A Wonderfully Strange Cover Version

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1. 

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   Dave says Great harmonies! Side note: John Hiatt signed a ticket stub for me once with "Rave On! -- John Hiatt"

   Permalink posted 03/18/2007
2. 

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   Spike says It's hard to imagine Mr. Holly not recognising or loving it. It's such a sturdy tune that it could survive many different arrangements.

   Permalink posted 03/18/2007
3. 

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   fairportfan says Hey, i was being smartass. Now, some of Jason & the Scorchers' arrangements of Hank Sr songs... What i really like, aside from the harmonies, is the way that they avoid the cliche of copying Buddy's hiccuping yodels in the vocals, but still refer to them. The thing that we tend to forget at this late date and time is that the early-to-mid 60s Brit bands - from the Beatles and the Stones through the Kinks and the Animals and on up to Fairport (who came out of the same London neighbourhod as the Kinks) - were heavily influenced by USAian rock'n'roll; The Beatles' first national tour was fronting for Eddie Cochrane, and the Stones once recorded with old-time Atlanta blues pianist Piano Red (who i once saw play just a little bit through the door of a bar in Underground Atlanta). The Judy Dyble-fronted Fairport who cut their first album (including *Chelsea Morning* before Joni had recorded it herself) is very often compared to Jefferson Airplane. So, to find a Brit band of the period covering US rock'n'roll with reverence and inventiveness is not unlikely at all. Unfortunately - especially with da Blooze - Some Brit bands tended to cover USAian originals with reverence and a total lack of originality or imagination. (Of course, this is not just a Brit phenomenon - throughout the world there are bands that sound just like everyone else because that's what their idols sound like.) But when you get bands with the degree of sheer chops that Fairport and Steeleye Span possess - when *they* do a cover, you can depend on it that, while it may not sound a lot like the original, it will be *good*... ================ Speaking of the Beatles opening for Cochrane - and for Muddy Waters, for that matter; maybe that was their first national tour? - the first time i saw Richard Thompson, he was playing solo acoustic, and some idiot hollered "Turn it up!" Richard looked in the fool's general direction, and said "When the Beatles did a national tour in England, opening for Eddie Cochrane, neither he nor they played one bit louder than this. *This* is the true volume of rock'n'roll." People cheered. And i thought about it, and he was right - properly speaking, in my opinion, "rock'n'roll" describes a music that emerged from the mix of rockabilly and the blues with a detour through Texas, New Orleans and Memphis. It's *Summertime Blues* and it's *Blue Suede Shoes* and it's *Rave On*. It's Jerry Lee and Little Richard and Fats Domino. And it's Link Wray and Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochrane. Later, with a major voltage injection and a souped up tempo (have you listened recently to something like Danny and the Juniors' *At the Hop*, and compared how slow it *really* is to the way most of us *remember* it without having heard it for ten or twelve years?), it became "rock" or even "hard rock"... But, for the history of rock'n'roll, let me refer you to those eminent scholars, Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen:

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   Permalink posted 03/18/2007

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