We all love covers. Good, bad, middling, it doesn't matter. Here are a couple of brand new ones that may be of interest to you.First, Cory Chise l has released a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come". You can get your free copy of the MP3 here: DOWNLOADYou can read my review of Cory's Cabin Ghosts EP here .Second, Audrye Sessions have released a cover of Elliott Smith's "Waltz #2"....
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Last week was the 40th anniversary of Otis Redding, along with six of his bandmate's death in plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin. After doing my "write up":CH about Otis, I figured it would be a shame to not follow up with the story of Sam Cooke.Sam Cooke has been accredited as many things: the most important soul singer (recognized by some to be the inventor of soul music), one of the first r...
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Who?While he's often been branded an easy-breezy, summer-night soulster, early-'60s crooner Sam Cooke was secretly a struggle-bearing badass.And I care because?- Profound sentiment meets emotion. While classics like "You Send Me" me are the perfect soundtrack for puppy-dog love, tunes like "A Change Is Gonna Come" offer a powerful reminder that the preface to any celebration is struggle.- He so...
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The Wife's reaction (from her bed on the sofa): "I've got a fucking hangover, and a sick belly, but I'd jump around if I could, because I'm delighted Barack Obama won the election. To the people who voted for him, fair play for getting up off your arses and away from your computers for once to cast your vote. I would be very proud to be an American citizen right now. If anybody wants to give me...
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I know that we all feel an impending sense of change. I'm definitely feeling it right on the cusp of this year. Good or bad something is going to change. It's inevitable! So I checked my songs of change to see what I might post. I'm not posting Tears For Fears or David Bowie but I really like these songs I'm posting. I might be a little awol for a week or two on Mog and I thought that I s...
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One music blog celebrated the event of this past Tuesday by posting 14 different versions of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," and that only scratched the discographical surface, The song has, over the past four decades, become in effect the National Anthem of Soul, written, it's said, as a response to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind," and released as a B-side of the posthumous single "Sha...
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...I'm not a huge fan of modern C&W (though I do check the old stuff from people like Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Ray Charles-- that's word , Patsy Cline, the Statler Brothers, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette)...about as modern as I've gotten is probably Kenny Rogers' Gambler LP and that was more or less a Pop record... when I got up this morning I slapped on a little Sam Cooke and heard the cut "A...
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First released in 1961 as a chart-busting single, Sam Cooke's original version of "Bring It On Home to Me" was a proper, polite R&B number. Easy tempo and smooth vocals belied most of Cooke's lyrical beggin' and pleadin', directed at a girl who cheated on him before saying goodbye.But on Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, with a sufficiently rowdy band and playing to an even rowdier audience...
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It's almost not Sunday, so I best be getting my covers on.I got this in a whirlwind of downloading chaos a while back and didn't even realize I had it til I put my iPod on shuffle the other day. Sam Cooke is my favorite soul singer of all time and to hear one of my favorite bands of today cover him filled me with dread/fear/horror/relief/elation. The spare, almost a cappella version here remind...
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...But this one may be the most arresting.The man took Gershwin's "Summertime" and turned it into something I can't describe with any concrete ideas. His version is more than good, more than different, more than an interesting take on an old standard. It's like the melody hovers just above the ground, but never quite touches it. It's surreal, like a ghost. This song comes through the mist in th...
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Learned on WFUV this morning that it's Sam Cooke's birthday.I recall my first introduction to this song was on the soundtrack to the film "Animal House."My dad took me to see "Animal House" when I was 13. Profanity, nudity, binge-drinking. I loved every minute of it. Happy birthday, Sam.
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Every now and then I show up at synagogue. There's always much music and singing there (that is, on the part of both the synagogue's cantor and musicians and the congregation) and it's lovely and fun and deeply felt. The music differs greatly from shul to shul, some of which are more formal and some of which are, well, less orthodox (http://www.theshulofnewyork.org/music.php). But I have to sa...
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Saddled with soaring strings and vocal choruses for maximum crossover potential, Sam Cooke’s solo material often masked the most important part of his genius — his glorious voice — so the odd small-group date earns a special recommendation in his discography. Thankfully, Cooke’s voice took center stage on this admirably low-key session from February 1963, recorded in Los Angeles with a qua
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I haven't had TV for a month, so I've been feeding my politics fix online, watching the "highlights" from the Republican convention online. What's struck me isn't the gleeful and mean spirited condescension of Rudy Giuliani, the empty insanity of Mitt Romney, John McCain's retrogressive vision, or even Sarah Palin's utter self-assuredness in the face of her lack of knowledge about most issue...
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