[Originally Published: June 24, 2009]

Following up on last week’s Willin’ Cover Wars, which the Black Crowes won by a small margin over Uncle Tupelo, we’re re-running an old Cover Wars on another Little Feat classic – Skin It Back…

Skin It Back is a track off the 1974 Little Feat album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. It also has the distinction of being the first Little Feat song where the songwriting credits are solely that of guitarist Paul Barrère.

Cover Wars

This is the second Little Feat song selected for CW. Longtime readers might remember that Mule was the winner of the Spanish Moon Cover Wars. [Ed. note - We've tackled Willin' since this was originally posted]

Let’s get down to business and look at this week competitors…

The Bridge: Leading off this week is the only band that also appeared in the Spanish Moon Cover Wars and there is some excellent guitar work in this one. Source: 8-17-2005

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

Bonus Video Of The Bridge [longer and looks like additional guest horn players]:

Note: There is a Part II to that video as well.

Day By The River: This now retired jamband was also featured in the You Enjoy Myself edition of Cover Wars. There is something very 1999 sounding about this recording, but I can’t exactly put it into words. There is an open-ended jam tacked on to the end that segues into another tune, hence the fadeout. Source: 3-11-1999

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Phish: Unlike the other Little Feat songs in Phish’s repertoire (Time Loves A Hero & On Your Way Down), Skin It Back has been missing in action since the late ’80s. Well, that’s not entirely true – it was soundchecked and broadcast out to the fans within radio frequency as they were headed into the IT Festival in  2003. There’s only a few recordings out there of Phish playing Skin It Back, and this is definitely the best one. Source: 7-25-1988

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String Cheese Incident: SCI played this one three times in 2002 and then it disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since. Bill Nershi provides the middle guitar solo on an acoustic, only time you’ll hear that this week. Another fadeout on this one, as they are working themselves into the jazz standard Blue Bossa. Source: 10-11-2002

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Tishamingo: This band I had never heard of destroys this tune at a great tempo. This is a good recording too (it’s had some post-production work). The cover is concise but very good. Source: 8-6-2005

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Widespread Panic: Bands like Gov’t Mule, Widespread Panic and Phish need to cut the shit and just allow their fans to put recordings up on the Live Music Archive already – it would really make my job a whole lot easier writing this every week. But alas, I can’t find a torrent I can connect to from one of the three shows where WSP played this cover back in 2002, so all you get is this crappy YouTube video.  Source: 10/31/2002

Checking in on last week’s Moonage Daydream contest, Of Montreal has claimed victory narrowly edging out The White Stripes.

Here’s a video of Little Feat too:

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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