Cover Wars: Sitting In Limbo Edition
We do not as of now have a winner to report from last week when we looked at six covers of Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys. At the time of publishing this post, The Bridge & Mr. Blotto are literally tied, so if you haven’t already: Go listen and place your vote.

This week’s song, originally by Jimmy Cliff, first appeared on the 1971 album Another Cycle but is more well known for its inclusion on the 1972 The Harder They Come soundtrack which was produced and compiled by Cliff.
Be sure to register/login to IMEEM so the playlist below loads full-length tracks.
RSS readers, click here to launch the playlist
READ ON after the jump to vote for your favorite cover…
David Gans: Gans is best known for his role as producer and host of the Grateful Dead Hour radio program, but he’s also a musician and makes his CW debut this week (The first of many Garcia/Dead-related bands). Source: 8-17-2002
Jerry Garcia & David Grisman: I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the bands included this week were inspired to play this song by Jerry Garcia in addition to Jimmy Cliff. Source: The Garcia Discs/Jerry Collection (A Track from 1992)
While I chose to include a track of Garcia/Grisman in the playlist, the tune was also a staple of most Garcia side-bands and here is a video from 1980 that is up on YouTube of JGB doing the tune. (The video starts rolling 0:36 into the clip):
The Neville Brothers: The Neville Brothers throw down a short and tight rendition here taken from the most recent Gathering Of The Vibes. Source: 8-3-2008
Railroad Earth: A very tasteful performance from RRE that includes some double-saxophone action from Andy Goessling. Source: 10-1-2003
Ratdog: Told you there would be a lot of Dead-related bands. Ratdog is also making their CW debut this week. Normally, if the Grateful Dead are an available choice for Cover Wars, I’ll skip over renditions that their side-bands have also played. But since the Dead never played Sitting In Limbo, and there’s no personnel overlap from the Jerry renditions, I can happily include this. Source: 4-7-2005
Trey Anastasio: There have been a number of covers featured from Trey’s first post-Phish-break-up tour in April-May of 2005. This is yet another in a long line of well-picked tunes that depicted the emotions Anastasio was going through after the dismantling of his primary band.
Willie Nelson: Last but not least is the Red Headed Stranger laying down a strong take that comes to us off of a Farm Aid compilation, which coincidentally just took place this past weekend in Mansfield, MA. Source: Farm Aid: Vol. 1
And that’s all we’ve got this week, please scroll up to the top to place your vote. I leave you with a link to a great Jimmy Cliff video (embedding is disabled so you must navigate to YouTube for this one).











April 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
[...] Last week it was down to two. In one corner we had Mr. Blotto’s 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and in the other corner we had Jerry Garcia & David Grisman’s Sitting In Limbo. [...]
March 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
[...] A Day In The Life – Phish vs. Sitting In Limbo – Garcia/Grisman [...]
March 29th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
[...] Sledgehammer – DMB vs. Sittin’ In Limbo – Garcia/Grisman [...]
March 20th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
[...] The Seeker – Pearl Jam vs. Sittin’ In Limbo – Garcia/Grisman [...]
October 29th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The version of Sitting that Trey just performed in Richmond gave me goosebumps that I still have today……well maybe I have chicken pox, but you get the point.