Covered in Beatles: Country Covers

     Several months ago, I was listening to the compilation of Brazilian and Reggae covers of Beatles songs I put together ten years ago.  I know one shouldn't need any reminders of how impressive their song catalog is, but I dunno, there's something about listening to Charlotte Dada's version of "Don't Bring Me Down" that, well, explains their enduring popularity (and why so many people watched that eight-hour Apple documentary of them making Let it Be. :) 

        As I'd already made a Brazilian and Reggae covers compilation and Soul covers compilation, I figured I'd make it a trilogy and put together a compilation of country covers.  There were no songs that appeared on both of the previous compilations, but I couldn't resist including Johnny Litrell's version of "A Hard Day's Night" despite including the Bar-Kays version on the Soul compilation. Hope folks enjoy it. (The Brazilian/Reggae and Soul compilations are also available for download.)

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In My Life	Johnny Cash
Yellow Submarine	Wilco
Can't Buy Me Love	Chet Atkins
I've Just Seen a Face	The Dillards
Hard Days Night	Johnny Littrell
Help!	Dolly Parton
Strawberry Fields Forever	Hayseed Dixie
I Feel Fine	Sweethearts Of The Rodeo
Things We Said Today	Dwight Yoakam
One After 909	Willie Nelson
Paperback Writer	The Nashville Superpickers
I Saw Her Standing There	The Charles River Valley Boys
I'm Looking Through You	Steve Earle
I'll Follow The Sun	David Ball
I'm Only Sleeping	Rosanne Cash
This Boy	The Cactus Blossoms

Miles and Fela

Apologies for the delay in posting as I was away last weekend.  I was about halfway through putting the compilation together when I finally thought of googling Miles Davis and Fela Kuti just to see if there was any connection between the two that I should know about.  Of course, it turns out that Miles Davis proclaimed that Fela, along with Prince and a French band named Kassav, in his autobiography, as the "future of music".  Upon reading it, I kinda realized that I only started to appreciate Miles' late 60s and early 70s recordings after imbibing a great deal of Fela.  

In compiling these two volumes, I avoided any cuts that were more than 15 minutes long.   I dig a lot of their 20-30 minute jams, but I think they detract from the flow of a compilation as they're kind of like fully realized albums in their own right. 

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Volume 1
Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)	Miles Davis
Water No Get Enemy	Fela Kuti
Teo's Bag	Miles Davis
Two Bass Hit	Miles Davis
Lady	Fela Kuti
One And One	Miles Davis
Sorrow Tears & Blood	Fela Kuti
Volume 2
Go Slow	Fela Kuti
Madness	Miles Davis
Fogo Fogo	Fela Ransom Kuti & the Africa 70
Honky Tonk	Miles Davis
John McLaughlin	Miles Davis
Roforofo Fight	Fela Kuti
Willie Nelson	Miles Davis

The Meat of It: A Meat Puppets Compilation

         I must confess that I didn't pay too much attention to the Meat Puppets back in the 1980s and 1990s, but really enjoyed their 2019 comeback (of sorts) Dusty Notes, and then got really into them when I started putting together my 80s torch and twang compilations.   Alas, I never got to see them live and it doesn't look like they are planning to do so in the future.  Nevertheless, if this retrospective whets your appetite for an even bigger helping of the Meat Puppets, I especially recommend Lollipop and Sewn Together. 

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Come As You Are
Batwing
Spit
I'm Not You
Look At the Rain
Blue Moon Of Kentucky
Comin' Down
Flight of the Fire Weasel
Baby Don't
Backwards Drums
Sometimes Blue
Confusion Fog
Nine Pins
Smoke
Tomorrow Never Knows (feat. Alison Scott)
Sloop John B

Los Super Seven

There are a lot of great things about having a large digital music library, particularly the ease of creating playlists and not having to keep finding additional space for one's CD and vinyl purchases.  However, one of the drawbacks is that you can easily forget about beloved albums in ways that were more difficult when you were perusing your physical collection to see what you wanted to play.  I think it had been a good ten years since I listened to Los Super Seven, the Latin "supergroup" from the late 1990's and early 2000's.  I can't remember what led to my re-discovery, but I was surprised how good it was and also kinda shocked that it was out of print.  Their other two albums, Canto and I Heard it on X, are still in print and available to stream, but the debut album is, imho, their best and needs to be heard (and more often than every ten years. :)

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El Canoero

Piensa en Mi

Mi Ranchito

Un Beso Al Viento

La Sirena

Un Lunes Por la Manana

Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)

La Morena

Margarita

La Madrugada

El Ausente

Rio de Tenampa

Las Nortenitas

The Nashville Legends Series: Connie Smith, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette

I can't remember exactly when or why I decided to put together this compilation, but there is a good chance that I started it after watching "George and Tammy", the great mini-series about George Jones and Tammy Wynette.  Even though I thought Michael Shannon was a little miscast as Jones (mostly because he just really doesn't look like him at all) and Jessica Chastain (Tammy) and Michael Shannon's (George) vocals could never match the originals, it's still one of 2-3 best music biopics I've ever seen.  And Chastain definitely deserved all the acclaim she got for he performance.  It also sent me on a Tammy Wynette listening jag, including her album with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn.  I'm also not sure why or when I decided to include Connie Smith, other than she's an unfairly overlooked country star from the 1960s.  

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Disc 1
I Never Once Stopped Loving You	Connie Smith
Apartment #9	Tammy Wynette
Our Hearts Are Holding Hands	Ernest Tubb & Loretta Lynn
Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man	Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton
Dr. Robert F. Thomas	Dolly Parton
Gentle On My Mind	Tammy Wynette
Alone with You	Loretta Lynn
Wait for the Light to Shine	Connie Smith
Games People Play	Dolly Parton
Ain't Had No Lovin'	Connie Smith
Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven	Loretta Lynn
You've Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out On Me)	Loretta Lynn
I'll Come Running	Connie Smith
It's My Time	Dolly Parton
Don't Make Me Go To School	Tammy Wynette
I'm So Used to Loving You	Connie Smith
Help Me Make It Through The Night	Tammy Wynette
Disc 2
Farther To Go	Loretta Lynn
Wouldn't I?	George Jones & Tammy Wynette
You Ain't Woman Enough	Connie Smith
I'm Gonna Sleep With One Eye Open	Dolly Parton
Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8)	Dolly Parton
Your Squaw Is On The Warpath	Loretta Lynn
Louisiana Man	Connie Smith
Good Lovin' (Makes It Right)	Tammy Wynette
When Love Is New	Dolly Parton & Emmy Rossum
Lonesome 7-7203	Loretta Lynn
Today I Started Loving You Again	Connie Smith
Jackson Ain't a Very Big Town	Tammy Wynette
'Til I Can Make It on My Own	Tammy Wynette
Touch Your Woman	Dolly Parton
After the Fire Is Gone	Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty
A Million and One	Connie Smith
I Dreamed Of A Hillbilly Heaven	Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette & Loretta Lynn

Sucking in the 70's: Volume 12

 I don’t think I’ve completely exhausted the entire corpus of 70s music, but this will likely be my last volume for a while.  There’s a lot of well-known cuts, but folks also enjoy some of the lesser known songs.  Also, all the previous volumes are available as are all the Saluting the 70's compilations.

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Daylight	Bobby Womack
Lowdown	Boz Scaggs
Hang on in There Baby	Johnny Bristol
Safecracker	Hoodoo Rhythm Devils
Slow Motion (Part 1)	Johnny Williams
Express	B.T. Express
Long Train Runnin'	The Doobie Brothers
When the Game Is Played on You	Bettye Swann
You're My Best Friend	Queen
Sing with the Children	Claudia Lennear
(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right	Luther Ingram
Freddie's Dead	Curtis Mayfield
Ecstasy	Ohio Players
Picture Us	Bunny Sigler
Les Fleur	Minnie Riperton
Needle and Thread	Jennifer Warnes
Right on the Tip of My Tongue	Brenda and the Tabulations
Heaven Says	The New Birth
I'm For You, You For Me	The Temprees
Stranger In A Strange Land	Leon Russell

 

 

John Cale: Titan - Discs 4 & 5

I re-watched the movie Big Fan and was reminded how perfect the placement of John Cale's Big White Cloud is in film. (The deployment of Helen Reddy's version of Delta Dawn at a critical juncture is also a nice touch).   I included the original version of Big White Cloud on another compilation, but there's an excellent alternative version of the song which leads off Disc 5.  As I'm posting the final two discs of the Cale compilation, I also wanted to pay homage to an excellent Cale playlist somewhere on the internet (in addition to the one that I mentioned last month), but I can't find it. (I really need a system to keep track of stuff like that.)  Anyway, these are the final two discs.  I know he's got a huge body of work, but I'd like to think I did justice to a true titan.

Download both discs

Disc 4
She Doesn't Live Here Anymore	John Cale
The Pianos, Pt. 1: Welcome to Europe	John Cale
The Jeweller	John Cale
Dying On The Vine	John Cale
Zen	John Cale
Church of Anthrax	John Cale & Terry Riley
Mercenaries (45 version)	John Cale
Mr Sparrow	John Cale
Secret Corrida	John Cale
Movement 3 [from Kiss]	John Cale
Hanky Panky Nohow	John Cale
Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend	The Velvet Underground
Disc 5
Big White Cloud (Alternative version)	John Cale
Opening Theme	John Cale
Poison	John Cale & Marissa Nadler
Venus In Furs (Live)	John Cale
Jim	John Cale
The Legal Status of Ice	John Cale
Shark-Shark	John Cale
Sabotage	John Cale
The Moon	John Cale
Mercy	John Cale featuring Laurel Halo
Verses	John Cale
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night	John Cale

 

More John Cale

      It's late and I still have some work to finish on a Sunday night, so I have to keep it short.  As I noted last week, I tried to include a lot of obscurities so I need to give credit to a great Youtube playlist.  I would have included more, but there were a number of great live cuts that were recorded at a problematically low level for inclusion in a compliation.  Nonetheless, I owe the creator of the playlist a great deal of gratitude and highly recommend it any time you want to binge on John Cale.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNINWcxxj9hEHC2MVMCY4PXFB87YjpwHi

Hope everyone enjoys this third volume

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In Memoriam John Cage-Call Waiting (1)	John Cale
Cordoba	Brian Eno & John Cale
Set Me Free	John Cale
Night Crawling	John Cale
Sorrow	Anna Calvi and John Cale
Empty Bottles	John Cale & Lou Reed
Caligula	John Cale
Dr. Mudd	John Cale
Memories of Paris: President Y Is Still Stable	John Cale
IO	John Cale
Execute the Second Group	John Cale
Buffalo Ballet	John Cale