[Bootpathguy]

[Brian Curtis]

Any thread that includes the Young Marble Giants and Buddy and Julie Miller is a huge winner in my book! Many of these posts have inspired me so with that in mind... I've long thought the ultimate bluegrassfication of a song was 1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Richard Thompson. It doesn't hurt that the song is a stunning piece of songwriting, but based on the original Del McCoury Band cover it has become a bluegrass standard.

And since I brought up Richard Thompson I can't resist this cover. Oops!... I Did It Again is a Brittany Spears song, but it was written by the Swedish pop songwriters/producers Max Martin and Rami Yacoub who are behind many, many hit songs.

Since Buddy Miller came up I'll have to include a Buddy Miller cover. There are lots of great ones to choose from but I'm going to go with Johnny & Jack's Poison Love (written by Elmer Laird). All your poison love has stained the lifeblood in my heart and soul, dear...

(And a link to another version that isn't professionally filmed, but one I'm partial to because I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the performance).

[Brian Curtis]

In the category of songs I didn't know where covers when they were first released I present not one but two covers. First up is the original from 1965 by Little Bob and the Lollipops with I Got Loaded.

And Los Lobos who's cover first introduced me to the song.

And I can't resist the Wood Brothers version because, well, the Wood Brothers are great and should be included here.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Glad to see I share similar tastes with several others. I took a break for a few days but I definitely got more cover tunes up my sleeves. Gillian Welch is another not real well known musician that is absolute fantastic. Brilliant songwriter, angelic voice, she seems to have an old soul, like her songs could've been written 75 or 100 years ago. I think this one has been covered numerous times. Emmylou put a really different spin on it.

If you ever get a chance to see Gillian live, do it! She puts on a fantastic show. No frills, just her and David Rawlings on stage, each with a guitar, but that is all they need. It doesn't feel sparse or like anything is missing. And they play LONG shows, you get your money's worth.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

I see there are definitely some bluegrass fans. While they take songs from other genres and put a spin on it, there is also a proud tradition of doing bluegrass standards written by Bill Monroe, the Stanleys, Flat & Scruggs, etc. generation after generation. Crooked Still was a great young acoustic band that was influenced by bluegrass among other things. They have a bunch of great covers as well as some originals. Here's one.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Alison Krauss is a wonderful singer and fiddle player. Song writing isn't really her thing, so many of her songs are covers.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

How about Nitty Gritty Dirt Band doing Springsteen?

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Plenty of artists do whole albums of covers. Pretty low hanging fruit, but why not. Kasey Chambers doing a Nanci Griffith song? Yes please! (edited--with a nice vocal assist from the lovely Ashleigh Dallas)

And while she hasn't recorded this one Kasey regularly does it live and tears it up! I've seen her do it a couple times (at the Tractor Tavern of course).

[olderthanIusedtobe]

This is another major departure from the original. Not a big fan of the Prince version, but I like what the Derailers did to it.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Old 97s adding new lyrics to a Dylan song.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

I know I was thinking of this before but forgot to add it. The fine 90's teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" was my introduction to the band Letters to Cleo. They had several songs in the movie and even appeared briefly as themselves. A couple nice covers from them.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Dang it, stayed up too late doing this. Last one for now. (nothing even slightly bluegrassy or folky here... )

[tmatlack]

She Talks to Angels: Black Crowes and Blake Shelton

[Schenk]

One of the WORST covers ever: 5 Finger Discount, er, uh, Death Punch, doing Bad Company's "Bad Company" The singer sounds like he has a range of about an octave, and doesn't even use all of that. His phony emotional "groan-croaking" makes me reach for the radio knob in .0001 seconds. It is so bad that I had to wonder if it was Nickleback trying to crap out a rendition of the song when I heard it the first time.

[Get Out and Go]

Taking a while to check out some of these covers. Even Poco here. I thought I was the only one alive that listened to them. I have a fistful of their LPs. Talk about degrees of separation. That's one band that connects to Eagles, Loggins and Messina (obviously), Buffalo Springfield and on and on.... Anyway, I adore Cat Stevens (writer), but prefer the upbeat infectious smiles of The Tremeloes.