Hello Mary Lou!

Hey folks, I'm back. As usual, there's a backlog of hundreds of e-mails and thousands of RSS entries to wade through to catch up on the happenings in the past few weeks. A couple notable changes in the cover world:

• Cover Me has moved off the blogspot to covermesongs.com with a slick new interface. Update your bookmarks accordingly!
  
• Covering the Mouse is also back in business with a little revamp of its own after a couple weeks of technical difficulties brought on by Blogger's discontinuing of FTP publishing
  
• EDITED TO ADD: While I was gone, Leopold Stotch of Versions Galore was unceremoniously dumped by Blogger and has resurfaced at http://www.versionsgalore.com

Here's a trio of covers I love and don't really know why I've put it off for so long... three of the greatest all-time rock bands putting their own personal touches on 1961's Hello Mary Lou, originally performed by Ricky Nelson and written by Gene Pitney and Cayet Mangiaracina, whose songwriting credit has its own interesting story.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
This is the first version of the song that I ever heard and fell in love with. Of course, as with many cover songs, it would be years before I realized it was not the original.

Queen - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
From their Live at Wembley '86 album. In a 1998 interview with Guitarist magazine, Brian May listed James Burton's guitar solo in Hello Mary Lou as one of his top 10 guitar solos.

Led Zeppelin - Hello Mary Lou [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
Non-Zeppelin fans may balk at a 23-minute live Whole Lotta Love, but in their scorching live shows the band would often use the song as a springboard for a set of R&B and blues covers. The phenomenal How the West Was Won live album, culled from two 1972 California gigs, featured perhaps my favourite rendition of Hello Mary Lou sandwiched between Elvis Presley's Let's Have a Party and St. Louis Jimmy Oden's Going Down Slow.

Off to Chicagoland!

Blog break. Revisiting Chicago for a few days, the T-Dot for a few more, then E-Town for a wedding. See y'all in a few weeks.

Tonight: Meaghan Smith live in Vancouver!

After work, I'll be hopping over to the Media Club a block away to catch Meaghan Smith. Up until a week ago I had only vaguely heard of the Halifax-based singer-songwriter, but I was googling something about Kid Koala (who's latest project The Slew with two former members of Wolfmother hits the Vancouver Jazz Festival in June) when I stumbled on this music video:



It sounds like a retro throwback a la Jill Barber, but with a modern flourish courtesy of Kid Koala and I love the tribute to 1920s/30s cartoons. I was further sold on Meaghan when I watched her wonderful animated biography and found out that she had actually gone to school for animation before becoming a singer and that her producer on her debut album The Cricket's Orchestra was none other than Les Cooper, who (surprise, surprise) produced Jill Barber's latest Chances. Fortunately when I checked her upcoming tour dates I was just in time finding out about the Vancouver show tonight. [Post-Show Edit: she played awesome covers of If I Only Had a Heart and Fly Me to the Moon, the latter on her omnichord!]

Meaghan Smith - Here Comes Your Man [originally by The Pixies]
Meaghan recorded this cover for the soundtrack to last year's (500) Days of Summer.

6 May 2010 Vancouver, BC
7 May 2010 Victoria, BC
12 May 2010 Canmore, AB
14 May 2010 Calgary, AB
15 May 2010 Edmonton, AB
27 Jun 2010 Montreal, QC
16 Jul 2010 Lilith Fair St. Louis, MO
17 Jul 2010 Lilith Fair Chicago, IL
18 Jul 2010 London, ON
23 Jul 2010 Montreal, QC
29 Aug 2010 Kensington, PEI

Official Site
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Star Wars Day 2010

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you and all that. This is my fourth year in a row of posting Star Wars covers and the supply is dwindling. Well, actually there are endless covers, just few very good ones. Next year, I may have to pull a George Lucas and start recycling old posts, zing!

Voice Male - Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare [originally composed by Alfred Newman]
Originally composed by Alfred Newman in 1933, I think it's fair to say that the 20th Century Fox fanfare is strongly associated with the Star Wars series. I may be mistaken, but I think the extended version was specifically orchestrated for the films. Voice Male is an all-male a cappella group from the Netherlands Belgium... not to be confused with the all-male a cappella group from Utah of the same name.

Brooke Sofferman - Imperial March
A fine cover from jazz drummer Brooke Sofferman's album Fine Whines, which also contains a cover of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

The Alexandria Kleztet - Cantina Band
I've always wanted a klezmer Cantina Band cover and now thanks to The Alexandria Kleztet, my life is complete.

Sex Wing Starfighter - Yub Nub
Sex Wing Starfighter is a Star Wars-themed punk band with a free album on their bandcamp site. This cover of the Ewok celebration song is featured as a bonus track.

...and Farewell to Codeine Velvet Club

[EDIT: re-posted with link removed]

Well then, that didn't take long. The album just came out in Canada less than two weeks ago and it's already time to say goodbye to Codeine Velvet Club, not even a week since I found out about the end of The Fratellis. Reports from the UK have announced that Jon Lawler has ended the band to continue working on his solo career. According to the article, his cohort Lou Hickey was in shock after "reading about it online". Although not entirely true and there are some quotes apparently taken out of context, the result is the same: the upcoming 9 or so gigs will be their last. Mind you, the album's been out in the UK since November and they've been touring around there since at least last April, but it's still extremely disappointing that there'll be no follow-up album and no full North American tour (other than the few US dates in March). As I've mentioned before, they were my favourite new band in quite a while. Alas!

Maybe someday Codeine Velvet Club will be... resurrected?
Codeine Velvet Club - I am the Resurrection [originally by The Stone Roses]

Farewell to the Fratellis

Last week, The Fratellis made a low key announcement in their fan forums that the band has found themselves making music "but just not together". And with that, The Fratellis confirmed that the band members had moved on to other projects with no plans to get back together anytime in the foreseeable future.

The Fratellis - Ooh La Hot Love [Ooh La La originally by Goldfrapp, Hot Love by T. Rex]
The Fratellis - Solid Gold Easy Action [originally by T. Rex]
The Fratellis - Hotel Yorba [originally by The White Stripes]

The Billy Rubin Trio - Chelsea Dagger (feat. Lady S) [originally by The Fratellis]

. . . meanwhile Jon Lawler (AKA Jon Fratelli) has been making sweet, sweet music with Lou Hickey as Codeine Velvet Club, my favourite new band (as seen as here). Incidentally, their album just came out last week in Canada.

Kudos to K'naan!

[EDIT: reposted minus the offending mp3 links.]

Junos were last weekend and I was completely oblivious to the fact they were even happening until I saw the newspaper the next day with Juno juggernaut Michael Bublé brandishing wins in four of the six categories that he was nominated for. The two he did lose were both to K'naan who won Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. Just a couple months ago, some friends and I saw him do a phenomenal show at the Orpheum as part of the Cultural Olympiad (2nd row seats!). He's definitely a must-see if you get the opportunity to see him live. He's such a powerful and moving performer, I can guarantee even the uninitiated would come away impressed.

I'm not really sure how the "Songwriter of the Year" category works, but his nomination specifically mentions three tracks from his Troubadour album: Wavin' Flag (co-written with Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence, and Jean Daval), Take a Minute, and If Rap Gets Jealous (co-written with Gerald Eaton and Brian West). As I'm sure you may know by now, Wavin' Flag was chosen by Coca-Cola as the official song of the 2010 World Cup. Amusingly, K'naan chose to alter the lyrics for this "Celebration Mix" of the song and it was actually Coke that was worried about messing with the original song. I learned this from his in-depth interview yesterday on Q with Jian Ghomeshi, in which he discussed Wavin' Flag, his aversion to being labelled "political", his arrival in Canada from war-torn Somalia, and his life as a teenager in a Toronto gang where he arrested 15 times and spent time in jail(!). Listen to the full hour-long interview uncut on the Q website. [EDIT: you can watch it on Q's youtube channel too]

Wavin' Flag was also re-recorded as a charity single for Haiti relief efforts with a supergroup of Canadian performers (billed as Young Artists for Haiti) including K'naan himself, Nelly Furtado, Sam Roberts, Avril Lavigne, Emily Haines, Serena Ryder, Hawksley Workman, Broken Social Scene, and tons more. Receiving a plum role with the final line of the song is this Justin Bieber character I keep hearing about these days, though I'm not so sure we'll be calling him freedom when he gets older. I'll admit I find it hard to be too cynical while listening to this all-star version even though it shares all the trappings of an overproduced charity single. Another guest on the single with a featured rap solo was Drake who actually won the Juno for Rap Recording of the Year over K'naan while also taking New Artist of the Year (over Bieber, natch). Of course, you can find this single on iTunes where it's been number one on the Canadian charts since its release last month.

Eric Ayotte - Wavin' Flag [originally K'naan]
Eric Ayotte offers up soothing acoustic guitar rendition on his free self-titled album, which is available from the music site If You Make It.

Bedouin Soundclash - Fire in Freetown
Fellow Canadian artists Bedouin Soundclash covered this Troubadour track for The Voice Project, in support of women in Northern Uganda who have banded together in song as part of a peace movement in a country that has been ravaged by war for over two decades. Read more about The Voice Project here. Incidentally, Bedouin Soundclash's Jay Malinowski was also part of the chorus of singers on the Wavin' Flag Haiti re-recording.

Jarvis Church - One [featuring K'naan] [originally by U2]
Seems like so long ago when I first heard K'naan rapping on the tail-end of this U2 cover (one of my all-time faves) from the War Child compilation Peace Songs released in 2003. Jarvis Church (AKA Gerald Eaton of The Philosopher Kings) went on to produce K'naan's 2005 debut The Dusty Foot Philosopher and parts of Troubadour.

Record Store Day '10!

Record Store Day 2010 is imminent, so it's time to make plans to head on over to your local indie record store(s) and celebrate! Live band performances, giveaways, and general merriment will take place over the course of the day. Be sure to check out the Official Record Store Day website to see if there are any happenings going on in your city/town. Tons of limited and exclusive Record Store Day releases will be available too including a Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings/The Budos Band split 7" vinyl with covers of Daytripper and Money. Me want so bad! I'll be celebrating in spirit... at work. :(

A small serving of BBC covers

A few random covers collected from Dermot O'Leary's BBC Radio 2 show including one with Dermot himself joining Mika on a laughably bad Journey cover that doesn't even make it to the chorus.

Ben's Brother - Love [originally by John Lennon]
Kill It Kid - Black Horse and the Cherry Tree [originally by KT Tunstall]
Goldheart Assembly - Way Out West [originally by Big Star]
Local Natives - Cecilia [originally by Simon & Garfunkel]
Ellie Goulding - Jolene [originally by Dolly Parton]
Mika - Don't Stop Believing [feat. Dermot O'Leary] [originally by Journey]

Corinne Bailey Rae Live Tonight in Vancouver!

I'm super excited to go in a couple hours to see Corinne Bailey Rae perform tonight at the Commodore Ballroom in support of her excellent sophomore album, The Sea. As one might expect, my initial exposure to her music was through a cover song, specifically a smokin' jazz version of Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Loving You. Of course, she once again popped up on my music radar a year later when she covered The Raconteurs' Steady As She Goes for a BBC covers compilation. Since then she's emerged into one of my favourite voices to listen to and fortunately she's quite prolific on the covers front too, ranging from Björk to Editors to Jimi Hendrix to John Lennon. Not only does she have impeccable cover choices, Rae never fails completely nail them and make them worthwhile to listen to. She also provided guest vocals on Joni Mitchell's River for Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters, which won Album of the Year Grammy for 2007.

Corinne Bailey Rae - Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) [originally by Doris Day]
Rae and her band performed this incredible showstopping cover of Que Sera Sera (by way of Sly & The Family Stone) at Tuesday's tour kick off at the Virbiana Cathedral in Los Angeles, a benefit concert for KCRW, which was partially recorded for today's airing of Morning Becomes Eclectic. Listen/watch to the rest of the show here, which includes her cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing.

Corinne Bailey Rae - Since I've Been Loving You [originally by Led Zeppelin]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Steady As She Goes [originally by The Raconteurs]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Creepin' [originally by Stevie Wonder]
Corinne Bailey Rae - Sexyback [originally by Justin Timberlake]
Corinne Bailey Rae & John Legend - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) [originally by Marvin Gaye]
Corinne Bailey Rae - I'm Losing You [originally by John Lennon]

Opening for Rae is Daniel Merriweather, probably most known (at least to me) from his contribution to Mark Ronson's Version covers album, performing The Smiths' Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before. He also recorded this oddly delightful White Stripes cover, seemingly filtered through Sweet Home Alabama.
Daniel Merriweather - You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) [originally by The White Stripes]