Looking back at last week’s Spanish Moon edition, Gov’t Mule has walked away with a narrow victory over Robert Palmer. In what was surely a coincidence: A day after last week’s Cover Wars, Mike Gordon welcomed one of last week’s contenders The Bridge to the stage during his encore at The Highline Ballroom for – you guessed it, Spanish Moon. Thanks for reading Cover Wars, Cactus!

This week, I have selected a track off of Derek & The Dominos 1970 release Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. If you don’t already know about Eric Clapton in the early 70′s, let’s just say it’s safe to assume the original recording was probably captured while Slowhand lay on the ground really high on heroin…and trying to steal away George Harrison’s wife.

As always, be sure to register/login to IMEEM so you hear entire songs and not just 30-second clips.

READ ON after the jump for the voting, some videos and more…

Big Toe: The lineup of this Black Crowes side-band is somewhat up for discussion. The best information I could find was on etree and it reads, Marc Ford – guitar, Chris Robinson – vocals, Steve Gorman – drums, Charlie Quintana of Ju Ju Hounds – drums, Eric Bobo – percussion, Jimmy Ashurst – bass, & Rami Jaffee – keys. As Robinson points out at the end of the song, yes indeed they did skip the last verse. The recording may not be of the highest quality, but hearing Robinson sing this tune is nifty. There’s lots of other interesting covers from this show in 1993 over at bt.etree.org

Ekoostik Hookah: The guys in Hookah do a tight arrangement here and are the first of this week’s contestants to channel a little Joe Cocker in the vocal delivery of some of the lines. Check out the whole show on The Archive

Josh Clark’s Guitarmaggedon: This show finds Clark putting together a large band to tackle a lot of classic rock, mostly Clapton related. The notes on the recording indicate this is Sean Leahy singing lead with three female backup vocalists. Leahy takes some artistic freedom with the vocal melody, perhaps to better fit his own range. There’s some nice work from all the musicians in middle section which is the most stretched out of any of this week’s selections. You can check out this whole show on The Archive

Tesla: Tesla FINALLY makes their CW debut with this track off the 2007 release Real to Reel. Definitely a strong effort, if you like this you should check out the rest of the release that includes covers of: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Traffic, Led Zeppelin, etc.

Trey Anastasio: This got debuted at the first show “The Trio” ever played in 1999. He played it two more times before it disappeared. It is certainly a treat to hear Trey’s gentle interpretation of a Clapton original. Most surprising aspect of The Trio’s cover? Very competent back-up vocals from Russ Lawton and Tony Markellis. Trey chooses to extend the outro of this song with some tasteful guitar work. The version came from the show at The Murat, 5-4-1999 via bt.etree.org

Umphrey’s McGee: Early in 2005, UM debuted covers of both this tune and Layla. Layla has stuck around in the rotation while Bell Bottom Blues was played four times and put on the shelf. These guys tackle this one at a brisker pace than our other bands this week, cutting a five-plus minute song down to a mere three and half minutes. I think I’ve said it before, but I’d love to see more Jake Cinninger lead vocals from this band. This is from an official matrix recording you can grab off of The Archive

And as I like to do here at the bottom, some live videos of the original artist:

Fully orchestrated in 1990:

An official video clip from Warner Brothers Records. From the Staples Center in 2001. Officially released on the DVD One More Car, One More Rider (Billy Preston on the keyboards, Rest In Peace):

DaveO

David Onigman is a recent transplant from Boston to San Francisco. In addition to behind the scenes work and the occasional post, DaveO contributes the (almost) weekly Cover Wars column, though he's always looking for guest authors for it.

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