10 Top Covers of 2013

My top 10 covers of 2013*, oh my I love covers, including having bought Lissa Schneckenburger's CD called Covers, and the Tribute to John Denver, Music is You!  They really could have filled the entire top ten, but that would have been boring.  So what did the year hold? An incredible cover of Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore, and my treat was hearing it live too... sounded a lot like this:



I of course should share the list:

Oh my there are 11... we'll eleven is better and louder than 10 and the last one you will not find anywhere because it was recorded live during our house concert.  A country tinged version with 3 part harmonies of the Beyonce's hit.

A few of these are covers of traditional songs like Tom Waits' cover of Shenadoah that I got off of a Noisetrade mix, or join the Dala Girls newsletter and get Red is the Rose, but if you spend $.99 on any song the one I think is the best is Nobody Knows.... It sure doesn't sound like this:




* Now anyone who knows my 2013 criteria is if I downloaded or bought it this year... I despise annual lists that forget about "LAST YEAR's" music like it has no value anymore to be discovered.

Your sweet and shiny eyes..

This is one of my favorite Bonnie Raitt songs... so much so it's my current most played song in my iTunes database.  Our little Lucky Dog group has a a few women who have adopted it.. and I play the part of Tom Waits from the original song and join in on the bar chorus.  I just absolutely love this group and wish I was with them to party after the video was done.

Come on up to the house

So lately I've taken pause to find Sarah Jarosz to fill in voids. She does the ultimate best cover of Ring them Bells, one of my top 25 all time Bob Dylan songs. So when I bought her song Come on up the House, I did not know that it was a Tom Waits song. So I went on to YouTube for this adventure, and I might as well bring you along. First Sarah from when she was on Austin City Limits: Then Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow did a duet with it... This one by The Spring Standards is outstanding and it makes me want to get our little cover band to add it to our set list. Then there is the master song writer... I share a poor quality video of a live recording rather than like the Willie one above. I kind of despise when people steal the song from a music file and post it to YouTube with one picture. (stealing and lazy.)

Heather Waters is coming back Sunday Oct 4th

She blew away the Bluff View Concert audience away last time, and it was right after she had released Propeller. I hadn't had a chance to get it before the concert... but wow... it went on to become the Zemmy CD of the Year. This song, Diamond in your Mind was one of the finest, and it does show Heather's intelligence at finding the right song. I love to songwrite, but I know 100% of my songs aren't the best and if I had a voice like Heather's I'd be looking for material to cover. It was only today that I found it was written by the master, Tom Waits with Kathleen Brennan. I have to ask Heather where she finds her material. I know this little unkown songwriter who can't sing worth the sh.... HA.



Oh yeah, the guy in the video is the guitarist who will be touring with Heather this fall, Chuck Lee Bramlett. Next up, here is the YouTube that posted who wrote the song... boy it's fun to contrast the two versions.

Tom Waits from 1974

Truly a find...even better if it's free, either way worth a listen

I follow the ww.aquariumdrunkard.com blog, and this one looks real interesting... so instead of me forgetting about it, I thought I'd share it on the show.

Per the blog:

This KPFK radio session from 1974, recorded for the Folkscene program, finds Waits between his Closing Time LP and its follow up The Heart of Saturday Night. Amazing stuff - a snapshot in time of a young Waits just off touring the southeast with Frank Zappa. PS - Don’t skip the interviews.

And they are all there to enjoy... Not sure yet if it's free, but if it's on the computer that's almost there any who....