The Green Monkey never gets cold when he's covered

The latest installment of the ongoing saga we call The Green Monkey music mix is up over at Splotchy's place. This version is all covers and their originals. I'm a big fan of covers so I jumped at the chance to be in this one. And because everyone else does it and because Splotchy demands we do it, here's my take on my selections.

Once I saw the list of folks who were in on this mix I knew which way I wanted to go with my selections. I knew that they'd pick a bunch of esoteric covers by bands most of us never heard of or listen to on a regular basis, and by and large I was right. So I went in a different direction, I decided to spotlight some well known recording artists doing some esoteric covers and some recording artists who are criminally under appreciated and ignored by the mainstream doing covers of songs by well known bands. And I wanted my selections to have a distinct rockabilly/folky air about them.

In and around 1993 or '94 I checked out a CD from a local library that was put out on the Smithsonian/Folkways label. It was a CD of modern artists covering the song of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. One of the tunes I liked best on that CD was a song by the under appreciated artist Taj Mahal.Taj is a blues singer who also does other styles as well. He's probably more well known among older black folks, and by that I mean black folks age 50 and over. Anyway, the song he did on that CD that I was taken with so much was a tune of Leadbelly's called The Bourgeois Blues. It's an autobiographical song about Leadbelly's search for a house to buy in Washington DC in the 1930's. Mahal's version chronicles all the bullshit a black man had to go through to buy a house during that time period.But when you listen to the original Leadbelly version of the song you hear more about the total package of racism that he had to endure. Leadbelly sings not just about trying to find a house in that bourgeois town Washington, DC, he also sings about being shut out of restaurants (both white and black owned) and other injustices he faced at that time. If you're not familiar with Leadbelly he is one of the fathers of modern rock and roll and if you're not familiar with Taj Mahal, then get off your ass and search some of his stuff out. As I mentioned above that Smithsonian/Folkways Cd also featured songs by Wood Guthrie covered by modern performers. One of Woody's songs that was covered was classic Do Re Mi, a song about poor southerners trekking to the promised land of California during the depths of the Great Depression. Once the folks from 'beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee' get to California, they find out it's not quite the paradise they thought it was going to be and they still need money to make their dreams come true in the Golden state. John Mellencamp covered Do Re Mi on the CD but instead of going that way I chose Ani DiFranco's version of it because I like her vocal stylings and I like that fact she cut an album with the late great Utah Phillips a few years ago.
Nanci Griffith also cut a version of Do Re Mi for her CD of covers which she called Other Voices Other Rooms. It's a nice version but the song on that CD I really liked was her cover of Gordon Lightfoot's Ten Degrees and Gettin' Colder. It's got one of the best opening stanza's ever written in a pop song and the whole song itself is dripping with Lightfoot's love of the USA. I think both versions of this song are smashingly wonderful.
The late great Buck Owens made the song Act Naturally quite famous. It's rockabilly twang not only bewitched country and pop music fans, it also made quite an impression on people like Ringo Starr and national treasure Loretta Lynn. And it's her version of his song that I included in this mix. In a side note I never realized how much the young Loretta Lynn looked like my late mother.

While searching for cover songs to be in this mix I found out that the late great Warren Zevon did a cover of Steve Winwood's Back in the High Life. The thought of Zevon crooning about being back in the high life again after his death appealed to my sometimes morbid sense of humor so I included the songs in this mix.

And finally we come to the first song I chose for this mix. Well, actually that's a lie. I actually chose John Hiat doing a version of the Bruce Springsteen Song Candy's Room, but Splotchy couldn't find a version of it online, so I had to make a substitution. And the substitution I chose was Kate Rusbydoing a version of the Kink's song The Village Green Preservation Society. This album was one of the first 'concept' albums ever put out by a major rock and roll band. It was meant to be a celebration of the vanishing idyllic British country life. But while the album was conceived as a love letter to that life and lifestyle but it came off as snarky and mean spirited at the time. The song and the album were ignored by critics and audiences alike because there were no 'hits' on the record. But as time marched on people have come around to see the genius of what Ray Davies and the Kinks did on this recording. It is now recognized as a landmark piece of music on the rock and roll scene and it's getting it's due from younger recording artists, such as Ms. Rusby. Her version of the title track is the theme song to a TV show called Clatterford that celebrates, and gently pokes fun at, modern British rural life. Both versions sound great but I like Rusby's a little better because I think her voice is sexy.

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And that's my contribution to the latest Green Monkey Music mix.