This might be the longest post ever, sorry 🤣 🤣 🤣
Dave, very insightful about cover songs, and it likely holds true for most people. I'm thinking of my favorite cover songs, and although i heard the newer ones first and loved them, but as i learned more i almost always preferred the originals, or at least appreciate them fully. There are a few covers that were undeniably better, all along the watchtower comes to mind. Iirc, Dylan liked Hendrix's version so much he changed the song to the chord progression after he heard it. Where did you sleep last night would likely be another one, nirvana's version of the lead belly song is incredibly haunting because i think it's the last time he was ever recorded, just weeks before killing himself. The face he makes at the end still gives me goosebumps, and i remember watching it live when i was a kid on mtv.
But c'mon brosiff- they made those blues songs into masterpieces. The original versions of most of those songs were more or less unlistenable. If you take something someone else invented and make it 20x better than the original , you've accomplished something greater than the inventor.
Humans simply stand on the shoulders of others, and we do it better than any other species on earth (at least until AI overtakes us). For most endeavors, this is acceptable, but music requires giving the writer their due. Like most rock music, especially in the formative years of the 50s to 70s, successful performers copied blues music, which was considered race music and didn't exist in white culture at the time. Elvis, rolling stones, led zeppelin, ccr, Ted Nugent, csny, cream, the doors, e.t.c, all just blues music. Most had the integrity to list the actual songwriters tho, and some went even further and boosted their favorite blues musicians careers.
Many of the songs copied by zep, with no credit, were written by willie dixon, who played bass (session) for a bunch of the bands on chess records, including howlin wolf, muddy waters, etta James, and so on. Since it was considered race music, the production quality wasn't there as much, but the music itself has so much depth and feel, and was the reason everyone was basically trying to emulate that in the first place. I get you love zep and i won't try to ruin that, but i do want to try to show that the old school blues music was often far better than later versions.
For example, everyone's heard the doors back door man, and most would probably call it their best song. It was written by willie dixon, and sung by howlin wolf. The song is about how the singer is basically having sex with everybody's wife, and how they love him more
Jim Morrison of course loved this idea, but with wolf you kind of know it's real, and other amazing songs like meet me in the bottom play on the same idea. In that one the guy is calling his girl, asking for her to bring his running shoes, because a jealous husband (different girl of course) is chasing him to kill him. "She's got a bad old man.... I'm too young to die" hahahahahaha. As a side note, Howling wolf was actually first recorded by Sam Phillips, the guy who discovered Elvis. This isn't his first recording of it, but it's the coolest
This recording was done in New Orleans during a city wide music festival. The bar is about as wide as my kitchen, and they didn't even take down the chip holder on the blinds. The band is crammed onto a corner, and they filmed it thankfully. The story goes that every musician in town that wasn't playing a gig at the same time was trying to get in to see him. I would have killed to see this in person. The old drunk guy giving hand signals and carrying on next to him is none other than son house (look him up, death letter blues is a good one, pre Robert Johnson era). This is what the blues is about to me. This is what the zep song how many more years is based on.
A cool thing to sometimes do is to take a popular/ good song and compare the different versions over the years. Take this one for example, this is clapton doing it hurts me too, amazing version.
The original is by tampa red, but Elmore James did it best. He is using clean guitar, no distortion at all. In the first few seconds of the recording, you can actually hear the sound guy turn the sound up on the whole recording as if he all of a sudden bumped it and then didn't notice it. The recording, like most done with old school blues music, isn't done by parts, but is literally the band just up there playing. The singing actually sounds distorted at times, because it's overdriving the mic, and you can actually feel the sorrow in his voice. It's just flat out awesome music, frozen in that exact moment in time, complete with warts and all. No way would that recording ever be used nowadays, not even in the 50s in popular music, but because it was race music and tape was expensive, that's it. In my opinion the recording quality actually adds to the whole thing, because these guys weren't rich, they just played because they lived it. Kind of like early punk and metal being recorded in a basement, once you listen to it for awhile, the dirtiness of it all is the authenticity. I'm afraid in today's world the pure analog sound is gone forever.
And the original version by Tampa red. This was recorded in 1940, which to me is astonishing. Think of early ww2 as this is recorded.
Tampa Red - It Hurts Me Too - https://youtu.be/34VJzHT9nuk
My point is that the reason these songs were copied is because they are awesome. Not to detract from later performers, but there was and is this whole type of music that was largely ignored for years, and then it became the backbone of the rock and roll that everyone loves so dear. Things were happening technology wise that allowed the envelope to be pushed further, but it was blues guitar guys doing the pushing. Zep and many other bands simply wouldn't exist at all without the blues. Last one, just because it's amazing. I have actually gotten hammered around a campfire with this song on repeat for hours before, more than once.
Trouble in Mind (Live - Newport Jazz Festival, June 30, 1960) - https://youtu.be/847m3GC2_Z8
We gots to do it!!!!
