Cover versions better than the original.

Kevin-W posted:

Monster posted:

The Temptations - I Know I'm Losing You - immeasurably bettered by Rare Earth...

Interesting call - what do you think of the Earth's version of "Get Ready"?

I really like the Rare Earth version, but I think the Temptations win it by a whisker.

Tim Hardin - If I Were a Carpenter... covered by Bob Seger.

The Beatles “Things we said today” covered by Mary McCaslin. She also does a stonking  version of “Blackbird “ .

Aussie hard rock band The Angels, with the Animals cover of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" from 1987. It still blows me away today on how much better than the original it is  ( to me anyway!!!!! ) 

Sadly the lead the singer "Doc" Nesson is no longer with us.

joe cocker help from my friends  . joe played live in the pubs/club around chesterfield in the early years 

Not necessarily better but I never really understood Visions of Johanna (Bob Dylan) until I heard Chris Smither sing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYXmYm97TBg

Visions of Johanna is one of my favourite, if not my favourite Dylan song. The recording on Blonde on Blonde is superb. To me it’s a lyric kaleidoscope with an infectious tune, it means what you want it to mean depending on your mood.. a bit like the Mona Lisa with the enigmatic gaze that follows you, Visions of Johanna can mean lots of different things all at the same time depending on your thoughts and mood... almost LSD inspired.

Stevie Ray Vaughan covering Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing and The Hoax covering Stevie Wonder's Superstition, both the originals were of course wonderful, these covers take them to another level.

Without doubt, for me,  Joe Cocker and With a Little Help From My Friends is the best cover ever.

Other Beatles tracks? The Persuasions have a whole album, as well as Zappa and The Grateful Dead.

My favourite unaccompanied cover - The Kings Singers version of After The Goldrush, I saw them at The Colston Hall where they sang it as an encore, the final note faded, they walked off the stage leaving the audience in silence.

All the versions of Black Coffee, hard to call, but for me, Ella just makes it.

Just to finish, I almost forgot - SAHB and Delilah!

K.D. Lang's version of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You. Magical!

Now I've been a blues fan since schooldays, and Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign" is one of the classics, so it might seem like

heresy to be posting William Bell's version.

Still, he did co-write the song with Booker T Jones, and his interpretation here might not be "better", but he's taken the song to a whole

new place, IMHO.

I think Tricky's cover of Britney Spears "Piece of me" is bloody brilliant.I don't know if Britney wrote the lyrics but whoever did.It nicely conveys how she was so in the public spotlight with her career at the height of it.I thought it was great when she shaved her head.It was like a Fuc* you to the industry I just don't care anymore moment.

Love Tricky's cover and only 2.14   long.......short and very sweet  

Talking of Tricky, his cover of Public Enemy's "Black Steel In The Hour OF Chaos" ("Black Steel") may just shade the original...

Close call but "Ring of Fire" by the Animals

Damm then the next Track "River Deep Mountain High" by the Animals

Deep Purple’s version of Ike & Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High (from The Book of Taliesyn album). Not because I don’t like the otiginal, which is actually one of the very few TT things that I do quite like, and it to say why I prefer the DO version, other perhaps than because it was the first version I heard, and I quite like the atmospheric presentation.

[Edit] And that crossed Xenasis’s mention of the same song! I don’t recall the Animals’ version, so I’ll have to have a listen.

Another Outstanding cover by The Animals "To Love Somebody" can anyone tell me who the backing female vocalist is?

You may have guessed already am listening to The Animals at the moment lol !!!

Innocent Bystander posted:

///// Often I simply find I prefer the first version I hear and like, whether or not the original, but definitely not the case with tose two./////

Interestingly I often find this with Classical works - if you hear a work for the first time and enjoy it, the music imprints into your brain and subsequent/older versions often do not resonate even if they may be technically better or better received by the press.

Appreciate for many of these works there is no 'original' but I've always found this an interesting phenomenon.

Alley Cat posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

///// Often I simply find I prefer the first version I hear and like, whether or not the original, but definitely not the case with tose two./////

Interestingly I often find this with Classical works - if you hear a work for the first time and enjoy it, the music imprints into your brain and subsequent/older versions often do not resonate even if they may be technically better or better received by the press.

Appreciate for many of these works there is no 'original' but I've always found this an interesting phenomenon.

Yes, and a  cases in point is Schubert’s Trout Quintet that I bought in about 1969, a mono recording by members of Vienna octet with Walter Panhoffer (Ace of Clubs ACL32). (mono).I have tried dozens of versions since, trying to get something that sounds as good to me, but in stereo, to no avail - no other interpretation has matched it, so I still play that original (now ripped and streamed).

But with some otherr pieces I am quite happy to hear multiple interpretations!

Innocent Bystander posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

///// Often I simply find I prefer the first version I hear and like, whether or not the original, but definitely not the case with tose two./////

Interestingly I often find this with Classical works - if you hear a work for the first time and enjoy it, the music imprints into your brain and subsequent/older versions often do not resonate even if they may be technically better or better received by the press.

Appreciate for many of these works there is no 'original' but I've always found this an interesting phenomenon.

Yes, and a  cases in point is Schubert’s Trout Quintet that I bought in about 1969, a mono recording by members of Vienna octet with Walter Panhoffer (Ace of Clubs ACL32). (mono).I have tried dozens of versions since, trying to get something that sounds as good to me, but in stereo, to no avail - no other interpretation has matched it, so I still play that original (now ripped and streamed).

But with some otherr pieces I am quite happy to hear multiple interpretations!

Odd isn't it, I first heard this version of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on a mate's cheap CD player in the late 80's and it blew me away (both the CD and the quality from a low end CD player, maybe a Yamaha, I forget exactly which).

Have listened to many versions since, and was expecting much from Simon Rattle's CBSO version but found it frankly boring.

This Rattle version btw not the later one.

Joe’s version or the Fabs.????

No doubt about this one: the Bauhaus version of ‘Ziggy Stardust’ smokes the original. Heretical but true. Play very loud indeed.

In very close second place, Robert Wyatt’s version of ‘Shipbuilding’ (Elvis Costello).

Johnny Cash recorded a few, One from U2 (already mentioned by Bruce) and I See A Darkness from Bonnie Prince Billie aka Will Oldham and one I never thought possible: Bridge Over  Troubled Water. The original from Simon and Garfunkel is a true classic, but Johnny Cash digs so much deeper into its meaning, that I am still speechless while listening to it.

Another good one is Satisfaction as recorded by Cat Power.   

Innocent Bystander posted:

 

Anti-Nowhere League‘s version of Streets of London - takes Ralph McTell’s hauntingly moving song and thrusts the reality of life on the streets in your face.

Gosh, I didn’t have you down as an Anti Nowhere League fan! I loved that song back in the day. Didn’t it come with the wonderful So What, with a particularly memorable chorus?

I love Steely Dan, but like Rickie Lee Jones’s version of Showbiz Kids more than the original. It’s more stripped down, yet somehow more immediate, perhaps more spiteful.