Play It Again, Sam! Covers, Remixes, and Other Musical Do-Overs

I think if you asked 10 random baby boomers, eight would think this was the orginal: it's not

 

Wow. This thread pushes so many buttons. That version of "War Pigs" is great.

A couple of random memories. "Highway Star" - the first honest to god rock show I ever saw (as in not in the school gym) was Deep Purple on the "Machine Head" tour, so I got that whole album, "Highway Star", "Lazy", and the not yet a cliche "Smoke on the Water" live for my first concert. The opening act was Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green had already left the band and Bob Welch was not yet in, so I guess it was Danny Kirwan on guitar. I also got my nose out of joint when they played "Black Magic Woman", which I thought was Santana's song. Nope, the Mac cut it first... so that's a remake that I coulda thrown in.

"Absolutely Sweet Marie" - I loved Jason and the Scorchers. A couple of years ago, Warner Hodges, who played lead for the Scorchers, did a house concert here. It was maybe ten bucks a head to go to his daughter's house and hear him solo. I sat maybe ten feet away. Anyhow, he told about touring with Dylan in the mid-eighties, and they couldn't decide whether to play "Marie" or not, because they didn't want to piss him off covering him. The third night that they played together, Dylan knocked on the dressing room door. (At this point you have to imagine Warner doing Dylan's voice). "Hey, why aren't you guys playing my song? I really like your version, and you're not singing it!". So, yeah, from then on...

David Lindley doing "Mercury Blues"... That's a real old song, goes back to the 1940's or 50's. I first heard it from Jackson Browne, with Lindley on pedal steel, and that's probably still my favorite version. Lindley is amazing, one of those guys who can play damn near anything with strings. I saw him live at City Stages here back in the early 2000's - he played a Turkish instrument called an Aud, which is basically a primitive neck with a gourd for a sound box, three strings. He was playing slide blues on it. Damnedest thing you ever saw. That was a great weekend, City Stages was a three day multistage show downtown, and that was guitar weekend. I saw Lindley, Johnny Winter, Doc Watson, and Leo Kottke. Hellacious shows. Probably my favorite with Lindley and Browne is "Red Neck Friend", off of Browne's first album. Lindley absolutely burns on lap steel on that.

You can do a Youtube search on either Los Lobos or Dave Alvin and come up with a dozen great cover versions. I can't find it on video, but I saw Los Lobos a few years back and when they played "La Bamba", which they did for the movie of the same name, they do it as a mashup with the Rascals "Good Lovin'", which is basically exactly the same song with different vocals. They kept the instrumental groove up and dropped back and forth between the two. It was hilarious.

I guess I'll throw one out. It's an old Chuck Berry song. I mean, if you're gonna cover one you might as well go for the best, right?

Emmylou and the Hot Band, 1977. Rodney Crowell, Albert Lee, such a great backup band, and Emmylou has that achingly pure country voice.

And the Boss, doing the same song, just for lagniappe.

 

From a totally different direction, a bad-ass with a looping pedal covers Steve Vai.
Without prepping performance or arrangement in advance: