Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

Season 695 - is that really a cover?

dr_mitch

Time for my third song - Freight Train, of course by Elizabeth Cotten (who played the guitar left-handed - as a right-hander- in a self-taught style she called "Cotten-picking"). Elizabeth Cotten wrote it as a teenager when she was folk performer Peggy Seeger's nanny. Peggy Seeger took the song on England's folk circuit. The song was then misappropriated by two songwriters with the pseudonyms "Paul James" and "Fred Williams" and had the lyrics tweaked to be about a murderer on the run. In that form it was recorded in skiffle form by Chas McDevitt and Nancy Whiskey.

The Seeger family did manage to win a legal fight to restore the copyright to Elizabeth Cotten. But it's still sometimes misappropriated, which among other things means it's presumably eligible for this season!

Here's my take on the Elizabeth Cotten original. Warning: banjolele.

AlanDP

This song might be more appropriate for a theme called "whose cover is it, anyway?" Published in 1956, and first recorded by Marty Robbins, it was "almost simultaneously" released by Guy Mitchell (in the U.S.) and Tommy Steele (in the U.K.). Mitchell's version (which includes whistling) spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart. Tommy Steele's version went to #1 on the UK Singles chart in early 1957. The #1 song the weeks before and after his week was Mitchell's version of the same song. Marty Robbins' version spent 13 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Country & Western chart. Mitchell's version sold the most copies. So which version you think of as "original" and which one you think of as a "cover" probably depends on what kind of music you were listening to in 1956-57. That was before I was born, but growing up like I did, to me this was a Marty Robbins song. Robbins was one of the first singers who I could recognize just by his voice and who I thought of as a favorite of mine when I was a little kid, mostly because my mom had bought a single of his "Ballad of the Alamo" that I was fascinated with as a child, and Robbins has probably heavily influenced both my singing and my songwriting.

Mezcalero

Hey Chris, thanks so much for hosting! Here is a song most folks attribute to the Eagles, but it was in fact written by Steve Young! I think the Eagles version is the best, and I was blessed in my youth to see them live four different times in the mid 1970's at the peak of their creative powers. That's my friend Bob jamming the 8 string double neck uke ~

OneManAndHisPGUke

Written in 1975 by Les McKeown and Eric Faulkner of popular Caledonian beat combo The Bay City Rollers before being brazenly stolen ten years earlier by The Four Seasons. You couldn’t make this up, although I just did……

bonesoup

One of my favorite Neil Young songs is Four Strong Winds. Come to find out later it's a cover by Ian Tyson. Here it is Neil's way. Keep on rockin.

kolibri

It was a surprise when I learned that Paul Anka's and Frank Sinatra's "My Way" (1969) was originally a French song "Comme d'habitude" (1967) by Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibaut and Claude François. Before Paul Anka, David Bowie wrote an English version of the lyrics, but his "Even a Fool Learns to Love" was not released.

DelGriff

Thanks for hosting, Chris! 🙂

When Gary Jules released his very successful slowed down, stripped back acoustic cover of this song, many who heard it weren’t aware of the Tears For Fears original version from a couple of decades earlier (in 1982). It was the song that brought Tears For Fears to everyone’s attention back then, and their first album, The Hurting, was and is an absolute triumph - and still one of my all-time faves! Theirs was the first ‘proper’ gig I went to (at The Winter Gardens in Margate in December 1983), with Fiona Bartlett, my first ‘proper’ girlfriend, who insisted on sitting on my shoulders (we were standing very close to the stage), to try to gain the attention of Curt Smith, vocalist and bass player. I was knackered at the end of the evening for all the wrong reasons! 😆 But it was a great gig!

Baritone uke with various synth and drum additions, and some harmony vocals in the choruses. I’ve kinda aimed for something somewhere between the GJ and TFF versions of this song - it’s probably closer to the former’s cover, even though I prefer the original!

Mad World - cover of a song by Tears For Fears and Gary Jules (SOTU 695)

chris667

Coming up to the end of the week now - what a day! Things I would never have guessed were covers, and amazing new interpretations. Special nod to @DelGriff , and his amazing productions.

I need to pull my finger out and do a video (and show you all what you're competing for!)

Bystander

Thanks for hosting Chris, what a great theme. Here's one that immediately sprang to mind and now that I'm back home for a while I can get it done. Tracey Ullman had a massive hit with this classic Kirsty MacColl song back in 1983.

johnpoole

Midnight Special is often mistaken as a Creedence CR original. But it's a traditional prison song going back to the 1920's. Lead Belly is sometimes credited as the writer but it existed before his 1930's version. He added lyrics. I think Creedence referenced his version mainly. Quite a few people had minor hits with it before Creedence's 1969 version. Actor Harry Dean Stanton played guitar and sang it in the greatest prison movie of them all 1967's " Cool Hand Luke".

CanadaJim

Carl Sandburg included this Bahamian folk song called "The John B. Sails" in his 1927 collection The American Songbag. It was recorded several times in the fifties under different titles:

1950 – The Weavers - "The Wreck Of The John B"
1952 – Blind Blake – "John B. Sails"
1958 – The Kingston Trio – "The Wreck Of The John B"
1959 – Johnny Cash – "I Want To Go Home"
Other artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Lonnie Donegan, Bud & Travis, The Brothers Four, Barry McGuire. . . recorded it before The Beach Boys' 1966 version, inspired by The Kingston Trio's version, titled "The Sloop John B".

Many other singles and groups have recorded it, in many genres, right up till the 2020s. I've taken the lyrics from Blind Blake's 1952 recording, but was inspired to do it when hearing of Brian Wilson's recent passing.

UkeCan1

"Hound Dog" was a big hit for Elvis Presley in 1956, but before that it was Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's only hit in '53, with a very different vibe. It was written for her - Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality - brusque and badass".

Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", ranked at 318 in the 2021 iteration of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2] and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013. She herself was inducted, 60 years posthumously, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2024.

Recorded with fellow attendees at the weekly Greens dinner in the park, on a cold dark winter Thursday night, minutes after unwrapping my BRAND NEW 8-STRING FRESHMAN TENOR UKE that I won from Del's Season 690! Which you can almost see in the video. 😆

Here's Big Mama - worth a listen:

UkeCan1

I learned from this Season that Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was actually written and recorded by a man, Robert Hazard, from a male point of view!

It seemed an appropriate choice to try out after rehearsal with my Brisbane City Sounds Chorus singing sisters, kicking back over tea and biscuits (cookies), a bit later the same evening.

A few of them also play ukulele, and enjoyed checking out my NEW UKE!

Here's Robert Hazard, just for fun:

[deleted]

thank you for hosting Chris!

i always thought this song was written by Tom Morgan from my favourite Australian band, Smudge, cause i first heard it on their 'Slight Return' EP (1996). 20+ years later i found out by accident that it was actually written by Mike Nesmith of Monkees fame and was first recorded by Linda Ronstadt and The Stone Poneys in 1968!

some of shelly's blues

chris667

Now it's coming! Extra kudos to @UkeCan1 for including links to the covers. I need an album of Big Mama Thornton now. A new treat! You can keep the original of Girls Just Want To Have Fun though. I've only ever heard one man - Fang - sing it well. I will try to find a link to the video though.

Also worth a nod - @CanadaJim marking the passing of Brian Wilson along with an interesting history lesson. Cheers!

chris667

Now, Charldene @Scribe - where's that cover! I am dying to hear you sing! 🙂

cazteclo

I didn't find a pazzazzy/glitzy song to do last week but this week I thought of doing George Michael's 'Faith' as I first heard that on the 1st Limp Bizkit album in … 1997

LimousinLil

Hello again, Chris! I kept coming across this song on lists of covers that outclassed the originals, but then kept dismissing it because I thought it was a bit too ambitious. However … it is very hot outside today, so I've spent most of my time indoors, which gave me a chance to attempt it. One music critic described it as the most bizarre recording Bjork had ever made. Being "bizarre" has always been one of my life goals, so, if I have managed to capture even a scintilla of Bjork's "bizarre-ness" (???), I shall be happy!

Joko

Nivana performed this on their MTV:Unplugged concert, after which when David Bowie would play his original, someone would inavariably commend his choice of covering Nirvana.

chris667

Well, that's been another great day. And nearly the end of the season.

The week has run away with me. I thought I'd do a video explaining what the prize was, but I have really enjoyed watching you all and that really took over the time when I would have made a video. I just did a little noodle with it at the open mic and I might do a video but tomorrow's my partner's birthday and I want to spend time with her rather than being online.

Still, this is the prize. An Argapa "Fugly traveller", made of cherry by Sven Nystrom, master luthier, serial number 118. Piccolo scale. Sven has made several ukes for me, and I comissioned this one from him in 2020 (see his blog here and the posts before it detailing his build progress). This is a fine uke - very quiet, but you can take it anywhere. I fitted a little contact transducer so you could play it plugged in if that's your thing, but to my mind it's better for quiet noodling. It's much rarer, better made and much, much cooler than a Risa stick.

I own some very, very high end ukes. Argapa are up there with the very best - I'd much rather own an Argapa than any of the K brands. This one in particular doesn't get played though, and unplayed instruments make me sad.

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