Cover Versions

+++ Versions of the same song by a different artist or group, or to make money, e.g. in another country or genre, or to compete with the orginal +++ A lot of "big time" artists based their initial success on cover versions +++ Champions in that area were most defintely Pat Boone, Georgia Gibbs and Britons Tommy Steele and Marty Wilde, just to name a few, and even stars like Bill Haley, who "edited" Joe Turner's Original of "Shake, rattle and roll" to "adjust" sexual references in the original lyrics to the ears of his white audience +++ Elvis` early career was also based on quite a few cover versions, originally recorded by black artists some years earlier (e.g. Arthur Crudup's "That's all right" 1947 and Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton's "Hound dog" 1953), although, of course, recorded by the King in his own special style +++ Other examples include the Elvis cover of Carl Perkins` "Blue suede shoes", the Crewcuts covers of "Sh-Boom" and "Earth Angel", originally recorded by The Chords resp. The Penguins, Georgia Gibbs' "Dance with me Henry" (originally "Roll with me Henry" by Etta James), Bo Diddley`s "Who do you love" and lots of other titles, covered by almost every group during the Sixties, Eric Clapton's recording of Bob Marley's original "I shot the sheriff" and lots of others during the 60s and until today +++ In modern Pop and Dance music, cover versions are again quite usual +++ Sometimes they just want to "update" an older song for a new audience, but most of the times the basic idea is to capitalize on somebody's original +++ In those cases, groups like The Spice Girls become "Spice Gals" or Garth Brook appears as "Guy Brook" on the label etc. +++

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Last updated January 15, 1997
Web Page by Hans P. Lüters (hpluters@uol.com.br)