DON'T LET ME DOWN

Listen to DON'T LET ME DOWN by Dillard & Clark.

So that's nearly a month of Beatles covers for you, should be enough for almost anybody I think!

We're ending with a wonderful take on another classic. Don't Let Me Down, when it was released, was perhaps a little raw to make a big Hey Jude-style impact, but it's truly one of the standout John songs, and I think recognized as such by a lot of Beatles fans.

Dillard & Clark were a great act in their own right, and their take on Don't Let Me Down is as good as it can be, eschewing John's more desperate vocal for a sound of apprehension or resignation even. One I could listen to all day.

Happy July, see you in August!

Photo: Manhattan bridge details (4).

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER

Listen to STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER by Candy Flip.

I vividly remember hearing this one on the radio back in 1990 (KJ103, more than likely) and ever since, it's been an unshakeable favorite Beatles cover.

I can imagine certain heads exploding at that statement, but I don't--can't--apologize for it. I love the blissed out feel of this version, and the fact that it's not as deep or as creepy as the original counts as a plus. I even like the Funky Drummer baggy beat stuck on it! Ah, youth.

Photo: Manhattan bridge details (3).

AND I LOVE HER

Listen to AND I LOVE HER by The Detroit Emeralds.

I can't quite put my finger on why I like this cover of And I Love Her so much. Whereas the formality of the original tends toward the awkward and earnest (not necessarily bad things), the formality here is more baroque and sophisticated. It's less about the sentiment than about showing off the band's (and producer's) chops.

Also, I have a thing for the Detroit Emeralds. They're a bunch of fellas who took the time-honored journey up from Arkansas to Michigan (like the Chambers Brothers), and (less importantly, I admit) recorded one of my favorite soul singles, Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms) (sampled heavily in Eazy-Duz-It, a song we heard coming out of a car in Bed-Stuy this weekend. Thanks, car, for putting me in the mind to blog today's song!)

Photo: Manhattan bridge details (2).

WE CAN WORK IT OUT

Listen to WE CAN WORK IT OUT by Stevie Wonder.

So, one last week of Beatles covers this month, and I thought it would be nice to end on some sure-fire winners.

Most of you have probably heard Stevie's cover of We Can Work It Out. I know I've heard it a million times, but it never ceases to blow me away. How he was able to take one of the best Beatles singles, then markedly change the mood, the feel, the arrangement, and make it even listenable...well, how did he do it? This cover--as much as anything he ever did--signifies for me how much talent that kid had.

Photo: Manhattan bridge details (1).

I CANT GO FOR THAT:SAY NO GO:MY CREW CANT GO FOR THAT and SOFT

Listen to I CANT GO FOR THAT:SAY NO GO:MY CREW CANT GO FOR THAT by Hall & Oates:De La Soul:DV Alias Khrist.
Listen to SOFT by Lemon Jelly.

Jason dropping in.

Bill's sticking with Beatles' covers so I'll take a twist on the theme. Two songs that "cover" previous works. One is a song that samples a classic. The other is a song that mashes a song that samples a classic with the classic itself.

First up is a track from French DJ Arthur King's "Pop Sh!t" - a compilation in which he mashes hip-hop tracks with the 80s pop tunes that begat them. Brooklyn rapper Khryst/Khrist (or Scranton if you want his real name) takes us over the robobeat of Hall & Oates before segueing into one of my seminal songs of 1989 - "Say No Go" by the D.A.I.S.Y agers of De La. That song will forever remind me of the first year I hit the clubs. Of course, it was years before I realised that the song sampled Hall & Oates.

Second is from British electronauts Lemon Jelly. This was a filler track for the "Nice Weather for Ducks" single and I heard it whilst checking them out live at the Roskilde music festival in Denmark, 2003. The sample is Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now".

The thing that marks out both tracks for me is that they both incorporate classic tracks. More importantly, you get to hear the pieces you want from them. Not just a repeating snippet - or a teasing sample that makes you itch for the chorus. The "ooh ooh ooh ooh" in Soft seems like its just gonna stay that way, obsessive compulsing as it does over those strings for nearly two-and-a-half minutes. But then, just as you think the song's ending, in comes Peter "Et" Cetera.

Nice.

Photo: Tuileries, Paris, 2003. Taken by Jason Bryant

REVOLUTION 9

Listen to REVOLUTION 9 by The Durham Ox Singers.

This one is the one that gets the most questions when you say, "I have a cover of every Beatles song." They say, "You mean even songs like Revolution Number 9?!?!?!" YES! Even Revolution 9. And it wasn't even that hard to find. Also, it's pretty cool.

I'm one of those people who doesn't mind listening to Revolution 9 every so often. At times, in fact, I think it's pretty amazing, so you may not trust my judgment on this. But I quite like this cover, an a capella cover at that. It's kinda funny.

Photo: Uptown (4).

PENNY LANE

Listen to PENNY LANE by The Better Beatles.

When I picked this up off of WFMU, I really expected this song to be awful: "[T]his quartet from Nebraska in 1980 actually were trying to make the Beatles' music sound better. However you judge in terms of improvement, the attempt was done in a pure spirited way with a set of basic electronic elements, vocals, bass and drums, managing to project a sense of lofty artistic and definite postmodern design, but without pretentiousness."

I dunno, that sounds not so good. But it's awesome!

Having heard this cover, Penny Lane reveals a side of itself that even the original doesn't show. I'm not saying it's better than the Beatles, but I can listen to it eight times in a row, no problem.

Photo: Uptown (3).

YOU CAN'T DO THAT

Listen to YOU CAN'T DO THAT by Harry Nilsson.

I don't know that this song by Harry Nilsson--I think "ingenious" or maybe "clever" describes it better, but it's certainly one of the more unusual Beatles covers. As you'll hear, Nilsson is nominally covering You Can't Do That off "A Hard Day's Night," but it's really a bunch of quotations from a couple dozen (well, twenty-two) Beatles songs. Ingenious. Nilsson had a knack for this--he did the same trick on the "Skidoo" soundtrack, where he sang the names of the ENTIRE cast and crew in less than four minutes.

Supposedly when John Lennon heard "Pandemonium Shadow Show" (where You Can't Do That appears), he listened to it for 36 hours straight. And lots of people have heard about the 1968 press conference where John named "Nilsson" as the group's favorite singer (and Paul, for good measure, named "Nilsson" as their favorite group). Less known is that John and Paul later followed up with separate out-of-the-blue, middle-of-the-night phone calls proclaiming their admiration. Can you imagine?

Photo: Uptown (2).

SHE LOVES YOU

Listen to SHE LOVES YOU by Peter Sellers.

There are a lot of Beatles covers, obviously, and there are a lot of "wacky," strange, unusual Beatles covers, very few of which are any good.

But when Peter Sellers (as Dr. Strangelove) does a cover of She Loves You, you'd have to think that it would be worth hearing, and it totally is. Sellers did a number of Beatles covers in various personae, but imho this one takes the biscuit. Hope you like it!

Photo: Uptown (1).

UP, UP, AND AWAY

Listen to UP, UP, AND AWAY by Ray Conniff.

John here. I came across Ray Conniff the same way everyone does: grandparents. There for the holidays, it was either Johnny Mathis or Ray Conniff, cheese or snow. After having heard Johnny’s Christmas classics many times, the choice was Ray.

Ray’s main idea was to take a popular song and strip it down to its underlying rhythm and harmony. Next, he replaced any depth removed by the extraction of a fuzzy guitar or a cracking solo with winsome instrumental flourishes and vocals. Or rather a choir: 12 women and 13 men singing in unison. It’s the pleasure principle in practice.

Ray’s tune quiver contained a lot numbers in the lush 60’s style, so although many don’t sound too distant from their root to our ears, the generation gap was a bit wider then. How else could my ageing grandparents have known the hits of the Beatles (gasp - longhairs!) or Simon and Garfunkel (egad - folk beatniks!)? I like that – can’t imagine my own parents walking around humming “Knives Out”.

Today’s track is a Jimmy Webb classic made famous by the Fifth Dimension (and others) and is almost impossible not to like. Hey, it's Friday ... Easy as she goes!

Photo: swinging.

SAVOY TRUFFLE

Listen to SAVOY TRUFFLE by Terry Manning.

Having typed and erased about 400 words trying to get this first line right, I can say without resort to metaphor that words cannot describe how rockin I think this cover of Savoy Truffle is.

It's ten minutes long, it opens with a weird Moog solo (played by Robert Moog, so there), has Chris Bell lurking about (Terry engineered and/or produced the Box Tops and later Big Star), was the opening track on a record specifically commissioned by Al Bell of Stax, has guitar solos and harmonica licks EVERYWHERE, Terry sings like Marc Bolan's tougher older brother...and did I mention this all goes on for ten minutes?

Photo: Ft. Tilden (4).

YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW

Listen to YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but the reason why we have so many Beatles covers is because we decided one weekend not too long ago that it would be neat if we could get a cover version of every single Beatles song ever recorded, including the German language ones, the joke ones, and everything else in between.

As it turns out, there are a couple of resources on the web that makes this project easier than one would think (obscure completist collections--not just for total obsessives any more!), so by the time the weekend was over we had successfully augmented our collection to include at least one cover of every song (and usually many more--we've now got about 16 versions of Yesterday, for example).

A few songs were understandably more difficult to find than others. Your Mother Should Know, from the "Magical Mystery Tour" EP doesn't have many champions. I eventually found a version I liked on iTunes, by this guy, Kenny Ball (and His Jazzmen). I refuse to learn anything about Mr. Ball and His Jazzmen beyond that they got the arrangement right where Paul failed over many attempts. So kudos to them.

Photo: Ft. Tilden (3).

SHE'S LEAVING HOME

Listen to SHE'S LEAVING HOME by Syreeta.

Continuing with excellent covers of lesser-known Beatles songs we have She's Leaving Home by Syreeta. She's Leaving Home? Isn't that on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"? Isn't that, like, the most famous album of all time?!?!

Well, yes. But I have a theory that nobody ever listens to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" except maybe David Fricke and Cameron Crowe. Be honest, can you name the songs on it? People know the title track, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, When I'm 64, and A Day In The Life, but I submit that most people think of these more like the words to a Hail Mary, something you reel off semi-consciously, rather than actual pieces of music, much less part of a semi-cohesive album. (It doesn't help that a couple of these songs are kinda stinky.)

That brings us to She's Leaving Home (for the record, the sixth track on the album). Reviews are mixed among the cognoscenti. It's not usually included among McCartney's best ballads (Yesterday, Here, There and Everywhere, Let It Be), but some put it just below this top tier. Others think its an insipid mess. Still others (well, me at least) think of it as a very interesting failure.

Enough about that, let's talk about today's cover for a moment. Today's song features two great talents, one of whom did this blog's favorite Beatles cover. Even without Google, one should be able to identify this person almost immediately from listening to the song. The answer is not Syreeta (that would be TOO easy). But anyway, her debut album is a minor classic, and this song is a highlight therefrom.

Photo: Ft. Tilden (2).

HEY BULLDOG

Listen to HEY BULLDOG by Fanny.

Who said this?

"One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace. And that is Fanny. They were one of the finest f*cking rock bands of their time, in about 1973. They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherf*ckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They're as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done."

That's David Bowie in 1999, and he feels quite strongly about this.

And he's right--Fanny are quite good, and completely forgotten about. Even so, "they were the first, genuine, self-founded, all-woman rock band to be signed to a major US label, and to gain international fame." You'll see the group name-checked as important influences for loads of female acts, from the Go-Gos to Bonnie Raitt. And even that may be a little unfair--when I say this cover of Hey Bulldog (recorded at Abbey Road, by the way) is pretty good, I don't mean to imply "(for a girl)," I mean it's one of the better Beatles covers I have, full stop (it doesn't hurt that they're covering everyone's favorite choice for lost Beatles classic--it does amaze me when people haven't heard this one).

Enough plugging, here's a couple of interesting things about Fanny. Aside from being one of the first all girl rock groups of any prominence, the Millington sisters are one of the first and only Filipino-American acts to ever hit big. Also, to lay to rest a rumor that is (sadly) untrue, George Harrison did NOT suggest the band's name to the sisters taking advantage of the band's ignorance of British slang. My apologies to the thousands of you to whom I've repeated this story in the past.

Photo: Ft. Tilden (1).

WORDLESS CHORUS @ Radio City Music Hall

A little video we made at the My Morning Jacket Show a couple of weeks ago. We're way in the cheap seats, but the sound is pleasingly passable.