best beatles covers. ever.

HS

Firewater attempted "Hey Bulldog," but sorta failed, though I love them.

The Wedding Present did a reasonably competent version of "It's Getting Better."

No one has ever done a decent version of "Helter Skelter," `cept maybe Siouxsie

I used to quite like the Mission's rendering of "Tomorrow Never Knows," but time has not been kind to it.

i heard this for the first time yesterday (thanks, YSI thread!) and it is fucking awesome. i was disappointed by the fall's "day in the life".

Ooh...seconded! And how could I have forgotten that Laibach opus?!?!

How on earth is this possible?

Speaking of Hendrix, I've always liked his version of "Day Tripper" from the Radio One sessions.

isnt there some sort of Rubber soul tribute coming out? I know Ted Leo is supposed to play a cover of "Im looking through you" which should be incredible

comes out october 11th

OTM@!&!&

ooh!

their cover of "long long long" is sublime. i should have mentioned this already.

And an unknown Japanese guy savaging Eleanor Rigby.
http://s43.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=268VIVWTGLD761S9XSGPXA4A9B

Sorry, have to disagree. I found that album unlistenable, except the ones she sang in Portuguese were okay.

I'll go for "Tomorrow Never Knows" by Junior Parker.

A Hard Day's Night - The Supremes
Eleanor Rigby - The Four Tops
We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder
Hey Jude - The Temptations
Yesterday - Marvin Gaye
The Long and Winding Road - Diana Ross
Come Together - The Supremes
She's Leaving Home - Syreeta
You Can't Do That - The Supremes
Fool On The Hill - The Four Tops
Michelle - The Four Tops
And I Love Her - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
Something - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Let It Be - Gladys Knight & The Pips
Imagine - Diana Ross
My Love - Jr. Walker
My Sweet Lord - Edwinn Starr

Beach Boys doing "Hide Your Love Away." Ian Gomm "You Can't Do That" (leaves out the bridge).

Booker T. "Hard Day's Night." Jr. Parker does, as is mentioned earlier, "Tomorrow Never Knows," also "Lady Madonna." And Lowell Fulson does "Why Don't We Do It in the Road."

For that matter, I like Earth, Wind & Fire's "Got to Get You Into My Life." Anne Murray "You Won't See Me."

oh, i found one, the charles river valley boys on their 1966 record "beatle country". nice bluegrass record. i'm basically done with the project to my satisfaction, although there certainly is room for improvement in some respects. the whole listing is up on my old blogspot blog.

oh that's right, i remember you mentioning it another thread. yikes between that and misspelling emitt rhodes on the emitt rhodes thread i think i need to take a nap or something

yeah i could use a nice long nap myself

budo-- Either/Orchestra does a pretty tasty version of "Don't Bother Me" on their album "Afro-Cubism."

i know it was mentioned upthread, but ramsey lewis' take on the white album deserves a mention. the album as a whole is kind of schmaltzy, but his 'cry baby cry' is definitely enshrined near the top of my mountain of smooth jazz greats. don't know if it was recorded while maurice white was still in the group, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's him on drums.

sorry but it's a masterpiece and there's no need for qualifiers / name-calling

xp thanks slim

budo-- Either/Orchestra does a pretty tasty version of "Don't Bother Me" on their album "Afro-Cubism."

― SlimAndSlam

those scamps! totally escaped my notice, even though i love them.

had to check to see that it wasn't me who mentioned the ramsey lewis record upthread - i know i have gone to bat for it in very strong terms before (something along the lines of "There's one great LP inside the White Album, and it turns out to be this one"). Brilliant arranging work by Charles Stepney. Pretty sure Phil Upchurch is involved on this one as well.

here's the "without the beatles" collection of beatles covers i've compiled.

https://weirdthingsonbetamax.blogspot.com/2020/04/without-beatles.html

this ray brown "good day sunshine" is ridiculously axelrodded-out. i love it, i can't believe i haven't heard it before. mind you i do also _really_ love roy redmond's take on it.

i also would like to point out that the folder i found it in also had an axelrod version of "for what it's worth" credit to lou reed. this is probably not the first time someone has confused lou reed with lou rawls but it's the first time i've seen it.

the one left that i have sort of cheated on is "good morning, good morning". haven't heard a version of that i dig.

i think the flaming lips etc. version is cool but i can see why people might not like it

re: ramsey lewis, you made those comments on the "soul funk covers of beatles tunes" thread or whatever it's called. been digging through all the beatles covers threads today, there's also this which you might find interesting:

CDR700GO!: Delete the Beatles

that person picked this version, which i'd never heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQp2qKsPgI

yeah i used douglas as a source for my own explorations... i definitely know the "sgt. pepper knew my father" comp, there's two cuts from it in the project, which i'm not entirely happy with but there's no goddamn way i could say no either to sonic youth's magisterial "within you without you" or the fall's "a day in the life". in any case the triffids' version doesn't grab me, i just don't think the gated reverb works in its favor.

how do you feel about the flaming lips version ?

or this for that matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JOBsR65QOA

"I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" is the only Lennon/McCartney song to hit #1 on the country charts

didn't know this !

v interesting + informative blog post all around

haha did _not_ realize shabaka and the ancestors had essayed it since i started my project, well, that's a fucking shoo-in, easy enough!

right now i'm working my way through an axelrod-helmed record of '60s pop hits by the four king cousins that has another attempt at "good day sunshine" - the group vocals are often painfully stiff but then it goes into this bridge sort of inspired by the hocketed ending that's fairly psychedelic and mind-blowing. quality selection of material and fine production makes up for the basic lack of character in the vocals. the take on "god only knows" has elements that remind me a bit of the bioshock infinite arrangement...

stiff vocals redeemed by quality psychedelic production basically explains how i feel about his work on the electric prunes record

it's unfortunate because the prunes were a fucking great band before he came along... they killed it live

totally.

and self-correction: there are two axelrod / prunes records but i'm talking specifically about "mass in F minor" as i'm not as familiar with the other one.

some other covers that aren't in my blog post but which i think are pretty nice:

Wat? Sanitär! do a pretty good minimal synth take on "everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey"... the Feelies' version is of course redoubtable

i do genuinely like benny goodman's take on "octopus's garden", even if i am also very partial to mike westbrook's reading. goodman's is more traditionally jovial. it also makes me happy to think that goodman's career encompassed both the work of bela bartok and ringo starr.

i'm also fond of mccoy tyner's take on "she's leaving home" - yeah, there's nothing terribly _exceptional_ about it, compared to l'infonie's mind-bending brass adaptation of the song, but there's just so much _class_ to tyner that it's hard to resist, even though nothing else on the comp it was on particularly appealed to me.

i'm late but my thing went off because of the david axelrod mention. and yes: that ray brown cover is absolutely peak "big picture" axe. awesome awesome awesome.

also,

and self-correction: there are two axelrod / prunes records but i'm talking specifically about "mass in F minor" as i'm not as familiar with the other one.

― budo jeru, Monday, July 20, 2020 5:54 PM (three days ago)

man, you gotta check out release of an oath soon! it's pretty much just an axelrod album in all but name. amazing stuff.

sorry for derail revive. here's lou rawls doing a nice axelrod-produced jazzy pop soul rendition of 'yesterday'.

i did actually check it out right after i made that post and i feel it's about as good "mass" with more or less the same strengths and weaknesses. it's a fun listen for sure.

re: funky over-arranged studio productions of beatle-written tunes, here's johnny harris with "give peace a chance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOIES0wkkLA

there's also good (almost) instrumental version of "something" on the same record that is so very, very axelrod-esque and very worth checking out.

that lou rawls tune is killer, Austin

sorry i mean the song is definitely good and it's mostly an instrumental

and one last bit of west coast studio excellence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJBIzi4oPFc
don randi trio - tomorrow never knows

Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle's 1987 Peel Session consisted of four Beatles covers, including 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' in German and possibly the only good version of Ringo's 'Don't Pass Me By'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE7ekvSBLSo

i kinda like this czech version of "don't pass me by"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cljXAMj-3g

ahh man, revolver jazz! the things one forgets! a coworker way back had a copy that he dangled in front of me a time or two. completely forgot it existed not long after leaving that job.

i also remember buying the johnny harris album after much hype and anticipation (when it was first reissued in the early 2000s) and thinking it was, uhm, not that noteworthy. "what was the last allegedly classic album you got and were underwhelmed by?"

see, i'm just hearing the johnny harris record for the first time and i'm feeling like it's super quality, god kind of an andrew oldham orchestra feel to it. what's not to like?

well, this fucking rocks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdwzko9DZ0s

nice!

Junior Parker's version of Tomorrow Never Knows has been mentioned above, but his version of Taxman is also spine-tingling.

Lemmy Kilmister·John 5·Eric Singer - back in the ussr

(nice hill to die on)

There's an amazing David Axelrod-helmed cover of 'Good Day Sunshine' on this album but I can't find it streaming anywhere. I'll upload it when I get home. It's pretty trippy, and plenty rad.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, October 9, 2018 3:08 PM

nearly four years later and i've finally followed through—

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDKc4TTF8J4

ray brown — "good day sunshine" (1969)

album info.

one of the best arrangements axelrod ever did.

this set of covers by various soul and reggae versions hits the spot.

that said, i always select the 4hero mixtape version.

https://www.discogs.com/release/1343098-Various-We-Can-Work-It-Out-Covers-Cookies-Of-Lennon-McCartney-The-Beatles

that ray brown version is so good!

one of the best arrangements axelrod ever did.

bloody hell, i had no idea re this album.
i guess there are no digital options ?

i've never heard the whole album.

i ripped that from this compilation. it's been one of my holy grails for a while. cheap copies on discogs, but i have not a turntable anymore.

sorry for derailing thread. sadlol.

It's been mentioned a couple times upthread but I'll third or fourth the recommendations for Ramsey Lewis's Mother Nature's Son, which has some really exceptional arrangements.

doh : i have that Axe comp.
would love to hear the rest of that album of course.

this is the only other song i've found. supercheese. i've heard it's a really bad album besides the beatles cover. axelrod did work on some other very schmaltzy records around the same time (some of which inevitably have another beatles cover or two).

fair enough.
makes me glad to have ripped my skinny promo cd-r of the anthology comp before it got too wrecked.
i got it years before i realised who/why/where etc ...

all of which reminds me ..

post beatles vs library brilliance

https://www.discogs.com/master/1710161-The-Larry-Page-Orchestra-And-Chorus-John-Paul-George-Ringo

jimmy ponder - while my guitar gently weeps

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

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

Cathy Berberian - Ticket to Ride

(For those that may now know, she was a mezzo-soprano who specialized in contemporary music and a composer. She was also married to Luciano Berio who several works for her.)

Bluegrass covers of I've Just Seen a Face there are many. Ones which also incorporate hiccuping reels into the middle and end there is but one. Good harmonic invention vocally too.

Look I just like this stuff okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sc3RU6Hsv0

The Dillards did "I've Just Seen a Face" back in 1968, I assume that was the first one.

This one builds up a nice head of steam.

Doug Parkinson In Focus - Dear Prudence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a51r1wjaU0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esi7GO6VXU4

The Dillards did "I've Just Seen a Face" back in 1968, I assume that was the first one.

I believe it originated with the Charles River Valley Boys in 1966, who used their version as the springboard for a whole album.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatle_Country

Ah right, good stuff!

I wouldn't say it's one of the best ever but at least it's different. Zeus B. Held, "The Fool on the Hill"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u-fSjhmDAs

was this linked somewhere on ilx? some of it it fun/eerie:

https://hallelujahthehills.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-the-beatles-as-channeled-in-1958-by-the-echo-lake-home-for-the-potentially-clairvoyant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Sqdey1c2s