Today I have two songs for you and again we are using one group, but this time I am choosing two covers of this group.
Simon and Garfunkel’s songs have been covered quite a lot and you can find recordings from everyone from Willie Nelson to Charlotte Church. But this is best and worst, so I have to fine a great cover and a poor cover.
One reason I think covers don’t usually work is that a songwriter usually writes a song in a particular style and the song works in that style. Bands often change the style of the song for a cover. It does not take genius to figure out that if a song worked in a particular style, DON’T MESS WITH IT! (Remember in the Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond, when he sold the song Love on the Rocks to a famous rock singer, the song did not work as a fast hard rock song, but as a slow ballad!)
So here are covers of two S&G songs. The poor one is poor because of changing the style of the song, and the good one (I will comment more on that one) is good because it keeps the style.
Enjoy?
First is one of my favorite S&G songs, America (I cannot believe anyone would cover this one! You cannot mess with perfection!) Covered by YES.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS2FUW7UkR0]
Second, for your listening enjoyment is a cover of the underappreciated S&G song Richard Cory. This is a rarely covered song, but it was covered by none other than Wings in their Wings over the World Tour in 1975-1976. Denny Laine sang lead here but Sir Paul is in there too. This clip is from a sound check in Australia.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy4qAFsaVzI]
the first time i heard richard corey was the wings version. i heard S&G’s later and thought, wow, they are covering wings 😉