Here’s a song made famous by Eric Clapton. The original’s better, in my opinion. Heard this in Salt Lick in Hualien yesterday was impressed this made their playlist.
Original
More famous cover
Both Springsteen covers. More famous than his version.
Original version of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (around 2.3 million views)
Cover of Hurt by Johnny Cash. 248 million views.
Trent Reznor has said “Hurt” now belongs more to Cash than to him.
Poppy cover song:
Soulful original:
“I Can’t Quit You Baby” is a song written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Otis Rush. I love the way Otis Rush starts off the song.
Here is the Zeppelin version. In some ways, the British rock groups saved the blues.
I discovered shortly after this song came out that it was a cover, and to this day I’ve never heard the original. Looking it up now, I see it was Roberta Flack (I assume)
Also Fire
Tom Waits Downtown Train, later covered by Rod Stewart.
I never knew Jet Airliner was a cover. The original is nice. Way slower than the cover.
Paul Pena was an interesting guy. A blind blues singer. In the 90’s I used to see him on the streets of San Francisco, sitting on a milk crate playing guitar and singing for spare change. I always stopped to listen and talk with him. He was talented, he also played the guitar on that recording of Jet Airliner.
Paul taught himself the Tuvan language, and Tuvan throat singing, and traveled to Tuva to compete in the national singing competition. There’s a documentary about his journey to Tuva, called “Genghis Blues.”
Holy smokes, that one’s fine–very passionate.
Wow, I wasn’t so sure about this one at first, but it’s like I get it–the guy really means it. And it reminds me of how I felt about someone (even though no rail conveyance was involved).
I liked Rod Stewart’s version, but the original had more soul.
Yep, definitive.
Sinead also owns Prince’s Nothing Compares.
Jolene was famous (obviously), but Miley rocked the shit out of it.
Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac playing his “Black Magic Woman,” which of course was made famous by Santana. Peter Green was a serious blues musician.
I think most people know this song is by Dylan, but in their head they can only hear Hendrix’s version.
“Woodstock” was written and sung by Joni Mitchell, but the cover by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young became more famous in the US. And the CSNY version you can really rock out to, while Joni Mitchell’s version is much slower, almost a ballad.
Wikipedia tells me this:
A third version, by the British band Matthews Southern Comfort became the best known version in the United Kingdom, and was the highest charting version of the song, reaching the top of the UK Singles Chart in 1970. A fourth version by studio project the Assembled Multitude also became a chart hit.
Heard this for the first time in a long time driving around today, and it reminded me of this thread: