Covers: Songs That Shouldn't Work

Here's a link to a great post at Cover Me where we answered the question "What cover song shouldn't work as well as it does?" The list is pretty great, and has an amazing number of 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die songs and artists, including:

Yes covering Simon and Garfunkle's "America"
Mariachi el Bronx covering "I Would Die 4 U" off Prince's Purple Rain
Dolly Parton covering Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," featured on How the West was Won
Sam Cooke covering Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind"
Richard Thompson covering Britney Spears's "Oops, I Did it Again"
Miley Cyrus covering Outkast's "Hey Ya"
and Bill Cosby covering the Beatles's title track from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 

1000 Recordings Sampler Episode 2

Here's the second installment of my 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die sampler, where I get to mix in a few of my favorite songs from Tom Moon's list. In the first episode I did a tribute to the recent deaths in the music industry, which meant the playlist was heavy on the pop music. This sample is a bit more scattered: although I grew up on rock and pop, I have been introduced to so much great music through the book that I think it's important to help folks find a place to start (especially if, like me, you are not well-versed in jazz, classical, and world). Here's the playlist for this week, you may know a few of these, but hopefully some will be new:

Play here on Spotify

1. Paul Simon - "I Know What I Know" (classic rock/South African)
2. Tom T. Hall - "Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs" (country)
3. Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin - "The Inner Mounting Flame" (jazz)
4. Curtis Mayfield - "Billy Jack" (R & B, soul)
5. Philip Glass - "Knee 1" (opera/weird)
6. John Fahey - "Orinda-Moraga" (folk)
7. King Sunny Ade - "Sunny Ti De" (Nigerian/juju)

If you like the music, buy the tracks on Amazon: Simon, Hall, Mahavishnu, Mayfield, Glass, Fahey, Ade

Related posts:

• 1000 Recordings Sampler Episode 1
• Like Vanilla Ice Cream for Your Shave Ice
• Chicago Gets No Love From My Parents