Category Archives: Covers

Obviously – Lake Street Dive

I wrote my first post about Lake Street Dive in 2013, and a few more since. This past Friday they released their new album, Obviously. The band is celebrating fifteen years together, and throughout that time has defied categorization. Whatever buckets they jump between, the constants are the incredible voice and vocal stylings of Rachel Price, backed by a very talented and tasteful set of writers and musicians.

The lead single from the new album, “Hypotheticals”, has been rattling around the web for a few weeks. They performed it on The Late Show last week (thanks for the heads up, Barry), and here’s a studio video version that seems to have Bridget Kearney’s great bass work tweaked up a bit in the mix – put those good headphones on!

Here’s Rachel performing an unplugged version of “Nobody’s Stopping You Now”, from a livestream last summer.

In addition to working on Obviously, the band fit in time to have some fun during the COVID times. Carole King’s Tapestry was released in February 1971, and I’m sure she appreciated this cover of “So Far Away”. Enjoy Rachel’s voice and, again, Bridget’s exquisitely tasteful backing.

And here’s the band on a Brooklyn rooftop reprising the Beatles’ iconic performance, complete with outfits and facial hair. Not quite the energy of the original, but where did Rachel find that coat?

Teddy Swims

Jaten Dimsdale (aka Teddy Swims) has launched his career the new-fashioned way – posting covers on YouTube. So far it’s earned him over a million YouTube subscribers, over a million Facebook followers, and a record deal with Warner Brothers.

Swims’ voice can genre bend all over the map. I really don’t need to say much except watch these videos to see what this guy can do. If you like what you see, check out teddyswims.com where you can link to pretty much everything he’s got out there.

Here is Swims’ take on “Tennessee Whiskey”, a song covered over the years by George Jones and Chris Stapleton.

On this video of Swims’ original tune, “Broke”, he lends his soulful voice to a playful collaboration with Thomas Rhett – the reigning Entertainer of the Year from the Academy of Country Music 2020 Awards.

And now for something completely different, here’s Teddy throwing down some modern R&B on “Night Off”.

Duets in Love

Over the past couple of years, couples have been recording duets across the pop music spectrum.

In 2019 Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes recorded “Señorita” and dished up a couple of steamy performances at the MTV Video Music Awards and at the American Music Awards. The two became a couple around the time they recorded the song and remain so.

Halsey and Yungblud covered Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” when they were dating in early 2019. They broke up later that year, but the chemistry in this video is clear. Halsey wrote my favorite song of her’s, “Finally / Beautiful Stranger”, about their relationship. See that video on my Lizzo, Dua and Halsey post from last year.

Finally, and more recently, rapper turned rocker (at least at the moment) Machine Gun Kelly released this video of “Bloody Valentine” featuring his girlfriend, Megan Fox. Travis Barker of Blink-182, co-wrote, produced and played drums on the track, and the song – as well as much of Kelly’s Tickets to My Downfall album, reflect the influence. OK, this isn’t technically a duet – they just fake it – whatever.

Acoustic Guitar Innovators

With a few guitars sitting on the other side of the room, and decades of watching and listening to acoustic guitar players, I thought I had some notion of the boundaries of how one could play the instrument. I was so wrong.

Topeka, Kanas born Andy McKee incorporates a wide range of tapping and percussive techniques into his work, and check out the slanted scale on the guitar in this video! He’s released a number of albums dating back to 2001’s Nocturne, and he’s the first artist signed to the record label of guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel. In addition to his own records, he’s contributed to albums by Lee Ritenour and Josh Groban, and he toured with Prince. McKee blew up on the internet in 2005 with videos from his third album, Art of Motion, including this song “Drifting”.

Jon Gomm’s career has been very independent, self producing and crowd-funding his albums, playing local venues in England, while also touring the world and playing guitar festivals. In all my years of watching guitar players, until this video I’d never seen anyone play melodies by tuning the strings. If you want to see more, here’s a link to the video that put him on the map, 2011’s “Passionflower”.

This video by 23-year old Russian, Alexandr Misko incorporates the tapping, percussion and tuning effects used by McKee and Gomm, and he throws in an Eminem rap on top. His internet launch began in 2016 with his cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”.

If you want to explore this vein of acoustic guitar playing further, apparently the godfather of these techniques is the late Michael Hedges, followed by Preston Reed.

To Love Somebody

On Friday, Barry Gibb released Greenfields: The Gibbs Brothers’ Songbook (Vol. 1). Barry is the last surviving Gibb brother of the Bee Gees. On Greenfields he reworks a number of Bee Gees hits in collaboration with a who’s who of country music. A lot to get your head around there, but relax – this post isn’t about any of that.

The Bee Gees first major album, Bee Gees’ 1st, was released in 1967 and included “To Love Somebody”. The song was written by Barry and Robin Gibb, intended to be given to Otis Redding to record. But the Bee Gees released it in mid-1967, and Redding never got a chance to cover it before he died at the end of that year. Over the years, though, an incredibly wide range of artists did cover the song, and what a malleable piece of music it has proven to be. Let’s start by watching the Gibb brothers perform the original, decked out in full 1960s splendor.

In 1969 the song got soulful treatments that Redding never got the chance to provide. Nina Simone and Janis Joplin delivered these interpretations that show just how far the song could be stretched.

Nearly 40 years later, Smashing Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan selected the song for his first solo album, TheFutureEmbrace. The album version features Robert Smith of The Cure on backing vocals, but here’s Corgan singing it by himself and delivering a beautiful, hypnotic performance.