In 1966, Motown songwriters Ron Miller and Bryan Wells looked around and wondered just what the hell was going on in this land of ours. A lot of us wonder the same thing today.
A year later, 17-year-old Stevie Wonder voiced these wishes:
Someday at Christmas man will not fail Hate will be gone and love will prevail Someday a new world that we can start With hope in every heart, yeah
“Someday at Christmas,” Stevie Wonder, 1967, from the “Someday at Christmas” LP. (I have this cut on “A Motown Christmas,” the essential 1973 holiday comp on the Motown label.)
Maybe not in time for you and me But someday at Christmastime
20 years later, in 1987, Pat MacDonald and Barbara K — the husband-and-wife duo that performed as Timbuk3 — looked around and wondered just what the hell was going on in this world of ours. A lot of us wonder the same thing today.
Their humble wish:
All I want for Christmas All I want for Christmas All I want for Christmas is world peace
“All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace),” Timbuk3, 1987, from the 45 single.
(This is the sleeve for that 45. You could have bought it for 25 cents if you also bought a carton of Kent, True, Newport or Old Gold cigarettes.)
There’s no music. Just “Louis Satchmo Armstrong talkin’ to all the kids … from all over the world … at Christmas time,” reading Clement Clarke Moore’s classic poem in a warm, gravelly voice.
“But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, ‘Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night. A very good night.’
“And that goes for Satchmo, too. (Laughs softly.) Thank you.”
It was the last thing he ever recorded. Satchmo, 69 at the time, died a little over four months later, in July 1971. Satchmo, gone 54 years now.
Rob’s Christmas wish.
Eighteen years ago, when this blog was not even a year old, our new friend Rob in Pennsylvania declared Irma Thomas’ rendition of “O Holy Night” to be “goosebump-inducing stuff.” It still is. Here you go, buddy.
Today, the mighty WXPN radio in Philadelphia starts a countdown of the 885 greatest cover songs as chosen by thousands of its listeners. The schedule is below. (Why 885 songs? WXPN is 88.5 FM.)
9. “Black Hole Sun,” Peter Frampton, 2006 (Soundgarden cover).When I saw Frampton at a county fair that year, he did back-to-back-to-back cuts from “Fingerprints,” his then-new instrumental LP. They were so good, I bought the CD after the show. This one was a killer when seen and heard live. Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron joined Frampton on this one, recorded in Seattle.
8. “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” Rod Stewart and Faces, 1971 (Temptations cover). Any voice better to express the pain of being dumped than Rod Stewart’s sandpaper howl? Didn’t think so. Case closed.
7. “The Nitty Gritty,” Gladys Knight and the Pips, 1969 (Shirley Ellis cover). Two years ago, when WXPN’s year-end countdown was the 885 greatest songs by women, I put this at No. 4 on my top-10 list. When I learned that Gladys Knight got down to the real nitty gritty and wasn’t just the elegant pop singer of “Midnight Train to Georgia,” well, that blew my mind.
6. “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” Barry White, 1973 (Four Tops cover). There was a time before everyone knew Barry White was synonymous with seduction. This is from that time, the first cut from “I’ve Got So Much To Give,” White’s debut LP. It’s the sound of what’s to come.
5. “O-o-h Child,” Valerie Carter, 1977 (Five Stairsteps cover). Loved the original from 1970. Loved hearing it again on the radio when released as Carter’s debut single off her debut solo LP. By most accounts, though, the gifted Carter seemed most comfortable as a backup singer, working with friends James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt.
3. “Roll Over Beethoven,” Electric Light Orchestra, 1973 (Chuck Berry cover). No radio edits, please. Only the long, strings-scorching, piano-pounding version will do. (Behold also this wild live version from 1973.)
1. “Coconut,” Fred Schneider, 1995 (Nilsson cover). A perfect match of an unhinged, batshit crazy performance and a quirky Harry Nilsson novelty song. This is what the best covers do, surpassing the original.
The countdown will run during the daytime for the next eight days.
— 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET Thursday, Dec. 4
— 8 a.m.-4 p.m. ET Friday, Dec. 5
— 10 a.m.-4 p.m. ET Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 6-7
— 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET Monday, Dec. 8
— 8 a.m.-7 p.m. ET Tuesday-Thursday, Dec. 9-11
It was tough to cut it down to those 10 covers. I had more than 50 cover songs on my working list. Here, FWIW, are the 10 covers that were the last ones I cut.
“Oh Happy Day,” Edwin Hawkins Singers, 1969 (1755 hymn by Philip Doddridge).
“Tore Up Over You,” Sleepy LaBeef, live 1985, released 1987 (Hank Ballard and the Midnighters cover).
One of the best things we saw this year was The Dinosaur Tour.
It has nothing to do with dinosaurs. It has everything to do with the classic pop and rock shows we enjoyed over two months from August to October, so dubbed by my lovely wife. You know, the old folks go out to see the dinosaurs.
First stop on The Dinosaur Tour was to see Cyndi Lauper on her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour stop at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater — the Summerfest main stage — at the lakefront in Milwaukee. A rainbow-colored lovefest ensued.
She’s tremendous, befitting her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame status. This clip, a promo for a CBS special drawn from her Hollywood Bowl shows at the tour’s end three weeks later, features the same spectacular costuming and stage design we saw (and Cher, who we did not see that night in Milwaukee). Farewell tour, though? Cyndi’s only 72.
Second stop on The Dinosaur Tour was back at the AmFam Amphitheater a month later to see the Doobie Brothers on their Walk This Road Tour with the Coral Reefer Band opening. This was our view when we arrived at our bleacher seats. We moved to the left for the unobstructed view seen in the next picture.
A beach party and Jimmy Buffett sing-along broke out during the Coral Reefer Band’s energetic opening set. Really enjoyed that. Then again, flashback! We saw Jimmy Buffett at this venue twice in the early ’90s.
The Doobie Brothers’ set was warmly but not as vigorously received. New songs from their “Walk This Road” LP were all right, as was “Jesus Is Just Alright,” my favorite from among all the familiar songs they played. (A bunch of classic Doobies songs played that night are on YouTube.)
Third stop on The Dinosaur Tour came just eight days later as we saw Bonnie Raitt on her Just Like That … Tour stop at the Weidner Center, a 2,000-seat theater on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus.
Bonnie Raitt is an American treasure. That she covered “Angel from Montgomery” from the same stage where we saw John Prine was special. Her scorching cover of “Burning Down the House” was a treat. She didn’t sing that the first two times we saw her, in 1989 and 2005.
Last stop on The Dinosaur Tour was a dream come true, something we never thought we’d have the opportunity to see in person.
I’d seen that the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass & Other Delights Tour was playing in Milwaukee, but by that time our concert budget for the year was pretty much shot, and we’d have to pass. Or so I thought. Our friends from South Dakota invited us out to see the show at the beautiful 1,800-seat Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls in early October. Oh, gotta do that.
Herb Alpert is 90, still crisply playing trumpet, still leading a tight six-piece backing band. They play all the great ’60s instrumentals you’d hope to hear.
Here’s “Spanish Flea” from a March show in Buffalo, N.Y., in which you get a glimpse of the wonderful video clips from ’60s TV shows and promotional films, and the ’60s-style lights, that accompany the songs throughout the show.
Alpert is a humble, engaging storyteller — and self-deprecating when it’s time to sing “This Guy’s In Love With You,” the Burt Bacharach tune that was gender-flipped for Alpert for a TV special. Alpert’s wife of 51 years, singer Lani Hall, joins them on stage for a couple of numbers, and she’s still in fine voice.
To a child of the ’60s and ’70s, it was fantastic.
We’ll get to my list of 10 great cover songs another day, but I guarantee you that rockabilly great Sleepy LaBeef is on it.
It’ll be a shame if Sleepy doesn’t make XPN’s cut. How can you leave the man known as “The Human Jukebox” off such a list?
Sleepy stood a solid 6-foot-6 and shouted out hundreds, maybe thousands, of rockabilly, roots, blues, country and gospel tunes while raking away on his guitar. His smoky, thunderous bass-baritone voice shook music joints for more than 60 years. He came out of Arkansas oil country in the mid-’50s and never stopped until he died in 2019 at age 84.
Forty years ago tonight, on Sunday, Oct. 20, 1985, Sleepy LaBeef stepped on stage at Harpers Ferry, a music club in Boston’s Allston neighborhood, and played an unforgettably wild show. It was recorded for a live album. “Nothin’ But the Truth” came out on Rounder Records in 1987.
Even today, 40 years on, hearing Sleepy play this show is still the best way to appreciate his greatness. It’s one of my favorite records. His many studio records never conveyed the tremendous energy he brought to a room.
From that record, here’s the Sleepy cover that’s on my top-10 list for XPN. Otis Blackwell wrote it. Jerry Lee Lewis had a hit with in 1959.
Give it a listen and then tell me that isn’t one of the 885 greatest cover songs of all time. Sleepy roars through it, calling for “Piano!” two minutes in, relentless for five minutes. Take that, Jerry Lee.
[Dave Edmunds (1977), the Smithereens (1994) and Van Morrison (with Jerry Lee’s sister Linda Gail Lewis, 2000) also have covered it.]
I was beyond fortunate to see Sleepy LaBeef play live six times.
Appropriately enough, the first time was in the summer of 2001 at a dive bar in a blue-collar town 40 miles to the south. The next night, I saw him at a popular bar in a resort town 75 miles to the north. I squeezed in just inside the front door, standing close enough to watch Sleepy walk right past me between sets, cross the street, open his van and pour himself a cup of coffee from a thermos.
The other times I saw Sleepy were at our local casino, twice at a 2007 rockabilly festival and twice in 2010 at a tiny lounge with bad sight lines on the edge of the casino floor.
We briefly shot the breeze at that 2007 festival. I told him I’d been writing about him on the internet. When I started this blog 18 years ago, I did a Sleepy LaBeef sampler/appreciation post every week for the first year, 52 in all.
“Keep it up!” he told me in that distinctive, smoky bass-baritone voice.
Still at it, sir. Trying to get you on that XPN year-end playlist.
These are mp3s from my collection, taken from vinyl whenever possible. Enjoy. All music presented here is shared under the premise of fair use. This blog is solely intended for the purpose of education, a place for me to tell stories and write about music and cultural history. If you are a rights holder to any of the music presented and wish for it to be removed, please email me directly and it will be taken down.
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