Famous Songs that are Actually Covers....

I saw Kris do a solo show ten years ago. It was a good set but even back then he was getting creaky.
 


vs the superior original:



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vs the schlokiest 80's cover shit



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Not famous, but I've always had a soft spot for both of these bands and I dig both versions:

OG:
Cover:

Collab between both, acoustic and more recent:
 
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JJ Cale wrote and originally performed a bunch that became hits that were synonymous with big artists.
Call me the Breeze
Cocaine
After Midnight
Clyde

Hoyt Axton had a few too (but I don't know if he ever recorded any of them).

Bonnie Raitt's version of Angel from Montgomery fits her so well people are surprised to learn it is a cover.

Nazareth's Love Hurts is another that is so perfect for them you'd never think it was a cover.

Aerosmith's cover of Train Kept A Rollin might fit this too.
 
GomezAddams said:
JJ Cale wrote and originally performed a bunch that became hits that were synonymous with big artists.
Call me the Breeze
Cocaine
After Midnight
Clyde

Hoyt Axton had a few too (but I don't know if he ever recorded any of them).

Bonnie Raitt's version of Angel from Montgomery fits her so well people are surprised to learn it is a cover.

Nazareth's Love Hurts is another that is so perfect for them you'd never think it was a cover.

Aerosmith's cover of Train Kept A Rollin might fit this too.
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Hoyt Axton: Pusher: Stepenwolf as heard in the movie Easy Rider; Joy to the World: Three Dog Night

I don't know if he recorded them either but they come to mind.
 
Kerouac said:


vs the superior original:



---



vs the schlokiest 80's cover shit



---

Not famous, but I've always had a soft spot for both of these bands and I dig both versions:

OG:
Cover:

Collab between both, acoustic and more recent:
Click to expand...


I kind of like Rod's mad 80s oddessy including Downtown Train :embarrassed: but you've put me in the mood for listening to Rain Dogs.

Dunno if it's a thing over the pond but for some reason the Tina Turner version of Proud Mary has been incredibly popular party tune for women of a certain to get up and dance to for going on a decade.

I have to play it almost every gig, no one knows its a CCR tune.
 
I don't know how world wide famous this one is/was but we loved both versions equally around here when I was growing up. You may recognize Linda's guitar player.


 
baimun said:
I'll get the "Entire Led Zepplin Catalogue" out of the way first...

... because there are so many blues songs, like "Walkin' the Dog" that I first heard from Ratt in the 80's was a cover of Aerosmith's... but soon found out it was a cover of a Rufus Thomas song.

And the eighties in general... every major Joan Jett song (I Love Rock and Roll, Crimson and Clover, Do You Wanna Touch, etc), "Tainted Love" Softcell covered Gloria Jones, "Mony Mony" was Billy Idol covering Tommy James... etc.

Then there's the ones that everyone (hopefully) know like Hendrix "All Along the Watchtower" was originally a Dylan tune, "Big Yellow Taxi" is a Joni Mitchell song that Counting Crows covered, Sinead O'Connor with "Nothing Compares to You" Chaka Khan with "I Feel for You" and Bangles "Manic Monday" were all covers of Prince tunes, "Twist and Shout" is an Isley Brothers tune that the Beatles made popular, and of course "Blinded by the Light" is actually a Manfred Mann Earth Band song despite everyone knowing the Bruce Springsteen Cover.

One that gets a pass is "Hurt" because even Trent Reznor says "Johnny Cash now owns that song I wrote".

There are some that make me sad when people don't realize that Britney Spears didn't write The Stone's "Satisfaction" or Bobby Brown's "My Perogative", or worse yet think that Uncle Kracker could have written Dobie Gray's "Drift Away".


But I heard two today that made the needle go... skreeeeeech.... what? in my brain.

Renegades of Funk was not written by Rage Against the Machine...


... but is a song from Afrika Baambaata :eek:


and one of Carlos Santana's most famous songs.... :jawdrop:


... was Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac?!?!
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Manic Monday wasn’t really a cover. Prince wrote it for the group Apollonia 6, but then gave it to the Bangles. Prince recorded a demo of the song but it wasn’t released until 2019.
 
For me the Black Magic Woman thing was something you learn about in your first year of playing, not long after learning a few licks from it.

I always wandered how an Israeli band covered Motley Crue's Smoking in the Boys Room before Motley Crue released their version, until I found out about this:


I tought Engelbert Humperdinck's Lesbian Seagull was a gag song written for Beavis and Butthead Do America. I was surprised to find out that not only it was an older song - it wasn't originally Humperdinck's:


On the other side of the coin - I was surprised to find out that Weird Al has originals.
 
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Superstar was written in 1969 by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett with an assist from Rita Coolidge. It was first recorded by Delaney and Bonnie, but was called 'Groupie (Superstar)'. Many other artists covered it. Rita Coolidge, Bette Midler, and later, Sonic Youth.

In 1971, The Carpenters did their version of Superstar, and the rest is history. It's one of, if not the best melancholic songs in my opinion. I'm not sure how high it got on the Billboard Charts, because that stuff is bullshit.



Unknown guy doing an unpolished, yet beautiful fingerstyle version of the fine song.
 
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Andrew Sak said:
Superstar was written in 1969 by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett with an assist from Rita Coolidge. It was first recorded by Delaney and Bonnie, but was called 'Groupie (Superstar)'. Many other artists covered it. Rita Coolidge, Bette Midler, and later, Sonic Youth.
Click to expand...

 
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