Artist: Diana Ross & The Supremes + The Temptations
Album: Join the Temptations / Together
The Skinny: “Diana Ross & The Supremes and The Temptations”, it is kind of a mouthful. But that is who came together for this record in 1969.
Artist: Grateful Dead
Album: 10-22-1990
The Skinny: Played by the Grateful Dead in the 1990’s, almost exclusively in the encore slot, featured different band members (including bassist Phil Lesh) taking a turn at lead vocal duties.
Eerily, the video below is from Brent Mydland’s last show with the Grateful Dead before he died. The last line he sung solo into a microphone was, “I gotta go, but my friend can stick around”
Artist: Jackie DeShannon
Album: What The World Needs Now Is…Jackie DeShannon – The Definitive Collection
The Skinny: Released as a single in 1968 and now available on the collection above, DeShannon is joined by Barry White on backup vocals.
Singing along on TV:
Artist: Jim Weider’s ProJECT PERCoLAToR
Album: 1-20-2006
The Skinny: Robbie Robertson’s replacement in The Band in 1985, Jim Weider turns in this instrumental reggae interpretation here from 2006 backed by his ProJECT PERCoLAToR ensemble.
Live video from 2008:
Artist: Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White
Album: It Might Get Loud
The Skinny: This is the closing scene of the film It Might Get Loud featuring Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.
Artist: King Curtis
Album: Instant Soul: The Legendary King Curtis
The Skinny: The second of this week’s contestants to include Duane Allman on guitar, this version and the Aretha Franklin cover both appear on the Duane Allman Anthology, a must-have for any music collector.
Artist: Little Feat with Bela Fleck
Album: Join the Band
The Skinny: In addition to this guest appearance from Fleck, this appropriately named 2008 album from Little Feat is littered with high-profile sit-ins from Dave Matthews, Emmylous Harris and others.
Live video of Little Feat with John Kadlecik (Furthur, Dark Star Orchestra) on fiddle:
Artist: The Radiators
Album: 6-3-2005
The Skinny: It is no surprise that these road warriors (though now retired), showed up on a search of the Live Music Archive. A fantastic band.
A live take from their farewell tour this past April:
Artist: Staple Singers
Album: Soul Folk in Action
The Skinny: Perhaps known more for joining The Band on the version found on The Last Waltz, The Staple Singers recorded their own fantastic studio rendition in 1968.
Artist: Travis
Album: Igby Goes Down
The Skinny: This version found on the soundtrack for Igby Goes Down has a laid-back tempo, and reminds my roommate Jon of, “a kid pensively walking around a city trying to figure his life out.”
As seen in the movie:
And a take from Live on Later with Jools Holland:
Artist: Weezer
Album: Weezer (Red Album Deluxe)
The Skinny: And last, but not necessarily least, in this massive 12-cover version of Cover Wars is a bonus track from Weezer’s Red Album.
Checking in on last week’s Walking The Cow Cover Wars, the solo rendition from Eddie Vedder has emerged victorious.
5 Responses
Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings w/ Old Crow Medicine Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXf-SuBbJa0
Though I cast my vote for Feat & Bela, if permitted I would have done a writein candidate: Cassandra Wilson from Belly of the Sun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26I1EHGgmI
Huge Cassandra fan, Parker. Great call . . .
Aretha kills it in her version…pretty sure you have the wrong link up there for the full album though (You linked to the Staple Singers)
It is on this album for certain:
http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Aretha-Franklin-60s/dp/B00000337Z/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1312316332&sr=1-1
So hard to pick. So many have covered, because this is one the greatest songs ever written IMHO.