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Repeat Hits -- songs that became popular in more than one era


pogo97

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Puttin' on the Ritz

Try a Little Tenderness

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Darktown Strutters Ball

Sweet Georgia Brown

Tiptoe Through The Tulips

Blue Skies

All of Me

Deep Purple

Blue Moon

Blueberry Hill

At Last

I Remember You

 

others that come to mind?

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I always laughed at my friends who didn't know that a good chunk of Van Halen's early catalog was covers:

 

Pretty Woman- Roy Orbison

Dancing in the Street- Martha and The Vandella's (later covered by Mick and David)

You Really Got Me- The Kinks

You're No Good- Dee Dee Warwick (also covered by Linda Ronstadt)

 

Not one to shy away from laughing at myself, I caught my self thinking the same thing about Tesla's "Little Suzie" originally written and performed by Ph. D. I don't know if it counts as "a hit" two eras, but interesting still. Never saw that one coming. I actually love finding these now.

 

~~[video=youtube;JKgzYLBV_cc]

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There have been a ton of songs that have been covered over the years, and sometimes many years later. I guess the trick would be to find songs that were covered so much later that they not only span eras but genres to a certain degree and, at least to some degree were re-defined by the cover version? Not sure if these all qualify, but they are the first that come to mind.

 

Over The Rainbow (Judy Garland and Israel Kamakawiwoʻole)

Last Kiss (Wayne Cochran and Pearl Jam)

A Hazy Shade Of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel and The Bangles)

Hurt So Bad (Little Anthony & The Imperials and Linda Ronstadt)

Always Something There To Remind Me (Dionne Warwick and Naked Eyes)

Killing Me Softly With His Song (Roberta Flack and The Fugees)

You're Sixteen (Johnny Burnette & Ringo Starr)

You're Mama Don't Dance (Loggins & Messina and Poison)

Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash and Social Distortion)

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Unchained Melody

Blue Bayou

Walk, Don't Run

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

How Sweet It Is

I Got You Babe

I Shot The Sheriff

Roll Over Beethoven

Pink Cadillac

Red Red Wine

Don't Be Cruel

Stagger Lee

Sway

This Masquerade

Summertime Blues

You Really Got A Hold On Me

Do You Love Me

Don't Leave Me This Way

Funky Town

Jump Jive And Wail

Flip Flop And Fly

Shake Rattle And Roll

Release Me

Kansas City

Love Is Strange

Love Potion #9

I'm A Man

Harlem Nocturne

Have I Told You Lately

Mustang Sally

Mountain Of Love

Money, That's What I Want

Louie Louie

Born Under A Bad Sign

Baby I Need Your Loving

Rockin Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu

Bang A Gong

Mack The Knife

Beyond The Sea

Black Magic Woman

Blue Velvet

Blueberry Hill

Can't Help Falling In Love

 

and so on

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you don't know me - eddie arnold, Mickey Gilley

Tell me why - George Jones, Palamino Road

Have I told you Lately - Van Morrison, Rod Stewart

Knock on Wood - Eddie Floyd, Ami Stewart

Memphis - Chuck Berry, Johnny Rivers

On Broadway - Drifters, George Benson

Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding, Michael Bolton

I'm a Believer - Monkees, Smash Mouth

You've lost that lovin' feeling, Righteous Brothers, Hall & Oates

Your love keeps lifting me higher - jackie Wilson, Rita Coolidge

La Bamba - Ritcfhie Valens, Los Lobos

Loco-motion - Little Eva, Grand Funk, Kylie Minogue

Crimson & Clover - Tommy James, Joan Jett

 

 

 

 

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Any Time : written 1921, recorded by Emmett Miller 1924, covered by Eddy Arnold in 1952

Lovesick Blues : written 1921, recorded by Emmett Miller 1928, covered by Hank Williams 1948

I ain't got Nobody : written 1914, recorded by Emmett Miller 1928, covered by Louis Prima 1956 David Lee Roth 1985

 

 

 

 

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Funny you mentioned Emmett Miller...I have some transcriptions and some Okeh recordings of him and his backing band, The Georgia Crackers - band members included the Dorsey Brothers, guitarist Eddie Lang (the American Django) and Gene Krupa...I was just listening to them the other night.

 

Miller gets the short end of the stick, sadly, because he was a minstrel show 'blackface' performer, [like Jolson], but kept it up through the end of Vaudeville, and beyond, into the 1950s. Many people cite him as an influence, and his style is echoed in the music of a lot of early Country & Western from Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzel, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Willaims, to Merle Haggard, and so on...Leon Redbone and Ry Cooder were Emmett Miller fans. Even Louis Jordan and a number of his contemporaries 'lifted' from Miller. His 'yodel-like' delivery definitely set the standard for 'cowboy yodelers' right up to Roy Rogers.

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For years I didn't know that Dream A Little Dream of Me was first recorded in the early thirties. I also just recently brought back Young Blood and had never realized that Bad Company "straightened out" the bridge. The Coaster's bridge is a little quirky - but cool. It's been mentioned before but the CCR version of I Put A Spell On You, bears little resemblence to Screamin Jay Hawkins' version (or even Nina Simone's).

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Miller gets the short end of the stick' date=' sadly, because he was a minstrel show 'blackface' performer, [like Jolson'], but kept it up through the end of Vaudeville, and beyond, into the 1950s...

 

[video=youtube;h-1mo9j7it8]

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Miller gets the short end of the stick, sadly, because he was a minstrel show 'blackface' performer, [like Jolson], but kept it up through the end of Vaudeville, and beyond, into the 1950s.

 

Yeah, well....he chose his own end of the stick. Doesn't negate whatever talents he may have possessed but, in my view anyway, he chose the money he could make at the time vs. his legacy and probably some negative backlash during his own time as well.

 

Kind of like the girl who is beautiful enough to be a model and is a pretty good actress but decides there's better money in doing porno movies.

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Yeah, well....he chose his own end of the stick. Doesn't negate whatever talents he may have possessed but, in my view anyway, he chose the money he could make at the time vs. his legacy and probably some negative backlash during his own time as well.

 

 

I don't think that's how life actually works. Choices are made in the context of one's life and sometimes a careless choice can echo forever. Maybe a person doesn't even know there is a choice.

 

Anyway, he's a unique singer and he had the good sense to hire the best (white) jazz musicians in New York. His late 20s recordings are unique and wonderful and well worth listening to.I like to think that he didn't actually apply blackface in the recording studio.

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I like to think that he didn't actually apply blackface in the recording studio.

No, I'm sure he wouldn't bother. Blackface was, unfortunately, already a 'tradition' on the American music hall stage by the turn of the 20th century. Miller was just one of many who opted to work in blackface...he just didn't have the perspective [social or historical] to see how offensive it was to black people, or how negatively it reflected black culture, or how that would ultimately affect his legacy.

 

The '28' routine was lifted and altered by other comedy teams, most notably Abbot and Costello...

 

[video=youtube;xkbQDEXJy2k]

 

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It's not fair to judge the people from the past entirely from today's perspective.

 

Not that it makes what happened in the past correct (or incorrect), but some things we find horrid today seemed normal in the past. I don't think many black-face performers were intentionally offending African-Americans any more than the Goth performers of the end of the 20th century were intentionally offending Germans. They were just getting work and doing what was popular at the time. Most never gave the political incorrectness of it a second thought.

 

I'd even suppose that some who donned black-face actually thought they were being respectful and honoring the people they were trying to emulate.

 

And I'm sure others hated African-Americans for no reason other than the fact that they were different.

 

One of my favorite quotes by Beethoven is sexist by today's standards, but in Ludwig's day this was not considered sexist: "Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears to the eyes of woman."

 

When I first went on the road, the musicians all had Elvis-era "razor cut" hair styles. Then our agent said that we could make $25 more a night each if we let our hair grow like The Beatles. We said, It's growing and started looking like the Brits at the time. We meant no disrespect, we just joined in, and did what we needed to do to gig.

 

I think John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd had a lot of respect for the blues artists they emulated, even though there was comedy in their act, I don't think it was meant to be offensive in any way shape or form.

 

But we're drifting off topic here.

 

Angel Of The Morning - Merilee Rush / Juice Newton

You've Lost That Loving Feeling - Righteous Brothers / Hall & Oats

Hello Stranger - Barbara Lewis / Yvonne Elliman

Mony Mony - Tommy James / Billy Idol

Bang A Gong - T Rex / Power Station

 

Notes

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Love Hurts -- Everly Brothers & Nazareth

Iko Iko -- The Dixie Cups & someone else

Another Saturday Night -- Sam Cooke & Cat Stevens

The First Cut Is the Deepest -- Cat Stevens & Rod Stewart

I'm Henery the Eighth -- Harry Champion & Herman's Hermits

A Kind of a Hush -- Herman's Hermits & The Carpenters

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I agree that you can't judge performers from the past from today's perspective. That someone might have been performing in blackface at the turn of the century or into the 1920s was one thing. Doing it into the 1950s was starting to get kind of icky. Which is pretty much why it didn't exist at all by the 1970s.

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And somehow trying to compare white performers using blackface to goth kids "intentionally offending Germans" is absurd. Was any German ever offended by Goth? Goth kids weren't offensive to Germans because they were never intentionally trying to BE "German" or to present themselves as specifically "German". C'mon, Bob. You're smarter and better than that.

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I think John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd had a lot of respect for the blues artists they emulated, even though there was comedy in their act, I don't think it was meant to be offensive in any way shape or form.

This is not a good example, since if you look at the number of notable musicians who were in the films (Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha, James Brown) it is obvious the boys had a very reverential approach to the blues, and certainly were in no way disparaging the artists they were emulating.

 

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That was the point DaddyMack, it wasn't meant to be offensive. I don't think Al Jolson intended to be offensive either. And I don't think the Goth kids wearing swastika jewelry were trying to offend anyone either. Sometimes things go into fashion and people do it for that reason.

 

And show-biz people are often desperate to get noticed and will jump on any trend without a single thought except to get hip to what's happening.

 

Here's a twist on the topic.

 

What about Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" which had new words added to become Danny & The Juniors' "Twistin' USA" which got a new set of words when The Beach Boys re-issued it as "Surfin' USA"

 

And completely back on topic:

 

Speaking of The Beach Boys, they had a hit with the Regents' song, "Barbara Ann" (And I think the Regents did it much better).

 

Notes

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I don't think Al Jolson intended to be offensive either.

 

But that really doesn't excuse it does it? Especially once we're talking about later decades when it became pretty obvious it WAS offensive but grown adults continued to do it anyway.

 

Goth kids wearing swastika jewelry maybe aren't necessarily trying to be offensive to a particular group of people, but they ARE trying to be outrageous and shocking. And they at least have the excuse of being kids. But they know what they are doing is, in some part "wrong". Which is WHY they are doing it.

 

What's the excuse for a grown man in the 1950s to decide to paint his face black in order to entertain audiences while singing a black song? What was the POINT of it? Did it make the song better? No. Did it make the musical performance better? No. Did it entertain some white folks who were amused at the idea of a white man not only singing a black man's song but trying to look like one while doing so? Yes.

 

Was it done REVERENTLY? No. It was done completely at the expense of the dignity of the blacks. Did Jolson and others recognize this at the time? Maybe not. But if they didn't it was almost completely because they didn't care what blacks would have thought of it. Hard to be intentionally offensive when you don't care what those who might be offended think, isn't it? And it only compounds the offense when your primary care is that doing the offensive act might put another dollar or two in your pocket.

 

If there wasn't at least an element of "wrong" about donning blackface, it wouldn't have been entertaining. Like goth kids wearing swastikas, part of the entertainment of blackface was the "shock" value, or the "joke" of making fun of blacks. ("Look at that guy up there, Marge! Why, he looks and sounds so much like a real (enter racial epithet here) that I can hardly tell the difference! Ain't that a hoot?!?") That it was "fashionable at the time" to do so is a weak, weak excuse.

 

And "my intention wasn't to offend anyone" is a poor, poor excuse as well. Because that only then begs the question "what WAS your intention, then?" And I'm trying really hard to see what possible "good intention" could have ever existed for donning blackface....

 

Jolson and others easily could have decided "it's a great song, and I sing it well. I don't need to put on blackface to perform it" and done so. Many others during that time certainly sang black songs without feeling the need to pretend to be black people for whatever entertainment value existed in watching a person do that.

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And show-biz people are often desperate to get noticed and will jump on any trend without a single thought except to get hip to what's happening.

 

 

That's not just a flaw with show-biz folks. Herd mentality is human nature. Remember those pics of all those white kids protesting school integration in the 1950s? Most of them were good kids without bad intentions or intentionaly trying to be offensive. They were going along with what was happening at the time. It was just the way they were raised. What their parents and society taught them.

 

Certainly doesn't make it right. Not even close. Does it make it excusable? Not really. A bit more understandable, perhaps, but doesn't really excuse it.

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The release of existing hits as covers was how you made it in the 60s. Pretty well big group did it. It was common to go cut a self produced 45 cover and shop it around to the local radio DJs. As for the black face thing... http://black-face.com/minstrel-shows.htm Here is a link. I was in school during the time when schools were going though de segregation. Racial tensions were actually less then than they are now. The difference is the destruction of the black family. You can thank LBJ for that. The thing that has helped race relations the most has always been music.

 

The thing that has always made them worse is race baiting for political power. racism is real and you see it on all sides of the fence and I don't see it really going away. How you handle it is the important thing.

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