Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Howdy,

I love Rickenbackers and CCR, but thier version of "Suzie Q" was long and not near so much fun as the original. Now that I've probably incurred the wrath of at least half the people on this Forum, remember that I love Rickenbackers and consider myself to be a serious CCR fan

Respectfully,
Larry Carroll
PS: Obviously, YMMV

Any Larry Williams song covered by Lennon.

Oh Yeah "Bad Boy" We do that one and I get to sing it!

I like CCR but think that "Grapevine" by both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight and the Pips were better than the CCR cover, Marvin Gaye's cover which was a year later than Knight's was unbelievable. Also I like the original "Suzie Q" much better and "Before you Accuse Me" better by Bo Diddley, I thought they had impecable taste in their covers but their versions were often less exciting and less soulfull than the originals, although John Fogarty has a great expressive voice. I always thought they could have been better if they had gone in a less commercial pop direction. John fogarty could have been a great blues singer, "I put a Spell on You" hinted at that. Don't ever worry about expressing an opinion here even if you think people will throw things at you as long as you don't insult people. I like "Take me For a Little while" Vanilla Fudge also. Tim Bogart and Carmine Appice were and probably still are a killer rhythm section.
I also liked Joe Cocker's "She came in through the Bathroom Window" I actually liked it as much as The Beatles version.
I loved The Guess Who's 1965 version of Johnny Kidd and The Pirates "Shakin' All Over" For me it's the definitive version being even better than The Who's later version. I'm sure Roy may disagree with that assessment, haha!

Didn't Lennon and McCartney write "I Wanna be Your Man" specifically to be the Stones 2nd single, making The Beatles version technically a cover of their own song after it failed to dent the US market? I also like The Stones version much better than The Beatles own version.

Bob, Guess WHAT I do disagree but that is what this forum is for as you state we can diagree but hopefully respect each other's opinions.

What I think is a classic you may think is rubbish

I know, I just put that to let you that I know we all have our favorites and they may be different even though of course mine are always correct!

A man after my own heart

haha!

I saw Yes cover Lennon and McCartney's "I'm Down" as an encore once...and they also did (on various studio albums) Richie Havens' "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" , Steven Stills' "Everydays", Jim McGuinn and David Crosby's "I See You", Lennon/McCartney's "Every Little Thing" and, of course, Simon and Garfunkel's "America". All stellar versions...

I also saw the Tubes do "The Kids Are Alright" as an encore...with five-part vocal harmonies. Unbelievably right on...

The first version of "Somethin' Else" that I ever heard was by a band out of England, called UFO. It was great. Then I heard the original by Eddie Cochran and another cover of it by Tom Petty. All different, all good. I then pushed my luck and got the Led Zeppelin version. They were so good on so many songs but their version of Somethin' Else is a VERY distant fourth out of the ones I've mentioned.

I also have a copy of "Built For Comfort" by UFO. It was originally done by Howlin' Wolf (I believe) and was written by Willie Dixon. To hear this skinny little English kid (at least he was in 1974) sing about being "built for comfort, ain't built for speed" is a little strange, but it's a cool version.

Speaking of "I'm Down", Heart used to do that one live, too.

Pat Benatar had a couple of hits with cover songs, too. "You Better Run" was originally done by The Rascals. Their version sounds "tame" compared to hers.

The '80s had their share of '60s covers. One song that was on every mixture tape when I was in college was Bow Wow Wow's cover of The Strangeloves' classic "I Want Candy". Souxie and the Banshees covered "Dear Prudence"; Cheap Trick covered "Ain't That A Shame"; Midge Ure did "Living In The Past" (okay, that's early '70s); U2 did "Helter Skelter", and The English Beat covered "Tears Of A Clown", which was originally from the late '60s as I understand it.

I hated Pat Benatars version of that great song, ditto for the rest of those lame 80's covers of great rock and blues standards, they robbed the goldmine during that decade especially Linda Ronstadt. Ok, time for applause, haha!
I've been doing many Eddie Cochrane tunes for a long time including Something Else. Great song by him. Willy wrote 'Built for Comfort' and many others for Howlin' Wolf who was huge and had a huge wonderful voice.

For me, the cover was my first exposure to some of these songs; the fact that the cover and the original are different doesn't diminish either IMO.