Program 5
August 8, 2009
Toots & The Maytals do John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads
Willie Nelson does Fleetwood Mac – Songbird
Johnny Cash does Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus
Mono In VCF do The Poppy Family – There’s No Blood In Bone
Martha Wainwright does Pink Floyd – See Emily Play
Nirvana do David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World
Kevin Hearn & Thin Buckle do Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Saturday nights at 7 on 97-7 WEXT
See Comments for my blog entry and your feedback about the show.
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Once Bob Marley opened the floodgates for reggae in North America, this Toots and The Maytals cover of John Denver’s Take Me Home Country Roads was inevitable. Did you know that the song has been played at every home football game of the West Virginia Mountaineers since 1971? This and other fascinating factoids a wait you on the program this week.
Willie Nelson doing Fleetwood Mac? Not so strange, I suppose. Willie is like Ray Charles. Whatever he sings becomes his own. And say what you will about Ryan Adams, but he brought a contemporary rough edged Americana sound to the Songbird sessions that are definitely part of this record’s appeal.
Most of the songs that Rick Ruben chose for Johnny Cash to sing were a good match, but I like to think Personal Jesus was one of the best. Faith meets it’s maker.
Odd to discover that Seattle’s Mono in VCF were working with Terry Jacks of The Poppy Family. Here we have a note for note cover of a pretty obscure song from the early 1970s by a Canadian band that never really made it south of the border.
If you have yet to give Martha Wainwright’s album I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too a listen all the way through, you really should do so. Within the context of an album of songs about infidelity, Pink Floyd’s See Emily Play transcends it’s original psycadelic weirdness to become an allegory for someone who continues to stumble through difficult relationships.
Perhaps the ultimate cover version of a David Bowie song, when Kurt Cobain sings The Man Who Sold The World, a song about suffering through a fragmented identity crisis, the significance of the match is so profound that the song is left with an emotional weight greater than the original.
I don’t know what to say about Kevin Hearn & Thin Buckle doing Black Sabbath. …..I really don’t.
Enjoy the show kiddies.