Under the covers

I’ve been listening quite a bit to Patti Smith’s Twelve and Richard Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music, two great cover albums, and I’ve been inspired to dig up other cover albums (Bowie’s Pin Ups; Flaco Jimenez’s Partners, Bryan Ferry’s new one, Dylanesque, tribute albums to the Kinks, Johnny Cash, etc.) and start a list of cool covers for a “mix tape.”

I’m looks for suggestions so…please share.

BTW, the Covers Project is a cool website…And Wikipedia’s article “Cover version” is also useful resource.

Here’s partial list of some cover tunes I really like (off the top of my head and in no particular order, but I did try to develop some “cover chains”):

Patti Smith, “Gloria” (Them)
Van Morrison, “I Can’t Stop Loving You” (Don Gibson)
John Mellencamp, “Wild Night” (Van Morrison)
Dwight Yoakam & Flaco Jimenez, “Carmelita” (Warren Zevon)
Warren Zevon, “Certain Girl” (Allen Toussaint)
W. C. Clark, “Get Out of My Life, Woman (Allen Toussaint)
Hindu Love Gods, “Raspberry Beret” (Prince)
Foo Fighters, “Nikki Darling” (Prince)
Richard Thompson, “Kiss” (Prince)
Prince, “One of Us” (Joan Osborne)
Joan Osborne, “At Last” (Etta James)
Etta James, “Miss You” (Rolling Stones)
Rolling Stones, “Like A Rolling Stone” (Bob Dylan)
Prince, “Just My Imagination” (The Temptations)
Richard Thompson, “Friday on My Mind” (The Easybeats)
David Bowie, “Friday on My Mind” (The Easybeats)
Richard Thompson, “Oops, I Did It Again” (Brittney Spears)
Richard Thompson, “Tempted” (Squeeze)
Nickel Creek, “Spit on a Stranger” (Pavement)
The Beatles, “Anna (Go With Him)” (Arthur Alexander)
Arthur Alexander, “Detroit City” (Bobby Bare)
Gram Parsons, “Streets of Baltimore” (Bobby Bare)
Bobby Bare, “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (Kris Kristofferson)
Kris Kristofferson, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” (Bob Dylan)
Fountains of Wayne, “Better Things” (Kinks)
The Minus 5, “Get Back in Line” (Kinks)
Matthew Sweet, “Big Sky” (Kinks)
Yo La Tengo, “Fancy” (Kinks)
R.E.M., “Superman” (Kinks)
R.E.M., “First We Take Manhattan” (Leonard Cohen)
Cake, “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor)
Feist, “Inside and Out” (Bee Gees)
Robbie Fulks, “Dancing Queen” (ABBA)
Radiohead, “Nobody Does It Better” (Carly Simon)
Shelby Lynne, “Rainy Night in Georgia” (Tony Joe White)
Vic Chestnutt, “The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia” (Vicki Lawrence)
Johnny Cash, “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails)
Dar Williams, “Comfortably Numb” (Pink Floyd)
Emmylou Harris, “Wrecking Ball” (Neil Young)
Beck & Emmylou Harris, “Sin City” (Gram Parsons/Chris Hillman)
Dwight Yoakam & k.d. lang, “Sin City” (Gram Parsons/Chris Hillman)
Wilco, “One Hundred Years from Now” (Gram Parsons)
Ian Hunter, “One More Time” (Alejandro Escovedo)
Dwight Yoakam, “I Want You To Want Me” (Cheap Trick)
Cheap Trick, “Don’t Be Cruel” (Elvis Presley)
Elvis Presley, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” (Bob Dylan)
The Gords, “Gin and Juice” (Snoop Dogg)
Goo Goo Dolls, “Give A Little Bit” (Supertramp)
Patti Smith, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)
Def Leppard, “Waterloo Sunset” (Kinks)
Def Leppard, “20th Century Boy” (T Rex)
T Rex, “Summertime Blues” (Eddie Cochran)
Nirvana, “The Man Who Sold The World” (David Bowie)
M. Ward, “Let’s Dance (David Bowie)
David Bowie, “I Can’t Explain” (The Who)
Rush, “The Seeker” (The Who)
Nada Surf, “I’m Sick of You” (Iggy Pop)
Fountains of Wayne, “Killermont Street” (Aztec Camera)
Aztec Camera, “Jump” (Van Halen)
Van Halen, “You Really Got Me” (Kinks)
The Who, “Young Man Blues” (Mose Allison)
Rolling Stones, “Shake Your Hips” (Slim Harpo)

Covers of Dylan:

Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang, “Changing of the Guard”
Patti Smith, “Changing of the Guard”
Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang, “When I Paint My Masterpiece”
Jimi Hendrix, “All Along the Watchtower”
Pearl Jam, “Masters of War”
Rolling Stones, “Like A Rolling Stone”
Rage Against the Machine, “Maggie’s Farm”
Guns n Roses, “Knockin On Heaven’s Door”
Warren Zevon, “Knockin On Heaven’s Door”
Johnny Cash, “It Ain’t Me Babe”
Ricky Nelson, “She Belongs To Me”
Steve Earle, “My Back Pages”
Ramones, “My Back Pages”
Bryan Ferry, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”
The White Stripes, “Love Sick”
Neville Brothers, “With God On Our Side”
Buddy & Julie Miller, “Wallflower”
Nickel Creek, “House Carpenter”
George Harrison, “If Not for You”

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