Hello and welcome to another installment of Ken’s “Covers.” A “Cover” (or “Cover” Song”) is a re-recording of one act’s song by another artist. Familiar “Covers” include Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” makeover of the same number that was first a hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips or Ike and Tina Turner’s remake of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

I’m always looking for an opportunity to familiarize you with “Covers” of songs you may not even know were reworked. Here’s another for you to enjoy that was originally released in 1967 by the Soul Brothers Six. Don’t feel bad if you can’t recall this group because they never enjoyed the success of having a big hit song. Seven years later, their #91 flop became a #3 smash hit for Grand Funk.

Take a listen to different versions of “Some Kind of Wonderful” – the original by the Soul Brothers Six and the one we play by Grand Funk on Classic Hits 94.9 WOLX

Popularity: 12% [?]

The more I dig through the Classic Hits 94.9 WOLX music library the more cover version examples I’m reminded of. Here’s another great example of a song that bombed for one singer yet went all the way to the top for another.

You may recall Betty Everett who scored two Top 10 hits in 1964 with “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” and “Let It Be Me” – a duet she shared with the great Jerry Butler.  Before she recorded either of these songs, Betty released a song late in 1963 that just missed the Top 50. End of story? Almost but not quite!

Flash forward to 1974 and Peter Asher (the “Peter” of Peter and Gordon) who was producing Linda Ronstadt’s soon-to-be-released album “Heart Like a Wheel.”  Asher brought the failed Betty Everett song into the sessions, Ronstadt reluctantly recorded it and in early 1975 it became her first and suprisingly only Number 1 single hit.  I hope you’ll enjoy listening to these two very different versions of “You’re No Good.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

When we last met in Classic Hits 94.9 WOLX “Blogland”, I blew the whistle on Blondie’s 1981 #1 “The Tide Is High” as originally done by the Jamaican band The Paragons. “Tide” isn’t the only song you hear on 94.9 WOLX that had a life before we “first” heard it.

Here’s another all-time favorite #1 song you ask for all the time by the 1964 British Invasion group Manfred Mann. However, the cat is once again out the bag because the Manfreds version isn’t the original. That honor goes to the Exciters best known for their 1963 Top 10 hit “Tell Him.“

The Exciters take on “Do Wah Diddy (as it appeared on the record label) sputtered out at the lower reaches of the Top 100 early in 1964 while the Manfred Mann cover recording you know and love reached #1 in America in October that same year. Why not enjoy your own private “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” A/B comparison listening party right now!

Popularity: 7% [?]

It’s a reasonable assumption for me to believe that you already know that the Isley Brothers recorded “Twist and Shout” before the Beatles did and Buddy Holly & The Crickets released “That’ll Be The Day” long before Linda Ronstadt saw the inside of a recording studio.  Knowing I would be playing Blondie’s 1980 Number One hit “The Tide Is High” on Wednesday’s (01/26/11) show, I wondered if you were aware that it was originally recorded by the Jamaican group called the Paragons.  Listen to both versions.

Whether you like one over the other, both of them or neither of them, now you know that it was The Paragons who gave “The Tide Is High” musical life in 1967.

The Tide Is High/Blondie

The Tide Is High/The Paragons

Popularity: 7% [?]