O-o-h Child was originally recorded by Chicago’s Five Stairsteps, it was released both as a single and on the 1970 album The Stairsteps. O-o-h Child reached #8 on the Billboard charts. What did I learn this week? That the correct way to spell the song title is O-o-h Child.

Cover Wars

The Contestants:

Beth Orton: Beth Orton leads us off this week with her down-tempo solo acoustic performance. This cover was included in an episode of the television show Alias. Source: The Other Side Of Daybreak

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READ ON for the rest of this week’s contestants…

Brock Butler: Brock, with a little help from some live overdubs, puts together a strong solo performance. Source: 11-20-2007

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Cyndi Lauper & Destiny’s Child: Both Cyndi Lauper and Destiny’s Child have performed this song on their own, but I liked this collaboration better than the YouTube performances that can be found of the artists performing the tune on their own.

Dino: Like the original, Dino’s synth-drums-heavy version also placed on the Billboard charts, reaching #27 on the Hot 100 in 1993. Source: The Way I Am

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Hall & Oates: Well it’s about time Hall & Oates made their Cover Wars debut! Sounds like they made a lot of small lyric changes as well. It’s interesting. Source: Our Kind of Soul

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Nina Simone: This one is great. Released in 1971 just a year after the original, its got a great brisk tempo and nice guitar tone. Source: Here Comes The Sun

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Tim Palmieri: This is pretty similar to Brock Butler’s take above. Makes me think, these two jamband front-men could really put together a crazy acoustic-duo tour. Source: 9-25-2006

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Trey Anastasio: O-o-h Child was a staple on the Trey Trio tour in 1999, being played almost every show. When the horns were added in the Winter of 2001, the song transferred over, but became increasingly rare and disappeared after two performances in the Summer of ’01. The song came back for two performances in 2004, once at the private show for Jake Burton and once at Austin City Limits. And then it disappeared again and came back for a few performances without horns during the Classic TAB Tour of ’08. There’s no real soaring peak in this one (like a lot of the ’99 performances), but it’s a real nice volume control jam. Source: 8-2-2001

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Checking in on last week’s Harvest Moon Cover Wars, the collaboration of Pearl Jam and Sleater-Kinney has emerged victorious.

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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