Notes on the January 9th show - Elvis has left the building

To celebrate Elvis Presley's birthday on January 8th and John Paul jones' birthday on January 3rd I am having an Elvis Spectacular, with a few Elvis impersonators singing Zeppelin songs. here is a rough of the playlist. 

Stairway to Heaven - Neil Pepper  

Heartbreaker (At The End Of Lonely Street) - Dread Zeppelin  

Whole Lotta Love - king  

Let's Have A Party - Robert Plant  

Don't Be Cruel - Chaka Demus & Pliers  

It's Now Or Never - Cornell Campbell  

Suspicion - Jimmy London  

In The Ghetto - Susan Cadogan  

Suspicious Minds - Hortense Ellis  

Esta Bien Mamacita - El Vez  

Marìa se llama (su nueva flama) - El Vez  

Señora Lupe - El Vez  

A Little Less Conversation - Mac Davis 

Don't Be Cruel - Billy Swan  

The Promised Land - Meat Loaf  

Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys  

Crying In The Chapel - Tammy Wynette  

Ave Maria - El Vez Love Letters - Alison Moyet  

That's Alright - Rod Stewart  

Suspicious Minds - Candi Staton  

In The Ghetto - Candi Staton  

Wooden Heart - John Holt  

It's Now Or Never -El Vez  

Trouble - El Vez  

Hoochie Coochie Man - king  

Child Of A Preacher Man - king  

I Heard It Through The Grapevine - king  

Mystery Train - Dwight Yoakam  

Love Me - The Mavericks  

Are You Lonesome Tonight - The Mavericks  

Blue Moon - The Mavericks  

Viva Las Vegas - Bruce Springsteen  

Return To Sender - Ian McCulloch  

Wooden Heart - Nanci Griffith & The Blue Moon Orchestra  

Mystery Train - Jeff Beck & Chrissie Hynde  

Blue Moon Of Kentucky - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers  

All Shook Up - Suzi Quatro  

Gentle On My Mind - R.E.M.  

I probably won't be able to play them all and not in this order but you get an idea of how the show is going to sound. Don't forget to tune into KTAO.com 6:10pm to 8pm (mountain time) on Friday January 9th to stream the show. Please let me know what you think, I need the feedback

Through the Looking Glass - New Year Show 2009

This week on Through the Looking Glass I will be concentrating on contemporary artists and contemporary music. With artists such as Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Adel and Joss Stone covering music by the likes of Keane, The Zutons and Coldplay.

Show playlist for the December 5th show

Here are the songs that I played last night in a slightly foreshortened version of the show.

Sgt peppers - Kickshaw
With a little help – Joe Cocker
Lucy in the sky – Elton John
Getting better – Gomez
Fixing a hole – Hue and Cry
She’s leaving home – Billy Bragg
Mr. Kite - Frank Sidebottom
Within you without you – Big Daddy
When I’m sixty-four – Frankie Howerd
Lovely Rita – Michelle Shocked
Good Morning – Big Daddy
Sgt Peppers reprise – Bee Gees/ Peter Frampton
Day in the life - the Fall
Money – Tom Jones (Barrett Strong, Flying Lizards, Beatles)
Nobody knows you when you’re down and out – Tom Jones
( Jimmie Cox, Sam Cooke)
Slow down - Tom Jones/Jools Holland (Larry Williams /Beatles)
Baby it’s cold outside – Tom Jones/ Cerys (Esther Williams and Ricardo Monteblan)
Love to keep me warm (remix) (Written By Irving Berlin sang by Dick Powell and Alice Fay)
In the ghetto – el vez 4.30 Elvis Presley
Holidaze - Bob Rivers 3.09 Jimi Hendrix

Sgt Pepper, Jones the voice, poetry and the holiday spirit.

This week on Through The Looking Glass I will be playing the whole of the Beatles “Sgt Peppers” in cover versions, Using cover songs to expose the poetry hidden in songs that you know and love. There will be a few covers sang by Tom Jones, My featured cover artist this week. I will also throw in a few seasonally inspired covers and remixes to prepare you for the holiday onslaught.
This weekend is the 42nd anniversary of the Beatles entering the studio to start recording “Sgt Peppers Only Hearts Club Band” it took them over 4 months to record, a mammoth session for the sixties but speedy compared to today’s bands (GNR anyone). There have been at least three full cover albums of Sgt Peppers and countless versions of all the songs all over the world of music. I have compiled a playlist that covers many musical forms and interpretations; I hope that you will be suitably entertained.
To add some form of continuity within the show I will occasionally feature an artist who has a lot of cover versions in their back catalogue. This week it is Tom Jones who throughout his long career has consistently included cover versions on most of his albums. Recently he has had resurgence in England playing with bands like Portishead, Robbie Williams, Jools Holland and the Cardigans.
Remember to tune in Fridays from 6pm to 8pm Mtn time at KTAOS 101.9 or stream at KTAO.com. Thanks
Dan (the English one).

Christmas is THE cover version holiday

Every year at about this time we are bombarded with the same 20 or so songs everywhere we go. I heard jingle bells at least 8 times yesterday and it is only December 2nd. For the sake of sanity (and profit) these songs get rerecorded, remixed and rereleased every year. There are over 40 versions of Jingle Bells listed on the Second Hand Songs website and over 70 versions of White Christmas. So this year I propose a game of Christmas cover bingo. Everyone should carry a notebook and whenever you hear a Christmas song jot down the song name and who performed it. On Christmas day send me your lists (at
http://throughthelookingglassthecoversshow.blogspot.com/ )
and the person who has heard and can identify the most covers of the most songs will receive from me a gift that I received but did not want (gift to be determined based on my gift getting).

When a cover version changes the meaning of a song

Sometimes a cover version can change the original meaning of a song. When Sandie Shaw sings “Reviewing The Situation” the song takes on a new slant when sang from a female perspective. The lyrics –

And a wife would cook and sew for me,
And come for me, and go for me.

Are changed to –
And I would cook and sew for him, and come for him, and go for him.

Another example is the Undertones “Teenage Kicks” contains the lyrics –

Are teenage dreams so hard to beat?
Every time she walks down the street
Another girl in the neighborhood
Wish she was mine, she looks so good
I wanna hold you wanna hold you tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night

These lyrics are great when sung by a teenager, but when they are sang by the band The Platinum Paddies the fact that the singer is clearly in his advancing years makes the song somewhat menacing.

The ultimate though unintentional creepy cover is the Elvis Presley song “Suspicious Minds” the lyrics, as you probably know are –

We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much baby
Why can't you see?
What you're doing to me

These are very strange words (in retrospect) to be sang by
Gary Glitter in view of everything that we have found out about him in the last few years.

Anyone know of any others?

everything old is new again - some thoughts on the evolution of the cover version

Everything old is new again – some thoughts on the evolution of cover versions
There have been many forms of popular music over the last century including but not limited to: Jazz, Blues, Soul, Disco, Punk, Hip Hop, Rap and Grunge. Since Grunge hit in the early nineties there have not been any strong musical movements at the forefront of popular culture. Where is the new music coming from? Old music. Cover versions and cover bands have moved in to fill the cultural void that a new musical direction could be filling.
Cover versions are nothing new, of course, the first popular songs were traditional songs sang by troubadours, memorized by the populous and sang by anyone who was moved to sing. With the advent of cheap sheet music the tunes and lyrics became standardized and these songs became popular standards. In the 1920’s and 30’s some songs started to become associated with specific singers after their records were played on the radio and they sang them in movies. But by and large a popular song would have a life of its own. Cole Porters song Anything Goes for example was written for a Broadway musical but was used in numerous films and recorded by many different artists and still to this day stands out as a standard without being associated with a specific singer. In the 1950’s Rock and Roll became popular with artists like Elvis Presley rerecording blues songs with an upbeat tempo. That’s Alright Mama a song that was made popular by Elvis is an almost exact copy of the Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup original from 1946. In England there was the Skiffle movement, bands with a ragtag assortment of guitars, washboards and homemade bass reinterpreted traditional folk songs.
In the sixties popular music exploded with new bands such as The Beatles, The Animals and The Rolling Stones releasing records that were nearly all covers of the Blues and rock and roll records that they were listening to. Soon the great songwriters of the Sixties emerged and there was a small industry in covering the songs of Dylan, Lennon - McCartney and Jagger – Richards. This was a golden era for the cover version, the songs were everywhere and the singers could not be. The strength of the songwriting shone through and Beatles songs were recorded in every imaginable style and language. Bands like the Hollies, Manfred Mann and the Band recorded albums and E.P.s comprised wholly of Bob Dylan songs. The great interpreters stepped up to the plate, musicians who covered songs in such a way that they made them their own, Cream remade the blues in their own image, Joe Cocker took “With a little help from my friends” and created a wholly different song from the Beatles original vision, Jimi Hendrix (with a song that is generally regarded as the greatest cover version of all time) took Dylan’s “All along the watchtower” to soaring new heights scarcely imagined by its composer. Along with Bob Dylan great poets like Leonard Cohen emerged who wrote beautiful song that were enhanced by new interpretations.
As the seventies emerged more singer songwriters are being known for their own versions of songs as easier international travel and satellite /video technology made it easier for the artists to be seen playing their own songs. The two saving graces for cover versions in the seventies were the advent of Punk and Disco. Disco cover versions filled the dance floor by adding orchestrations and a beat to such songs as Donna Summers version of “ Macarthur’s park” or Boney M singing “Sunny”. Punk was a fountain of interesting cover versions too numerous to mention. Those that I will mention are “My Way” by Sid Vicious, “Stepping Stone” by The Sex Pistols, “I heard it through the grapevine” by The Slits, “ All along the watchtower” by XTC and the greatest cover version of the seventies (in my opinion) “Walk on By” by The Stranglers.
The eighties were somewhat of a low point for cover versions with a few bands that started out in the seventies releasing cover albums one good example is The Flying Lizards “Top 10” album. There were a few small bands keeping the covers alive, the Silicon Teens released “Music for Parties” an album of electro versions of late fifties and early sixties hits. Towards the end of the eighties where were manufactures groups like Bananarama singing overproduced covers of songs such as “Na Na Hey Hey – Kiss Him Goodbye” and “Venus” these haven’t aged well.
The nineties brought the advent of the tribute album, a bunch of assorted artists record covers from one band or songwriter and release it as an album. The market was flooded with them and major labels released tributes to major artists while minor labels released more eclectic collections. There are tribute albums to: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Clash, Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello, Leonard Cohen, The Byrds, Frank Zappa and many more.
Here in the 21st century the cover version is once again entering a golden age in the U.K. and Australia there are TV and Radio shows where guests are encouraged to do impromptu cover versions. Internationally shows like American Idol are all cover versions (glorified Karaoke but cover versions none the less). In London’s West End and on Broadway shows like Mamma Mia and The Jersey Boys play to packed houses. Films like Mamma Mia and Across the Universe are keeping cover versions at the forefront of popular culture.