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The Danger of Cover Songs


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Here is a thought....

 

What about all those songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and so many others who wrote songs for acts like Elvis, The Animals, and just about everybody before the singer-songwriter era?

 

When the artist did the first recording of their songs was it a cover?

 

Just thinking.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Here is a thought....

 

What about all those songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and so many others who wrote songs for acts like Elvis, The Animals, and just about everybody before the singer-songwriter era?

 

When the artist did the first recording of their songs was it a cover?

 

I think it depends on whether you think a doing a version of someone else's song qualifies as a cover, or whether it needs to be a version of a song that achieved at least some level of recognition. There's also the element of a songwriter writing something for a specific artist, so that artist was going to be the one to define the song's personality.

 

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Very nice cover, Craig :cool:

 

I hear what you say about it being Zeppelin-esque, but I also hear echoes (if you'll pardon the pun) of Pink Floyd in there, too

 

To me, Pink Floyd was Syd Barrett and "Piper at the Gates of Dawn"...I pretty much tuned out after that. So your comment didn't make a lot of sense until I thought about it; their later music involved a lot of slower tempos, languid guitar parts, more laid-back vocals, etc. Besides,YouTube served up Pink Floyd's "Marooned" as a suggestion, but no Led Zeppelin...so their algorithm has spoken! :)

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When I was a youngster in cover bands, a cover was a song that was meant to sound like another. For example, if we were doing "I'm Down" by The Beatles, a cover version was supposed to sound as close to The Beatles' version as possible. If we did "I'm Down" as a Bossa Nova or Jazz Waltz it wasn't considered a cover, it was just another way to play that song.

 

The definition has since changed so that any recording, no matter how different from another is considered a cover.

 

These are indeed two different approaches, perhaps we need two different terms.

 

Just thinking out loud.

 

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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I've gotten quite the interesting assortment of comments on my channel, most noticeably on an old cheesy video of playing "Tick Tock Polka" on a cheap Kimball spinet organ. Does make you question the intelligence of humanity sometimes. Often quite derogatory crap. What I've done is set the comments to where I have to manually review and approve them before they appear. That way the spammers and trolls don't see the light of day, but everything else, negative or positive does.

 

 

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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When I was a youngster in cover bands, a cover was a song that was meant to sound like another. For example, if we were doing "I'm Down" by The Beatles, a cover version was supposed to sound as close to The Beatles' version as possible. If we did "I'm Down" as a Bossa Nova or Jazz Waltz it wasn't considered a cover, it was just another way to play that song.

 

The definition has since changed so that any recording, no matter how different from another is considered a cover.

 

These are indeed two different approaches, perhaps we need two different terms.

 

Just thinking out loud.

 

Notes

 

I see a lot of songs where the title might be something like this: "Three Blind Mice - Reggae Cover" or "Reggae-style Cover" rather than just "Three Blind Mice - Cover" or even "Three Blind Mice". That indicates to the viewer that it's not the original song and what style of music it's in.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I read an article someplace about playing for oldsters in assisted living facilities. The article used the term "reminiscence therapy" - a fancy term for hearing music that is familiar to the listener, from times past. I'm currently playing 3 times per month at ALF's. One gig is instrumental (a Kawaii grand piano that needs tuning), the other gig is vocals and piano. I sometimes see someone's lips moving as they quietly sing along. Things like "Stardust" are consistently well received. BTW, I learned Stardust from YouTube listening to Nat King Cole's recording.

 

My other 2 regular gigs are in a restaurant with a bar. I play with a guitar player (fat bodied jazz style guitar played thru an amp). I play an acoustic upright with no amplification. It's the guitar player's gig, so I have to play his collection of cover songs (his versions are often not "correct" and following his chord charts is critical). This restaurant/bar gets a lot of families with a young child or two. When the guitar player notices the children, he'll often call a song from a Disney movie or a song by Pink ("What About Us"). Playing to the children is excellent for the tip jar BTW. The "Game of Thrones" theme goes over well too as does the "Frozen" theme.

 

If I were playing all original music, these gigs would've disappeared long ago. Over the last 4 years (since I retired from the world of a day job) I've developed my left hand as a sort of bass player - with some moving left hand lines. My biggest concern as someone playing "covers" (I don't really like the term) is creating rhythmic momentum (a.k.a. a "groove") which receives a pleasant response from the listeners.

 

I've been working on some compositions/songs (with lyrics) and hope to record them at some point. I will have to learn how to jump thru the copyright hoops, which seems to be fairly user friendly. Last thought, someone started a thread about covers using Joe Cocker as an illustration. I saw Joe Cocker on Austin City Limits some years back. In a short interview after his performance, he was asked about doing "covers". Joe said he preferred the term "interpretations". I think I do too.

 

 

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I've been playing mostly covers since 1964 and it keeps me from having to work a day job.

 

Today we did a pool party, the younger part of our repertoire.

 

Last night at the resort we play at monthly a guy celebrated his 71st birthday and brought a dozen or so friends to help him celebrate. We played a lot of 60s and 70s music.

 

It's the rainy season, and when the rains stop in October, we'll start our 12th season at a marina where we can play rock, Caribbean, Latin American, blues, country and just about anything else. It's my favorite gig.

 

As far as I'm concerned, there isn't anything wrong with covers.

 

As I often say --- You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians, or you can play for the general public. If you are good enough, you will get the audience you asked for.

 

I've almost always asked for the general public, and they haven't let me down yet.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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