier

Ray Charles and that wall of sound chorus on 'I can't stop loving you' is one of my very early musical memories. It just came up on ransom and the writer displayed in WMP - Don Gibson - didn't realise but should have that it was a cover.

Don's original went top 10 in Norway in 1957!