Track #41 - “Summer Breeze” by Shaw/Blades (2007)

From the album Influence

Music and lyrics by Jim Seals and Dash Crofts

Original version released in 1972, from the album Summer Breeze

Performed by:

Jack Blades – vocals, bass, acoustic guitar

Tommy Shaw – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards

Michael Lardie – keyboards

Brian Tichy - drums

Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom

July is dressed up and playing her tune

And I come home from a hard day’s work

And you’re waiting there, not a care in the world

See the smile a-waitin’ in the kitchen

Food cookin’ and the plates for two

Feel the arms that reach out to hold me

In the evening when the day is through

My mother’s parents lived around the corner from us in Brooklyn on Fulton Street, in a one-floor walkup apartment above a driving school. As apartments went back then, it was typical: you’d enter right into a large eat-in kitchen, with a living room adjacent to it, bathroom, master bedroom, and a large spare room all the way down the hall. The thing about “living rooms” back then is that they were hardly used, and when they were, it was for special occasions. My grandparents’ living room had an orange low-shag carpet, a heavy coffee table in the middle and a TV on a mahogany bureau, all surrounded by a gold velvet sofa, and matching chairs, the cushions all encased in plastic slipcovers. For those of you who did not grow up in the 1970s and thought the plastic covers on the furniture were just urban legend, you’re dead wrong; the plastic was real, and stuck to your legs in the city heat of July and August. And no, my grandparents did not have air conditioning. But as I mentioned, the living room was hardly used unless there was company, namely adults who would sit around and drink highballs and eat finger food while they reminisced about the old days. I had no use for a room like that when I was six years old, and if I did, I would be asked to leave that room promptly; the kids weren’t allowed in the “living room.” I had more interest in the spare room down the hall, or the “back room”, as it was called. It was there that I could touch anything I wanted, jump on the old sofa and crash my toy cars and action figures against the walls all I wanted. It was where my brother and I would run off to after dinner to escape the adults to watch cartoons, wrestle on the floor and otherwise just be mischievous because there was nothing of real value in that room. And in stark contrast to my parents’ apartment, there was even a stereo I could touch and records I could play in that back room. Now, I had my own record player at home, the beige plastic JC Penny turntable I told you about back when we first set out on this trip down memory lane. But my grandparents had an actual automatic turntable, with two small speakers hooked up to it, and…wait for it…an 8-track cassette player. 8-track tapes were a popular way to listen to music in the 70s, hitting their peak in sales around 1978. Unlike a regular cassette, you didn’t need to rewind it. The tape simply started at the beginning again once it reached the end of whatever album you were listening to. They were also bigger than regular cassettes; there’s a picture below, it’s easier to show you than describe them to you. I’ve seen listings for 8-track players on eBay, and old 8-track cassettes at used record stores, so who knows, maybe they’ll make a comeback. The 8-track collection I remember from my grandparents’ collection back then were mostly crooners: Frank Sinatra, Bobby Vinton, and Tony Bennett. The selection, and the intimidation factor of the 8-track player itself and getting it to work made me steer clear. But there were some intriguing albums and 45s, probably left behind by my aunt when she moved out on her own. I remember a battered copy of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, frayed around the edges, with a tear on the spine of the cover. Rubber Soul was also there, another Beatles classic, this one in much better shape; kind of wish I took that one for myself. And I remember a copy of Carole King’s Tapestry in the mix; now that one I regret not rescuing from the pile. There were also a lot of 45s, smaller than vinyl albums, with one song on each side, singles that were released by artists, in paper sleeves. I couldn’t tell you what all of them were, but there were three though, that I would play over and over. There was “Mandy”, a 1974 hit by Barry Manilow (go ahead, laugh all you want); still not sure why that one grabbed me the way it did when I was six years old. And, contrary to what you may have heard, the song is not about his dog. And there was “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”, Stevie Wonder’s #1 hit from his iconic album, Talking Book. Again, why I played this ballad by an R&B legend on repeat is something I still don’t understand; maybe it was a case of playing what was available when I went to visit my grandparents, and being able to play records on a real stereo that turned me into an easy listening DJ, but soon enough, I had the lyrics to those two songs memorized. And the third one…well, I was at least familiar with the artist; in fact, I was mildly obsessed with him. The first album I ever owned was by this artist, but this song, on this 45 record, I did not know. When I first picked it up, and saw the title, I thought maybe it was a kid’s song; when I played it, the words sounded mildly silly, like they were describing a cartoon. Elton John’s cover of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” came out in late 1974 and was a #1 single in early 1975. Of course, back then, I had no idea it was a Beatles song; I just figured it was an Elton John song I had never heard of. I had a fleeting idea of who the Beatles were, but not what they were. So, when I heard Elton singing about “tangerine trees and marmalade skies”, and “marshmallow pies”, and a “girl with kaleidoscope eyes”, it sounded like he was indeed, narrating a cartoon, and I could easily picture those images he was singing about. The Elton John version is clearly a showcase for his voice; the arrangement is somewhat more serious than the Beatles’ version, which comes off as more whimsical. I would not make these observations until many, many years later; I barely knew any Beatles music and had only heard a few songs by 1976. In fact, it would be my Aunt Peggy, the one who left all these records behind and whose books I would “borrow” years later, who would tell me that the version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was a cover song. When I asked what a cover song was, she just told me that “sometimes singers sing other singer’s songs.” Hmmmm…I was barely six years old at the time and wasn’t sure I was grasping this concept; as far as I was concerned, this was an Elton John song. But when I looked at the label on the 45 record, there were two names underneath the title, that did not say “Elton John”; the names were “Lennon/McCartney”. I knew Paul McCartney was a Beatle; I still did not know who John Lennon was (more on that down the road), but clearly, they had something to do with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. Still, the idea of “cover songs” was above my pay grade as a six-year-old. When I think back though to that time in the mid-1970s, there were cover songs all around me, songs that were played heavily on the radio, and that my parents played on their stereo at home: “Black Magic Woman” by Santana (Fleetwood Mac), “I Shot the Sheriff” by Eric Clapton (Bob Marley), “Proud Mary” by Ike & Tina Turner (Creedence Clearwater Revival), and “How Sweet It Is” by James Taylor (Marvin Gaye), to name just a few. Think about that short playlist, (and obviously no disrespect to the artist who originally wrote and recorded those songs, who are icons themselves), and how the cover versions have endured for almost 50 years. These were the songs in my orbit, and subsequently in my head when music was beginning to make an impression on me. I can’t tell you how many times my dad played Santana’s version of “Black Magic Woman”, only to find out decades later this was originally a Fleetwood Mac song. This discovery and subsequent love (or sometimes “meh”) of cover songs has continued, the “Aha” moments, and the “maybe they should have left it alone” moments have endured, and it made me understand that this was something that artists did, because it was the ultimate tribute to that original artist and songwriter. There have been cover songs in the past 50 years that have made people forget there was even an original version, and cover songs that were so good, they revived the original. And there have been full albums of cover songs too numerous to count in my lifetime. John Lennon himself paid tribute to his heroes in 1975, with Rock ‘n’ Roll; Rage Against the Machine gave songs by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the Stooges, among others, the thrash treatment on 2000’s Renegades; and in 2002, Johnny Cash released American IV: The Man Comes Around, an album featuring covers of “Personal Jesus” (Depeche Mode), “I Hung My Head” (Sting), and most famously, a version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”, that might bring a tear to your eye. Trent Reznor himself, who wrote and recorded “Hurt” originally, said of Cash’s version, “that song doesn’t belong to me anymore.” Weezer put out an album of covers in 2019 that was fun, but seemed all over the place: TLC, Michael Jackson, Black Sabbath, a-ha, and a version of Toto’s “Africa” that’s been streamed over 85 million times on Spotify. Somewhere in there though was an album of covers released in 2007 by two guys with 1970s influences, and who re-recorded songs that made you say, “Huh, I remember this one…” In fact, they called their collection of cover songs Influence. The songs they covered were not obvious choices of songs to pay tribute to, but they were good choices. When I first heard the entire record, my reaction was that these songs were familiar, comforting almost, songs I had heard on the radio growing up. And they could harmonize when they sang together, these two; in their heyday, they led separate bands, then formed a supergroup in the early 90s, and had a Top 5 hit. Influence, and especially the opening track, the Seals & Crofts hit, “Summer Breeze”, found me at a time when everything seemed to be changing. I needed the familiarity of those songs, and somehow, I stumbled on this record at just the right time. The journey of “Summer Breeze”, and how it landed on the first playlist I would ever make for the person who would eventually get everything back on the rails is winding. It goes through two very successful bands that straddled the 70s and 80s, an early 90s supergroup, and a local record store on Long Island.

Coming soon to a museum near you…

Tommy Shaw grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and first picked up a guitar at the age of ten. He played in local bands during high school and then joined a band in Nashville called MS Funk. Eventually, MS Funk would relocate to Chicago, but after realizing the band was headed in a more disco-oriented direction, he quit and moved back to Montgomery. Meanwhile, Chicago based rock band Styx was about to go out on their first major tour to support their album Equinox, which featured their first radio hit, “Lady”. On the eve of the tour, guitarist John Curulewski abruptly quit, so in desperate need of a second guitarist, they tracked down Tommy Shaw whom they remembered from his gigs in Chicago with MS Funk. Shaw flew up to Chicago, and he remembers not being asked to play his guitar: “The guitar never came out of the case,” he recalls; what they wanted Shaw to do was sing. Once the members of Styx realized Shaw could hit the high notes on “Lady”, and harmonize with keyboardist/vocalist Dennis DeYoung, and guitarist James Young, he was hired immediately. Shaw, Young, DeYoung, and the rhythm section of brothers Chuck and John Panozzo (bass and drums, respectively), went on the road, and subsequently enjoyed success through the 1970s and early 1980s, and established themselves as “arena rock” icons. We have some more Styx to cover down the road, so I’m going to leave their story for now; there’s a lot of drama there that we’re going to talk about another time. Let’s just say that Tommy Shaw wrote and sang lead vocals on many of Styx’ biggest hits: "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)", "Blue Collar Man”, “Renegade”, and “Too Much Time on My Hands”, before tensions between he and de facto bandleader DeYoung came to a head, and Shaw left Styx in 1984. Meanwhile, across the country in San Diego, musician Jack Blades was attending San Diego State University as a pre-med student. By the late 1970s, Blades had dropped out and moved to San Francisco, where he joined a band called Rubicon. The band released two albums before Blades decided to break the band up, and along with guitarist Brad Gillis and drummer Kelly Keagy, start a new one. They recruited keyboardist Alan “Fitz” Fitzgerald, who in turn brought in guitarist Jeff Watson from Sacramento. Brad Gillis recalls they all liked the idea of having two guitarists, and two lead vocalists (Blades and Keagy), and thought this could put them in the echelon of other popular arena rock bands like Journey, Loverboy and Van Halen. They called themselves Night Ranger, and in 1982, they released their first album, Dawn Patrol. Two singles from that album received modest airplay on the radio and MTV: “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”, (sung by Blades), and “Sentimental Street”, (sung by Keagy). But it wasn’t until 1984 that Night Ranger had platinum success with their second album, Midnight Madness. The first single, “(You Can Still) Rock in America” peaked at only number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the next two singles, power ballads released in the spring and summer of 1984 made Night Ranger a headliner on the road and one of the most played bands on MTV. “Sister Christian”, written and sung by drummer Keagy, was a song written about his sister Christine; it reached number 5 on the Hot 100, and was one of the most requested and played videos on MTV. Blades and Keagy would share lead vocals on “When You Close Your Eyes”, which reached number 14 and again, had a video that was in heavy rotation on MTV. While Night Ranger was enjoying commercial success, the critics were not as kind, dismissing their formulaic sound and calling them “pomp rockers.” But their look, overall aesthetic and extremely watchable videos made them perfect for those early days of MTV. By 1987, Night Ranger had contributed songs to several movie soundtracks, including Teachers, Sixteen Candles and Out of Bounds, and wrote and performed the title track to the Michael J. Fox film The Secret of My Success. At the end of the 80s, with the rigors of ten years of touring and working together behind them, the band decided to go on a hiatus and pursue separate projects.

As the members of Night Ranger were going their separate ways, A&R legend John Kalodner was scouting for new projects after having recent success with albums by Aerosmith and Whitesnake. His good friend, over-the-top rocker Ted Nugent, was at a crossroads with his solo career, and he also knew Tommy Shaw had an on-again/off-again relationship with Styx and might be open to a new project. Jack Blades also crossed his mind as being available, and he got the crazy idea that the three of them might be open to working together to form a supergroup. He reached out to all their respective managers, and while they all thought the idea was nuts, they were willing to try to work together. Shaw and Nugent were the first to meet up and try to mesh their musical styles. From the outside observer, it would appear Shaw and Nugent couldn’t be more opposite; the diminutive, soulful Shaw singing in a high register, and the 6’0” bombastic Nugent, with his wailing guitar and vocals. But Nugent quickly gravitated to Shaw’s R&B and soul roots, and the two were coming up with new guitar riffs and grooves within a few sessions, and had written “Come Again”, which ended up on the new band’s album. They knew they had something good, but Kalodner still felt that something was missing, and finally convinced Blades to join the sessions. The three would write “High Enough” at that first meeting, which would be the group’s biggest single. Shaw recruited his touring drummer Michael Cartellone, and Damn Yankees was born. They released their debut album, Damn Yankees, in March of 1990, and the first single, “Coming of Age” quickly debuted on the radio. With the weight of the Shaw/Blades/Nugent names behind it, the first single reached number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100. But in September, they would release the power ballad “High Enough”, and it went all the way to number 3 on the Hot 100, and number 2 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The video was also a mainstay on MTV that fall and winter. When I first heard “Coming of Age”, and I found out it was the guys from Styx and Night Ranger, I bought the CD immediately. I thought the vocal collaboration of Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades was over the top; they sounded amazing when they sang together. Having been co-lead vocalists in their prior bands made this a no-brainer combination in my mind. And when “High Enough” became a single and it was on the radio all the time, I told everybody how great I thought it was. When I listen to Damn Yankees now, I can hear how dated it is somewhat. This is right before the grunge movement, so rock music was in a bit of a transition, still holding on to the 80s sound, and not sure where it wanted to go. Still, I think you could put those two guys harmonizing on any song, and it would sound good in any era. Damn Yankees released another album, Don’t Tread, in August of 1992, which yielded a few radio hits, but none had the success of “High Enough”. By 1994, their record label, Warner Brothers, was all in on alternative and grunge, and basically paid Damn Yankees a million dollars not to record another album. Blades is quoted in an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock: “That’s how much nobody wanted anything to do with that era and style of music.” So, Damn Yankees was finished, after just two albums. Nugent went back to his solo career, Cartellone took multiple gigs until he ended up in Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Shaw and Blades worked on their own album, Hallucination, in 1995. But the album received little support from the record label, and the two went back to their original bands, Styx and Night Ranger. Aside from a Damn Yankees reunion album recorded in 1999 that was never released, it would be twelve years before Shaw and Blades would reunite to record anything else together, and when they did, it was a collection of cover songs. Somehow, I found it, wandering around in a local record store I used to frequent after school; a store I hadn’t been in for years, forgoing it for the big box stores and Amazon. I’m ashamed to write that now; that record store, Record Stop in Ronkonkoma, New York, was where I learned about music I never would have heard on the radio, where I could browse as long as I wanted and the owner never threw me out, and where I went when my teenage angst and anxiety was just too much. That day though, in 2007, on another day when anxiety was creeping in, I found myself in Record Stop again, and I found the Shaw/Blades record that helped me, just the smallest bit, to feel like myself again.

By 2007, my life was shifting. Remember way back when I said my first wife Judy and I had decided we were better off not being married? Well, this was when all that was beginning. We had our boys to think about, and a hundred other things to think about, and in the long run, it was the best decision, but getting through it was one of the hardest things I had to do. Plus, it was around this time that there was a decision I had made the year before that I was now seriously beginning to regret. In the summer of 2006, I had decided to let myself be brought by my colleague Chris to another office within our sales territory. He had just been promoted to start a new team; basically, the company was splitting Long Island into two markets, and Chris was getting to manage the new one. We were close, I’ve mentioned that a few times, and I knew he would tap me on the shoulder to follow him. It made sense logistically; I lived only a few miles from the new office, and I had proved myself enough to take on this challenge. But I’d have to leave the person who hired, trained and mentored me, and tell him myself…which did not go well. It’s something I regret doing to this day. My wife has told me that if she knew me the way she knows me now, that she would have strongly advised me against doing what I did, and I know I would have listened to her. But the promise of running my own team one day as Chris moved up the ladder and having my ego stroked in just the right way made me ditch my original team and follow Chris, and at first everything was fine. The team grew, and Chris and I got along. But soon, we started butting heads and the usual petty, competitive stuff that happens between too many alphas in the same room began to happen. So, by that spring of 2007, I was having a lot of buyer’s remorse. I was still having success, but not enjoying going to work every day, and I was in no position to quit and look for another job. I had too much going on in my personal life, so I steeled myself every day and concentrated on making money and keeping the peace. One Saturday, I was at my parents’ and was attempting to tell them what was going on at home; yet another conversation that was not going well. After hours of not being able to connect with them and them pushing back on what was going on, I’d had enough, and I jumped in my Jeep and started driving. I didn’t want to see anyone, so I just drove around my old neighborhood, thinking about my situation, about my past, my future, and how there seemed to be no solutions; whatever I was going through, I would have to literally go through.  I drove north to Port Jefferson, then took the long way back past my house in Smithtown, then back south almost all the way back to my parents’ house in Holbrook, until I arrived in Ronkonkoma, near where I went to high school. There, on Portion Road, was Record Stop, the record store I had spent so many hours in high school and college, just perusing, and sometimes, spending money on records. I decided to stop and go in. It still looked the same, at least I think it did. Rows and rows of CDs and some vinyl, plus T-shirts, posters and other music memorabilia. I acknowledged the clerk and started to browse all the CD’s. I had an iPod and was using iTunes at this point, but CDs were still sort of popular and I would buy them and “rip” them to my computer to put on my iPod. So, I still bought CDs and was looking earnestly for stuff to add to my collection. Nothing was jumping out at me; I wanted something new, but nothing I was hearing lately on the radio was grabbing me enough to make me want to buy an entire album. I got to the “S”’s and kept flipping. I came across two names I recognized but couldn’t place right away: Shaw/Blades. Then the album title underneath: Influence. Hmmm…was this Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades? I remembered in that moment how much I had liked Damn Yankees back in the day, and “High Enough”, and those amazing harmonies. Then I saw their faces in the sideview mirror of the car driving down the open road on the album’s cover; yes, it was definitely Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades. I picked up the CD only because I recognized those names, and knew most of their music; I grew up with Styx and Night Ranger. I turned the CD over to look at the song titles. “Summer Breeze”, “Time of the Season”, “The Sound of Silence”, “California Dreamin’”. Wait, these were cover songs. Huh, an entire album of cover songs, by two guys I was very familiar with. I’m getting this, I thought, Something familiar that I don’t have to think about….I need this right now. I paid the clerk and got in the car, ripping the cellophane off as I went. I put the CD in, and the first song, “Summer Breeze” began. I had not heard the original in a long time, decades probably, but I recognized those first few chords, and that familiar wah-wah-wah wah-wah electric guitar riff. Jack Blades sings the first verse, and then he and Tommy Shaw harmonize the chorus: “Summer breeze makes me feel fine…Blowing through the jasmine in my mind…” Wow, those harmonies, still amazing…these guys can still sing together. They sing the next verse and chorus, then Tommy Shaw sings the bridge by himself: “I come home, from a hard day’s work…and you’re waiting there, not a care in the world…” This was beautiful. I instantly relaxed as I drove, once again not really driving anywhere, rolling along with the windows down, and singing the lyrics I could remember. The rest of the album played, more songs I recognized, but had not heard in years: “I Am a Rock” by Simon & Garfunkel, “Lucky Man” by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, “Dirty Work” by Steely Dan, and a heartfelt version of Orleans’ 1975 hit, “Dance with Me”, a song I remember playing on the radio in our apartment in Brooklyn. I had not heard a great cover song in ages, and here were eleven of them on one album. They were true to the original versions but had more of a swing or edge to them; but what made these songs special were the Shaw/Blades harmonies. I listened to the album almost twice before I got home. I can’t begin to tell you what “Summer Breeze” did to me that day. It felt like I was opening a present when I listened to it. I just got this weird sense when I heard it that everything, eventually, would work out. It may take a while, years even (and it did), but I knew I would end up exactly where I needed to be. I still can’t explain why I drove to Record Stop that day, and how I found a CD I didn’t even know existed until I stumbled on it in the “S” section. It was the only copy, too. This little album of cover songs sort of changed my life a little. It certainly made it better at the time. And then…well, let’s say I shared part of it with someone who really made my life better. Later that year, when my wife and I first started to hang out a little outside of work, and I began to think that maybe I wouldn’t mind having this person be a bigger part of my life, I decided to make her a playlist. I wanted her to see who I was, what I liked, and tell her a story…and I put “Summer Breeze” on it. It’s Track #7, in fact. When she heard it, she asked me about it, and I told her who Shaw/Blades were, and how I discovered the album. And we listened to the whole Influence album together, and she told me how she knew all those songs, and how she heard them on the radio when she was growing up. And slowly, life got back on the rails. There were more playlists made, but we returned to Influence often, because it was new and familiar at the same time, and I kept wanting to open that present again and again.

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There’s no official video for “Summer Breeze” but I found a live performance of Shaw/Blades playing the song from 2009, at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show. You can also find other versions of their songs all over YouTube, so check them out if you can. Enjoy! 😊

Next time…one of the best and influential indie rock bands of the 80s gives us gloomy lyrics framed by jangly guitar riffs, and this ironic song about desire and demise…and we’ll talk about just how bad my sense of direction can be.

P.S.

When I searched online for sales figures for Influence I couldn’t find any, and also couldn’t locate anything on the RIAA website either. That’s the organization that awards gold and platinum records, so I am going to assume Influence has sold less than 500,000 copies since its release. It’s a shame that more people do not know about this record, but to me that makes it more special, like I’m one of the select few who found it and bought it when it first came out. “Summer Breeze” has been streamed about 65,000 times on Spotify, but their most popular by a long shot is “California Dreamin’”, streamed over 500,000 times, probably because of its inclusion in an episode of the show Californication. Shaw/Blades have not recorded anything since Influence, but have made live appearances, and they still tour in versions of their former bands Styx and Night Ranger. I’m hopeful they record together again; if they do, I’ll be one of the first to listen. As I mentioned, we’ve got more Tommy Shaw and Styx to talk about, so stay tuned.

That little record store in Ronkonkoma, Record Stop, is still open…they have since relocated to Patchogue, on the south shore of Long Island, just a few miles away from the original location. Check them out, www.recordstopny.com.

So, let’s talk about cover songs. First off, you should check out Chris Molanphy’s Hit Parade podcast episode, “Gotcha Covered Edition”. The success of Luke Combs’ rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” inspired Molanphy to do a deep dive into the history of cover songs, their chart performance and why they’ve become so rare today. He even talks about songs you would not think were covers; did anyone know that Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” is a cover song? Yep…it was originally recorded by Otis Redding in 1965, but Aretha re-imagined it and made it her own in 1967 and is considered the definitive version. Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” was originally recorded by the Arrows in 1975; “Red Red Wine” by UB40 was a #62 Neil Diamond song from 1967; and “Me and Bobby McGee”, originally written by Kris Kristofferson and performed by him and several others, became a posthumous #1 hit in 1971 for Janis Joplin. Her torchy, gravelly vocals give the song a soulful feel that gives way to a raucous end; it’s the only version of the song you need. And those are just three examples. I mentioned several other songs earlier that are often mistaken for originals, and music history is full of songs we’ve become so familiar with that we forget that they’re covers. Molanphy’s episode does a thorough job of dissecting the history and impact of the cover song, so give it a listen when you can. There have been some covers I’ve heard over the years that I’ve been sour on; the Cure’s cover of “Purple Haze” and the Tom Jones/Cardigans’ version of “Burning Down the House” had me scratching my head, to name two. But others, like Smashing Pumpkins’ version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” made me appreciate the original even more. Johnny Cash’s version of “Personal Jesus” and 311’s “Lovesong” cover are also other great examples. Usually when I set out to make a playlist to accompany the posts, I try to keep it at 20-25 songs, but when I started this one, I knew that would be impossible, so there are 60 songs on this Spotify playlist. Most are mentioned above but there are three in particular I struggled with including...and not because they’re bad. It’s the complete opposite. They are, in fact, iconic songs, more associated with the artists who covered them than the original songwriter, much like Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect”. Otis Redding is an R&B legend, but “Respect” is the song that defines Aretha; it’s her song. It’s almost impossible to think of it as a “cover”, but it is. It’s the same with these three songs. The first is “I Will Always Love You”, originally written and recorded in 1974 by Dolly Parton. Parton wrote it for her longtime manager and business partner Porter Wagoner; it’s a breakup song, it’s sad but tender, and Parton gets her point across in less than three minutes. She loves the song so much that she refused when Elvis Presley requested permission to record it himself. Sidebar: the legend is that Parton also wrote her iconic hit “Jolene” the same day she wrote “I Will Always Love You; if you still don’t think Dolly Parton is a national treasure, well, there’s the door. Anyway, when Kevin Costner was putting together songs for The Bodyguard soundtrack, a film starring he and pop icon Whitney Houston, he suggested Houston record “I Will Always Love You”. This time Parton granted permission, and you probably know the rest. Whitney Houston sang the heck out of it, and it became one of the biggest pop songs ever recorded. If you were near a radio in 1992/1993, it would have been literally impossible not to hear “I Will Always Love You”. Aside from its popularity, the song is a colossal vocal achievement; from the 50-second a cappella intro to the key change, to the soaring ending, it’s a Whitney Houston clinic on how a song should be sung. It’s Houston’s legacy. The single spent 14 weeks at #1, won a truckload of awards and has sold a staggering 10 million copies. It’s also been streamed over 750 million times on Spotify, and helped The Bodyguard soundtrack album go 18X platinum. All respect to the iconic and lovely Dolly Parton, but is she the first person you think of when you hear “I Will Always Love You”? It’s a cover song, sure, but at this point it belongs to Whitney Houston. The second is “Nothing Compares 2 U”, a song originally written by Prince in 1985, for the only album he and his new band, the Family, released. The song was never released as a single (Prince doesn’t even sing on the original version) but was introduced a few years later to Irish new wave singer Sinead O’Connor by her manager, who suggested she record it for her new album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. O’Connor, who had critical success with her first album in 1987, immediately connected with the song, and recorded her vocals in one take. The song was released as the first single from her new album in January of 1990, and became a worldwide smash, supported by a haunting video that just features a close shot of O’Connor’s face as she lip-syncs the song, and two tears that roll down each of her cheeks at the conclusion. O’Connor has said she was thinking of her mother, who died in 1985, while she was performing in the video, and that the tears are real. For more on her experience recording the song and an interesting encounter she had with Prince, I highly recommend her memoir, Rememberings. Like the Houston song, it was impossible to not hear “Nothing Compares 2 U” on the radio or see the video on MTV at least once per hour in 1990. So, yes, it’s a Prince song, but O’Connor’s interpretation and her connection to the song is what most of us remember; hard for me to think of it as a cover. The last song might be the most famous rock cover of all, Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”, re-recorded by guitar god Jimi Hendrix and his band for their album Electric Ladyland, in 1968. Dylan wrote the song while recovering from a motorcycle accident in 1966 and included it on his album John Wesley Harding in 1967. While Dylan’s version is more straightforward and played and sung with somewhat of a sense of urgency, Hendrix’s version is much heavier and atmospheric, and Dylan’s signature harmonica is replaced with Hendrix’s searing guitar. Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” has been a staple of classic rock radio for 50 years at this point, and I’m guessing you may have heard it in a movie; it’s used a lot in films about the 1960s or the Vietnam War. Have you ever heard Dylan’s version, as great as it is, without seeking it out? Probably not. Dylan himself performs Hendrix’s version when he performs it live, saying that the cover “overwhelmed me, really,” when he heard it, and has admitted that “Hendrix made the song his own.” Again, another example of an artist taking complete ownership of another artist’s song and almost redefining their own career by it. I almost did not include these songs on the playlist, but that felt self-righteous, and I would have been remiss to not include them…so they’re on there. The first 10 songs are my all-time favorite cover songs, but the rest are random. If I missed any of your favorites, please let me know!

Finally…there are three cover songs that would have made my top 10, but they are actually not available on streaming platforms. The first two I saw and heard on Howard Stern’s YouTube music channel: Miley Cyrus’ version of “Doll Parts” by Hole, and Harry Styles’ cover of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer”. Both versions do what I think cover songs are supposed to do, and that’s rekindle interest and appreciation in the original recordings, which they absolutely do. Styles called “Sledgehammer” the “best-mixed song ever” before his performance on Stern’s show, and his band needs to be called out here; they simply nail it. And Miley Cyrus admitted to Stern that she and her band performed “Doll Parts” only once, the day before her live performance; but like Styles, her and her band crush the song. As a music fan raised on 80s and 90s artists, I was eager to hear these two songs, and I was left a bit speechless; they’re simply amazing. And both songs received stamps of approval from Courtney Love and Peter Gabriel. Please, go to Howard Stern’s channel on YouTube and find these songs. It’s a shame I can’t include them on the playlist, but maybe someday they’ll officially be released. The third cover song is “N.I.B.”, performed by Primus, with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, from a Black Sabbath tribute album released in 2000. For months, Long Island rock station WBAB had this in heavy rotation, and I heard it all the time, and for some reason I never downloaded it, and now it’s impossible to find. The song is greyed out on Spotify when you queue up the album. Thankfully someone posted it on YouTube, so here it is. Les Claypool’s distinctive bass is heard in the intro, and Ozzy’s vocals sound awesome as he revisits the song he made famous with Black Sabbath in 1970. Again, I wish I could include this one, but sadly I can’t. These three would be in my Top 10 though, for sure. If I missed any of your favorite cover songs leave them in the comments!

And Happy 2025! 😊 Cheers!

See you next time…

JS

1/2/2025