When I was a teenager and had occasion to leave my room and join the rest of the household, my parents would sometimes have the radio on or a record playing. Invariably, what would hit my ears would be Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra singing a song composed by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or the Gershwins. I could never understand what the big deal was to just sing a song you didn’t write. My generation’s musical legacy was to be the creators as well as the performers of their original works. That was talent.
True, the Motown sound was manufactured for the boy and girl groups of the 60s, groups like the Supremes and the Temptations, the Ronettes and the Four Tops. But no one else covered their songs as a general rule; the songs were identified with them and their style. None of the British invasion groups adopted a Sam Cook song as their anthem. That just wasn’t how the game, or the music, was played.
Musicians of the early rock era like Buddy Holly were too busy creating their own sound and changing the course of popular music to either pay tribute or bite off the fame of others. Further down the road of rock there were two hit versions of Layla, one fast and one slow. And Clapton did them both. One of the few exceptions to the singer as songwriter phenomenon was Elvis, who managed to straddle both worlds by being an updated version of the old time song stylists as well as a pioneer in performance showmanship. There’s also no mold to fit Dylan into with his slyly brilliant lyrics, strange presence and voice that sang notes no one could put down on paper or get out of their head.
I awoke from the past one day to hear my own teenagers discussing cover bands, groups that sang the hits of others exclusively. And they were okay with that. Rock had become egalitarian. When did this happen, I wondered. I mean outside of wedding bands and Beatles instrumentals in elevators.
Now I notice remakes everywhere. My most cherished memories appear before me clothed for current times sung by people whose parents hadn’t met yet when I listened to them the first time around. Joni Mitchell’s signature Big Yellow Taxi presented anew by Counting Crows with Vanessa Carlton. Michael Buble bringing the word ‘crooner’ back with the same sex appeal and promise of romance it had in a time less hurried and complex.
Yesterday on my car radio, I heard Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds sing his recent cover of James Taylor’s Fire and Rain, possibly the most depressing song on the planet. Of all the James Taylor songs he could have redone – Handy Man, Sweet Baby James, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight – Babyface walked right by all of them and picked the ‘I’m an addict in an asylum with my career in ruins and my friend just committed suicide’ one. If I wasn’t driving, you could just pass me a bowl of Seconal and a spoon.
For your listening pleasure, here is some crooning courtesy of Michael Buble. Because when I walked out of my room 35 years ago and entered the rest of the house, this is where I came in.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos tell us that If we listen, we can hear. . .
the underground world
the bears’ national anthems
the howl art festival in tompkins square park
this line of shit