What a man: Prince Buster
By Barbryn
Reinterpreting, reimagining, remixing, sampling, stealing: it’s all part of the dynamism and richness of music, as evidenced by the deluge of nominations on last week’s blog. In the past, we’ve covered topics including covers better than originals and sampling and recycling. Here, we’re exploring the obscurer origins of some familiar favourites.
Among their dozens of hit songs, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote “Jailhouse Rock” for Elvis – but they wrote “Hound Dog” for Big Mama Thornton. A raw blues belter in which a woman tells her no-good man to “quit snooping round my door”, it sold half a million copies in 1953 and inspired numerous cover versions and answer songs. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys gave it a rock’n’roll beat and some sanitised lyrics about a dog with limited rabbit-catching ability. Then Elvis happened. To the TikTok generation, though, it’s Thornton’s version that’s referenced in Doja Cat’s “Vegas”, from the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic.
No shortage of reggae and its offshoots for this topic, where borrowing, sampling, appropriating and paying homage is commonplace. The Specials, The Clash and others brought Jamaican ska songs to a wider audience, while Madness began life as basically a Prince Buster tribute act. It was Buster who produced the original recording of “Oh Carolina” – later to become Shaggy’s debut megahit. The Folkes Brothers’ 1960 version is gloriously raw and ramshackle, the drums higher in the mix than the vocals.
Proto punks The Nerves only recorded one record, a self-released EP that came out in 1976. It didn’t come anywhere close to the charts, but the opening track came the attention of Blondie: their version of “Hanging on the Telephone” became a top 5 single and the iconic opener to Parallel Lines. When they called songwriter Jack Lee to ask for permission to use it, he was skint: “They were going to cut off our electricity at six o'clock,” he recalled. “The phone too.”
Parallel song lines may ring a bell … The Nerves
It might be unfair to say that Curtiss Muldoon’s 1971 song “Sepheryn” was unknown beyond the duo’s own family, but it was Clive Muldoon’s niece, Christine Leach, who brought it to William Orbit’s attention. They’d been working together on a demo of the song shortly before Orbit was invited to work with Madonna. He shared the tape with her, she liked it. Transfigured, it became the title track on her Ray of Light album.
The royalties from his 15% writing credit brought Muldoon financial security, but not all artists are so lucky. In 1983, New York no-wave band Liquid Liquid were building a buzz with “Cavern”, released through their local record shop 99 Records, when it suddenly disappeared from the airwaves. A week later, they heard its unmistakeable bassline on the radio again, now propelling Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”. At first, according to vocalist Salvatore Principato, “we felt a combination of flattery, excitement and bewilderment”, but things turned nasty. 99 sued, and won, but Sugar Hill Records – also hit by lawsuits from Nile Rogers and Grandmaster Flash – filed for bankruptcy before the band received a penny.
Copyright can be a nasty business, as The Verve discovered. “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is built on a sample of a 1965 arrangement of the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra. The notoriously litigious Allen Klein got involved, and The Verve ended up having to relinquish 100% of the writing credits to Jagger and Richards, losing millions in royalties (never mind that Jagger and Richards had borrowed heavily in the first place, from the Staple Singers’ “This May Be My Last Time”). In 2019, after Klein’s death, The Verve were given the rights back.
A new-wavey version of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” sung by a bloke sounds better suited for previous playlists of unlikely cover versions or covers by the opposite sex. In fact, Robert Hazard wrote the song, and it was a live favourite with his band the Heroes. But he only ever recorded a raw demo version before passing it onto Cyndi Lauper to make it her own.
The original version of “What A Man” was written by a bloke too (Dave Crawford, who also wrote “Young Hearts Run Free”). First recorded by Linda Lyndell for Stax Records in 1968, it wasn’t a big hit, but it did come to the attention of the KKK. Lyndell, who is white, received threats for working with Black musicians and quit the music business for a quarter of a century. Happily, she started performing again after Salt’n’Pepa and En Vogue transformed the song.
Before Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” – probably playing on a radio station near you right now – there was “Brændt“ by Lis Sørensen, which sounds pretty similar, except it’s in Danish and has a rather nice Spanish guitar solo. Although “Braendt” was the first released version, the song was written by a band called Ednaswap, whose own recording is grungier and rather magnificent.
The centrepiece of Primal Scream’s not-very-successful second album, “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” is a bluesy ballad that builds into a big, brassy climax. Then they invited Andrew Weatherall to remix it, or, in the words of guitarist Andrew Innes, “Just fucking destroy it.” Have a listen to that guitar slide, and that horn section… they want to have a good time… they want to have a party… they want to get Loaded.
Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” was one of the biggest hits of the 80s. The original, recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964, was the B-side to a single that failed to chart. Nearly a decade later, club DJ Richard Searling bought a copy back to the UK and it became a cult classic on the Northern Soul scene. Jones rerecorded it in 1976 but it still didn’t sell, despite being produced by her partner, Marc Bolan. I knew the original song; I hadn’t known Jones was the driver in the car crash that killed Bolan.
High praise: Camille Yarbrough
The Iron Pot Cooker is a remarkable 1975 album by writer, musician, academic and activist Camille Yarbrough, based on her one-woman stage show Tales and Tunes of an African American Griot. It sunk without trace at the time, but was rediscovered after Fatboy Slim sampled her vocals on “Praise You”. Camille liked it: “I'm very glad that Fatboy Slim is an artist who knows what to do with music,” she told The Herald. So let’s dedicate “Take Yo’ Praise” to all those lesser-known musicians who deserve their moment in the spotlight.
The A is for Antecedents A-List:
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
The Folkes Brothers – Oh Carolina
The Nerves – Hanging On The Telephone
Curtiss Muldoon – Sepheryn
Liquid Liquid – Cavern
Andrew Oldham Orchestra – The Last Time
Robert Hazard – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Linda Lyndell – What A Man
Ednaswap – Torn
Primal Scream – I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have
Gloria Jones – Tainted Love
Camille Yarbrough - Take Yo' Praise
The Sounds Familiar Cover List:
For easy reference, here’s a playlist of the better-known versions of those above:
The Bumper B is for Before B-List:
Tetos Demetriades – Misirlou (Greek rembetiko recorded in 1927, reborn as Dick Dale’s surf classic, as used in Pulp Fiction)
Patti Page – Old Cape Cod (As sampled on Groove Armada’s “At the River”)
The Crickets – I Fought The Law
The Top Notes – Twist And Shout
Anita Carter – Ring of Fire (Written by sister June, covered by brother-in-law Johnny)
The Rolling Stones – I’m Free
Carole King – Pleasant Valley Sunday (Lots of Carole King originals nominated this week – loved this one!)
Fred Neil – Everybody’s Talkin’
Herbie Hancock – Bring Down The Birds (As sampled on Dee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart”)
The Paragons – The Tide Is High
The Clique – Superman
Labi Siffre – It Must Be Love
Lori Lieberman – Killing Me Softly With His Song (Confession: before this week, I’d never listened to Roberta Flack. I have been rectifying this.)
Trinity – Three Piece Suit (the basis for “Uptown Top Ranking” – the Trinity version is itself a cover of “I'm Still In Love (With You Girl)” by Alton Ellis)
The Eleventh Hour – Lady Marmalade (there were a few “WTF?!” moments this week – this was one of them)
Jackie DeShannon – Bette Davis Eyes
Racey – Kitty (Hey!)
Prince – Manic Monday (the original demo)
World Party – She’s The One (Single of the Year at the Brit Awards a couple of years later, in an almost identical version by Robbie Williams)
BC Jean – If I Were A Boy (a demo that came to Beyonce’s attention before the original singer and co-writer had a chance to release her own version)
Guru’s Wildcard Pick:
HMS Ginafore – The Racket They Made
Bit of a niche one, this, but King Creosote’s “And The Racket They Made” is popular in these parts. Hands up who knew it was written and first performed by his missus?
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: Revealed! Lesser-known original songs more famously covered or reworked. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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