Cover songs……….interesting topic.
I’ve been in a few blues/R&B oriented cover bands and for the most part, I tried to merely get the “feel” of the song down rather than copy directly any version. Over the years, there were certain songs with signature parts or that I felt belonged to certain artists that I intentionally never even tried to learn…..Jimi Hendrix comes to mind……someone else here mentioned Layla.
That being said, some of my favorite recordings are covers done by other artists. I’ve been a long time “Deadhead”. The Grateful Dead as well as Jerry Garcia’s side projects always included many covers of old traditionals as well as covers of R&B, Country and others, from Bobby blue Bland’s “Lovelight” to Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”, Johnny Cash’s “Big River”, Hank William’s “You Win Again”, George Jones “The Race Is On”, etc. Jerry Garcia has probably covered more Bob Dylan songs than anybody out there—fantastic versions of “Simple Twist of Fate” and “Senor” among a plethora of others.
Listen to Ry Cooder’s early work for great covers of songs like “Little Sister”, “Money Honey”, “It’s all over Now” among many others. David Lindley does an awesome cover of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”
Of course the early Beatles and Stones albums contained many covers of early Rock and Roll songs by Chuck Berry and others.
Sometimes a cover of an artist's work becomes more popular than the original. More people probably associate Hendrix with All along the Watchtower than Dylan. John Hiatt has had so many songs of his coverd by others that are probably more familiar to many who may not even know he recorded the original. Angel Eyes covered by Jeff Healy, Have a Little Faith in Me, covered by too many to mention, Riding with the King, done by Clapton and BBKing, and Thing Called Love covered by Bonnie Raitt.
The issue of what cover songs to do can be tricky. I used to get into arguments with band members over what material to cover—they would try to convince me that certain songs had to be part of our repertoire because they were popular. My position always has been that the primary communication between the musician and the audience was the performer’s enthusiasm—regardless of what is being played—If the musicians are getting off, the audience gets off. If I have to plod through “Achey Breaky Heart” the audience will only experience my lack of enthusiasm. I always felt there were enough songs out there to cover to make everyone happy.
We used to do a medley of John Fogerty to get it out of the way—Starting with Green River, into Susie-Q, and finally Old Man Down the Road—all in the same key and rhythm, they kind of just flowed into each other.
Here's a cover of "Dear Prudence" by Jerry Garcia. When I first saw him play this I was mind blown. Of all the songs in the vast library of the Beatles it would never occur to me to do cover of this particular song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqFJ-bRKJr4
Here he is doing a cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Waiting for a Miracle"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYAqomtCsOs
( I tried to paste the links to embed the videos but they didn't work?)
The last two by the same band! 