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You heard the cover first then discovered the original.

spartanmanor

spartanmanor

Lunatic Member
There are a couple of covers that I can think of that led me to the original recording and on to discovering more music.

Power Station did a cover of "Bang a Gong" in the mid 80's....never really did that much for me but the T. Rex version....oh yeah :thmbsp:

I always liked the Damned's cover of "Alone Again Or" and thought it was their song for the longest time till I heard Love's original version which got me totally hooked on Love. :yes:
 
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My son is all ways coming to me with "new"music.
Then we dig through my collection for the different cover bands.
It blew him away when i showed him that the stones are primarily a cover band.
 
Springsteen's "Fire" performed by Robert Gordon. An absolutely killer song on a tremendous album (Fresh Fish Special w/Link Wray)
 
"Black Magic Woman" Heard it first as a cover by Santana. In the mid nineties, a co-worker had the original Fleetwood Mac on a classic rock station and asked me, "What f@#%ed up version is this?". I had to break it to him that it was the original, and he wouldn't believe me that Santana's was the cover.
 
The one that surprised me there was an original I just found about a couple years ago.. Tainted Love by Soft Cell in the 80's

Turns out it was originally written by Ed Cobb and then recorded by Gloria Jones the year I was born.. 1964.. tha shocked me, and it's also pretty amazing how close Soft Cell's version is to Gloria's..

Here's the original...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSehtaY6k1U
 
Yo La Tengo's covers of John Cale's "Hanky Panky nohow" and "Andalucia" lead me to Cale's album "Paris, 1919" which has since become one of my top 5 favorite albums.
 
The song "Effigy" originally done by Creedence Clearwater Revival'. When I heard the cover by Uncle Tupelo I thought it was an original.
It was on the Willie and the Poor Boys record, which I had heard many times, but somehow the 30 year lapse had erased my memory of it.
cool tune, if you want to listen...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qBM9v01qw
 
The Green Manalishi was the biggest shocker for me I really like the bluesy original version but way back in my headbanger days my reaction was "Judas Priest covering Fleetwod Mac no F'N way" :rockon:
 
finnbow said:
Springsteen's "Fire" performed by Robert Gordon. An absolutely killer song on a tremendous album (Fresh Fish Special w/Link Wray)
Click to expand...

I actually enjoyed- and hid the fact until I discovered Bruce wrote it- the Pointers Sisters version.

I was overjoyed to hear Bruce do it on that live album. Does he have a studio version as well? I will have to check out the RG version of it.


Another one- I heard REM do Femme Fatale before the Velvet Underground. Love both versions.
 
Not a big Eagles fan, but everybody's heard Take It Easy at least once. And some people know it was originally on Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky album.
 
I heard the CCR versions of "Suzie Q" and "I Put A Spell On You" before I heard the Dale Hawkins and Screamin' Jay Hawkins versions.
For years I thought The Rascals version of "Good Lovin" was the original until I finally heard The Olympics original version.
 
Two I'll mention:
"I've got a spell on you" covered by CCR originally done by Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
And (most) everybody thinks that Eric Clamption is the original for "Cocane"....

I've got to say that Fleetwood Mac lost me after Peter Green left and they became "pop".
 
Although I knew quite awhile ago that "Hush" was originally done by Joe South and not Deep Purple, I had never heard Joe's version until today. Looked it up on YouTube. I have to say, Deep Purple's version is the winner.
 
Not really a cover version situation, but for years I thought that "House of the Rising Sun" was an original by Eric Burdon and the animals... finally learned that it was an old blues standard with murky origins, and just a few years ago realized that I like Frijid Pink's version of it just as much as the Burdon/Animals one that is so much better-known.


As for cover versions that are better-known than the originals, I just did a little online research...

Click on the "Disc 1", "Disk 2", etc... buttons here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...originals&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a


There are a number of titles on those lists I wasn't aware of (being covers), before today. Did you know that Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" was not only written by Kris Kristofferson, but also was first performed by... Roger Miller? Or that "Turn, Turn, Turn" was first performed by Pete Seeger, long before the Byrds did it? I didn't! :no:



Not to get off topic, but I like to listen to old-time radio shows, too. I've encountered plot lines, even whole conversations and details in shows going back to the thirties, forties and fifties that were obviously copied in later television shows and motion pictures. Before the Internet, the chances of anyone discovering such sources were virtually zilch. I have some evidence that makes me suspect that some bits of those shows went back even earlier, to vaudeville and even melodrama days before them. A lot of early writers for both radio and motion pictures started in Vaudeville and switched over, so that isn't too surprising, I guess.
 
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"Lake of Fire" performed by Nirvana originally by the Meat Puppets....but honestly I am not sure which one I heard first.....
 
Tom Waits' "I Don't Want to Grow Up" didn't really hit my radar until I heard the Ramones cover of it, even though I'd had the Waits album for a while.
 
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