The Zig Gazette
Vol. 7 #18
The Zigs’ website is TheZigsBand.com
The Zigs are: Jim Ziegler, Bill Raffensperger,
Frank McPeters, Jim Downing
Auxilliary Saturday: Jimmy Karstein
sATurday 7/28: Bourbon Street Café, 15th & St. Louis 7PM
COVER SONGS
We cover the waterfront. We are of that stodgy generation that thinks a successful bar band is mostly a cover band. We’re all over fifty and still working; are you listening, teenyboppers? But when it comes to recording there are pretty much two categories of covers: the “Attaboy!” and the “Why Bother?”
An Attaboy is a cover that is usually better than the original in some way. It may be the singer, the style, the recording or the arrangement that makes it better. The act of taking an obscure song and giving it the recognition it deserves is admirable. If you have style and passion, you can take someone else’s song that you really like and make it your own. “Why Bother?” is self-explanatory.
There are some great Attaboys that topped the charts. Maybe the best example is Aretha Franklin’s version of Otis Redding’s “Respect”. The minute he heard it, Otis chuckled “That bitch stole my song!” He knew that it was hers now, that she had done it justice. Otis served up a great version of “Satisfaction” which was probably the greatest compliment The Rolling Stones ever got. They had covered Otis before white America ever heard of him.
The Byrds’ cover of Dylan’s “Mister Tambourine Man” took the song into a whole different world and to the top of the charts. We wish the album version had included all the verses. The Byrds did good things to every Dylan song they covered, notably “Chimes Of Freedom”, “My Back Pages” and “All I Really Want To Do”. Sonny and Cher’s version of the latter falls into the ‘why bother?’ category.
“Hey Joe” was a mediocre jumpy tidbit of folk-rock covered by The Leaves, The Byrds and many others until Jimi poured some grease on it and made it his first hit in the UK. Jimi’s “Watchtower” was Dylan’s favorite cover of one of his songs and he then copied Jimi’s version. Enough said. (I actually heard a young DJ once play Live At Buddhokan and say “There’s Bob Dylan doing an old Jimi Hendrix song”)
Some covers are kind of in-between. Little Richard initially resented Pat Boone’s butchering of two of his songs, especially since he was cheated out of the royalties, but he realized that they increased his popularity. In the early days of rock and roll, many R & B hits were covered badly by whites and the songwriters got nil. The Diamonds did it repeatedly. Their “Earth Angel” was a big hit, but the Penguins’ original single is quite valuable.
Chicago covered Spencer Davis’ “I’m A Man” pretty well, but the bass part is wrong.
Several versions of “Little Wing” are out there, but they don’t improve on Jimi’s original. SRV also covered “Voodoo Child (slight return)” well, but it’s not better. The Scorpion’s version of The Who’s “Can’t Explain” is another toss-up, as is Aerosmith’s “Come Together”.
Three Dog Night was one of the great cover bands of all time, but they couldn’t improve on The Band’s “Chest Fever”.
The Who pulled in some royalties for Okie Eddie Cochran’s estate, but their version of “Summertime Blues” was a copy of Blue Cheer’s arrangement.
In the ‘not quite better but almost as good’ category we have Linda Ronstadt’s “It’s So Easy” by Buddy Holly, Jose Feliciano’s “Light My Fire”, Electric Light Orchestra’s “Roll Over Beethoven” Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me” and Talking Head’s “Take Me To The River”.
Joe Cocker improved almost every song he covered, many due to Leon’s arrangements like “The Letter” and “Feelin’ All right”. But his cut of Leon’s “Delta Lady” is not quite as good as the original.
“Ticket To Ride” has been attempted by many, from Vanilla Fudge to the hated Carpenter’s version. You probably never heard it, but Okie Jim Webb did a killer chart on it for The Fifth Dimension on their second album. It has the Wrecking Crew doing greasy fatback, a horn section and stacks of jazz chord harmonies. We give that an Attaboy.
The most pretentious cover must be Hall And Oates’ “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.” The very idea that any white singers could outdo The Righteous Brothers is laughable. Of course Daryl is his own biggest fan.
“Gloria” by Them, Van Morison’s first single, was not really a hit. But it’s three-chord simplicity and building tension, culminating in a difficult all rim-shot drum part, made it irresistible to garage bands everywhere. A year later a garage band The Shadows Of Night released it and it was a hit because kids had been hearing it at hops.
Several people cut “To Love Somebody” but we’d stick to the original BeeGees version from their folk roots days.
Madonna covered “American Pie”? We don’t need to hear that to know it’s futile. In 100 years, Madonna’s contribution to music will be as significant as Larry Bud Melman’s was to acting.
“Dedicated To The One I Love” was a minor hit for The Five Royales, and then later improved by The Shirelles. But John Phillips’ arrangement, skillfully executed by The Mamas And Papas, is now the industry standard.
Other notable Attaboys are The Beatle’s “Twist And Shout”, originally by The Isley Brothers. John grinds out the lead, but Paul does the octave- sliding scream that goes clear up into the dog spectrum.
Wilson Pickett took a sappy bubblegum song “Sugar Sugar” and proved that if you really have soul, you can make almost anything sound good.
Another of the greatest is John Lennon’s heartfelt take on Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me.”
Earth Wind & Fire’s “Got to Get You Into My Life” is outstanding. You don’t hear many covers of Beatles’ songs. Why bother?
The Zig Gazette invites your opinion on this interesting subject.
sATurday 7/28: Bourbon Street Café, 15th & St. Louis 7PM
FLOTSAM
We have some unusual gigs coming up. On September 15th, we’ll be playing outside at The Magic Circle Block Party at Cowan Park about 18th Street and 108th E Ave; right by Peary School. Bring the kids out and let the TFD hose them down. That’s a Saturday at 6 PM.
We are also playing Oktoberfest this year. Maybe this is because we have two Germans in the band. Maybe we should do something by Bert Kampfert or The Scorps. That will be either the 18th or 19th of, uh, October.
Bands named after food:
April Wine, Bananarama, Barbecue Bob, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Black-Eyed Peas, Blue Oyster Cult, Bread, Buckwheat Zydeco, Cake, The Chocolate Watch Band, The Cookies, The Cranberries, Crawdad, Cream, The Dead Milkmen, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Ginger Spice, The Honeycombs, Hot Chocolate, Hot Tuna, Humble Pie, Jello Biafra, King Biscuit Boy, Korn, The Lemonheads, The Light Crust Doughboys, Maramalade, Meat Loaf, Moby Grape, Mom’s Apple Pie, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Raspberries, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Salt & Pepa, Smashing Pumpkins, Strawberry Alarm Clock, String Cheese Incident, The Sugarcubes, Tangerine Dream, The Tea Set, Ultimate Spinach, Vanilla Fudge, Vanilla Ice, Wild Cherry.
Honorable (?) mention: Fiona Apple, Fontella Bass, Chuck Berry, Salmon Dave, Peaches & Herb.
Gazette Media Watch
This catalog has a banner on the front that says FREE GIFT! Imagine that, think about it. Aren’t all gifts free? If it wasn’t free, it would be a purchase, not a gift. But it isn’t free at all, because you don’t get it unless you buy something.
Lunesta is a sleeping pill (it makes you see green butterflies). “Until you know how it affects you, you shouldn’t drive while taking it”. After that, we suppose it’s OK. Let’s pop some sleeping pills and take a drive. This is another example of thinning the herd, but could have bad results.
“Side effects include drowsiness.” No, really? We thought that was THE effect. Silly us.
sATurday 7/28: Bourbon Street Café, 15th & St. Louis 7PM
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