Yes, Yes, We've Got Him Covered Again...That Starman, That Thin White Duke, That Blackstar...

 

While I'm waiting for inspiration for another Bowie project, here's another trip through the long corridors full of funhouse mirror versions of Bowie songs. I sure hope the anonymous person answering my question of what songs they want to see on one of these is still around, because while it took me a while to do it, here are versions of “Watch That Man” (going for the obvious, it's Lulu, produced and graced with unmistakable backgrouns vocals by Mr. Bowie himself, plus Ronno on killer guitar) and “The Width Of The Circle” (way harder to find, I finally found a version credited to Norman Ball & Back In NY).

The whole compilation actually plays out like this, alternating between big names (Blondie and their classic live cover of “Heroes”, Nirvana's equally classic live unplugged cover of “The Man Who Sold The World”, Duran Duran covering “Five Years”), known quantities (Big Country taking on “Cracked Actor”, Robbie Willliams covering “Kooks”, Rick Wakeman playing “Space Oddity” alone on piano in remembrance of Bowie) and a lot of lesser known folks. Of these, I really like Lazer Cake retro-futuristic cover of “Fame”, on the other side of the (noise) spectrum we have Alice Price's take on “Lazarus” and Hazel O'Connor's “Rock'n'Roll Suicide”.

In the somewhat known quantity department we have Bowie's long-time bass player and on-stage foil Gail Ann Dorsey again, as on Vol. 3 once more teaming up with Mathieu 'M' Chedid, here doing a full- band version of “Life On Mars?”. And Beck can probably safely be slotted somewhere in between big name and known quantity. The track “Sound And Vision (Second Vision” is indeed a sort-of-sequel to his cover on Vol. 1. The original 'reimagined' tracks was almost nine minutes long and without much flow, thus I cut two different versions, the first version more or less being the 'song part' version, while this 'Second Vision' is essentially composed of the original re-imagining's beginning and end. Call it an idiosyncratic spin on a classic, and you'll get the idea.

There's again some nice variety here: Caecilia Norby & Lars Danielsson take “Andy Warhol” on a jazz trip, while Seu Jorge continues to acoustically bossa nova his way through the Bowie catalogue, here with a warm, wonderful take on “Changes”. Hey, even the Spiders From Mars show up!

We've Got You Covered – David Bowie Vol. 4 continues to prove two things we've seen throughout the series: the breadth and depth of Mr. Bowie's catalogue, though obviously most cover artists stick to the more known songs here, and so do I, and the possibility to do interesting stuff with Bowie's music. So, hear some great classics in versions you might not have heard before, or haven't heard in a while...

We've Got That Davey Jones Fella Covered Again, Folks...

 ...and this volume is a knockout, folks, uncle OBG is promising you that. Listening back to it, I was like 'damn, if all volume threes or second sequels are good like this...'. Oooh, did I jinx it with too much self congratulating? Ilet you be the judge! Seriously, though, this has excellent flow and probably the broadest array of styles of any of the first three volumes, somehat befitting its subject matter. If David Bowie could hop from style to style, sometimes with no warning or precedent, then so can the people covering his songs!

And so we have some hair metal courtesy of, uh, Baby Snakes with kick-ass album opener "Cat People (Puttin' Out Fire)", some electro-pop (Billie MacKenzie's excellent take on "The Secret Life Of Arabia"), a hard swerve into reggae thanks to the improbable tem of  cover experts The Easy All-Stars and Macy Gray on "Rock'n'Roll Suicide", a groovy, almost alternative disco-ish take on "Young Americans" from The Cure, the electronica-meets-guitar work of Stevie Salas' "Always Crashing In The Same Car", befitting the electric pow-wow he titled one of his albums, and not one but two bosssa nova tracks: first the slightly jazzy "The Man Who Sold The World" by Mimi Aida, turned into a sophisticated cocktail bar song and then Seu Jorge's Portuguese-language cover of "Starman", which you might or might not remember from Wes Anderson's typically idiosyncratic The Life Aquatic With Steve Zizou. 

Gail Ann Dorsey's heartfelt homage to her former boss via a wonderfully unadorned (and short) take on "A Space Odyssey", only backed by Matthieu 'M' Chedid - a big star here in France in his own right - on acoustic guitar. But it might not even be the best acoustic track here, as it has really strong competitio: Pickyour favorite acoustic Bowie cover here: In the coner to my right, wily vet Steve Harley and a group of acoustic guitar pro's covering and transforming "Absolute Beginners" which loses all the bombast of Bowie's top-notch version. In the corner to my left Aussie Alt Popstar Paul Dempsey with an appropriately harrowing, forlorn take on "Ashes To Ashes". 

And there's so much more! Roger McGuinn covering "Soul Love"! The Cowboy Junkies taking on "Five Years"! The reformed Luna covering little-known early number "Letter To Hermione"! Lorette Velvette bringing the rock'n'roll with a brash cover of "Boys Keep Swinging"! A great folk-pop take on "Changes" from Hozier! Camilla Fascina's art-pop take on "I'm Deranged" which I largely prefer to Bowie's industrial rock original! And more!

All delivered with, again without any false modesty, a killer sequencing. It might have less big hitters than the first two volumes but that's maybe for the better. We've Got You Covered: David Bowie (Volume 3) is all killer, no filler. Time to dive head first into that Davey Jones songbook again, folks...

EDIT: While rummaging around in the We've Got You Covered - David Bowie folder I realized that the numbering on Volume One was hopelessly messed up, so I fixed that. And while I was at it, I also threw of the weird little (often completely random) art that incrusts itself like parasites in the folder, but which I can only see on one of my computers, so I threw that shit off volumes one and two as well. New links have been set if you want cleaner versions of those comps. Volume One is here and Volume Two is here. 

Tipton, Missouri's favorite son is covered once more...

It's been a good while that One Buck Records has gone without a sighting of anything Gene Clark-related and that state of affairs has been going on long enough, you hear me young man middle-aged dude? Oh, sorry, the voices in my head have spilled on the page again. Yes, long time no Geno, or friends and fans of Geno as it were. We've Got You Covered goes on, and we're up to Volume Four of our Gene Clark part of the series. And honestly, that is a bit of a surprise in itself, because for a man with such an outstandingly strong songbook, Clark doesn't have many high-profile covers attached to his name. This gets even worse once we take off Byrds material, which is naturally what most of the bigger names flocked to (we see you, Tom Petty). But even if we take musicians of any kind, level of fame or walk of life, there just isn't much there, and wht there is, will inevitably end up here, in this series, on this blog. 

Part of this is of course my own blind spot concerning one of my favorite artists. Clark is so well-represented on this blog, that I sometimes forget how small of a cultural imprint the man really left. Even the Genaissance of the early 2010s didn't make him into a real household name. Sure, the No Other Band tour and the No Other album re-issue on 4AD brought on some people, but the cult stays small. 

Which of course means that I am really digging, and digging hard, to find material for this series. The good news is, that for this fourth volume, I have found another batch of top material, with the usual mix of known and little-to-unknown performers. The big names on this volume are probably Richard Thompson (who already featured on Vol. 3 with Fairport Convention), the Flamin' Groovies with their take on "She Don't Care About Time " - also the kick-ass opener here - and Pure Prairie League, whose fine take on "She Darked The Sun" somehow never made an album in the early 70s. Oh, and there's Paul Weller, as guest singer with Death In Vegas, covering "So You Say You Lost Your Baby", a song I found years ago when fishing Death In Vegas' album out of a bargain bin, for, indeed a buck, I believe. 

Mid-tier acts which again are really known in One Buck Land but not everwhere else include the late, great Neal Casal with "With Tomorrow" from his cover record Return In Kind, and of course loyal-way-beyond-the-grave comrade Carla Olson, who is supported on her cover of "After The Storm" by *checks notes* 80's Brat Pack actress Mare Winningham?! O.k., why not. Brother Rick also shows up again, with a lovely rendering of the heartbreaking "Lonely Saturday", written after Clark broke up with his common-law wife Carlie. 

Of the 'never heard of 'em'-tier of artists, I'm happy to hear Chris Deschner cover "Rain Song" from Clark's last studio album Fyrebyrd, as that's a song that, like the rest of that album, almost never gets attention despite its obvious qualities. Australia's The Bitter End cover "The Virgn", Anna Mitchell has a wonderful, recorded line in concert take on "Polly Come Home", Byrds contemporaries Suburban 9 To 5 bring lots of garage rock energy to "Elevator Operator", in no small part due to future REO Speedwagon axeman Gary Richrth on guitar, and U.S. Indie group Mazarin do a fine job with the also very rarely covered "Only Colombe". 

As you can see, lots of artists and songs to discover or re-discover, and the One Buck Guy wouldn't want it any other way...

Can you ever have enough Lowell & Little Feat music around? No, no, I don't think you can...

All our series that I'm juggling here on One Buck Records continue to choogle along, so it's time for a return trip via the Lafayette Railroad into the country of swampy grooves, funky rock and heartfelt ballads - that's right, it's time to return to Lowell George country. We've Got You Covered: Lowell George & Little Feat Volume 3 does, what the other two volumes did: presenting you a fine selection of cover versions celebrating the songwriting of Mr. Little Feat himself - named after his small feet, natch - and his compadres. 

Artists trying out their hands on Lowell & Feat tunes include collaborators like Linda Ronstadt and Robert Palmer, both alumni from the first volume, as well as admirers close and far. Some of these you would expect, like Brothers Of a Feather a.k.a. Chris & Rich Robinson from the Blaack Crowes, whose modern Southern rock definitely has some overlap with George's music. But I bet you didn't have John Farnham on your bingo card of folks doing Little Feat covers, though somewhat fittingly he takes one of George's most AOR tunes, "Perfect Imperfections" (when I first heard it, I thought it was Barrère or Payne singing, as that vocal has no grit at all). The Brothers Landreth strike twice, first Joey with a lovely cover of "Long Distance Love", and then with his brother David on a smokin' cover of "Two Trains". 

The Americana front os well represented with Jamey Johnson covering the inevitable "Willin'" and One Buck Records hero Neal Casal running through "Sailin' Shoes" for eight minutes - which was a reason to put it here instead of one of the Casalties comps. Taj Mahal gets the groove on with the rarely covered "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" and Souled American bring a woozy, fuzzy alt country vibe to "Six Feet Of Snow", and then after 65 minutes of first-class Loell & Little Feat covers, Lionel Wendling takes us home on the aforementioned "Lafayette Railroad". 

So, good stuff here, as usual. Hope you agree, and get some of the ol' Lowell & Feat magic for a groovy start to your week...   

If you want more cool Bowie covers...well, we've got you covered...

Round two in our round-up of cool Bowie covers, and there's quite a number of 'em. Now, I wouldn't have bet that one of them would come from Dead Or Alive, who I only know as a slightly ridiculous-looking one hit-wonder with "You Spin Me 'Round (Lie A Record)". Then again, I wouldn't have figured that Culture Club would bring one of the highlights of Volume One in this We've Got You Covered series. The other unexpected and 80s-related joker in the pack is Midge Ure's cover of "Lady Stardust". 

The love of Brian Molko for Bowie (and Bowie's embracing of the band) are well-documented, his acoustic cover of "Five Years", done for French television, is still a really nice tribute. As for a less obvious fan, I wouldn't have figured Seal for a Bowie-fan, but his lovely unplugged take on "Quicksand", one of the lesser known Bowie classics, is a personal highlight of this set. Speaking of underrated songs that rarely get covered: Native American rock'n'rolller Stevie Salas covers Diamond Dogs-era obscurity "Dodo". "Little Wonder", from Bowie's little-loved Earthling drum'n'bass album is also a little on the obscure side, Run Toto Run's cover is a lovely, decidedly less noisy reading of the tune. "In The Heat Of The Morning" is one of Bowie's realatively unknown numbers from the pre-stardom Decca era and gets a fabulous reading from The Last Shadow Puppets. Another lost gem from that same era is "The Gospel According To Tony Day", covered exquisitely here by Edwyn Collins. 

The other possibility is of course to take a known number, but give it an unusual new coat of paint. That happens when bluegrass combo Cornbread Red cover "Under Pressure", while also unwittingly launching me down the Pickin' On...rabbithole. Unusual is also the word for the cover of "Ziggy Stardust", not so much because it's an acoustic unplugged version, but because it's done by the decidedly un-acoustic Def Leppard in the middle of a rowdy pub audience! And also unusual: Choir!Choir!Choir! and David Byrne, helped out by a ton of bystanders, making a huge sing-alone cover of "Heroes"! Covers from, among others, Fury In The Slaughterhouse and Hugh Coltman, are close to the originals and more workman-like, but still very fine additions to the series, bringing in some as-of-yet not covered songs to this second volume. 

And that's it. Eighteen high quality covers covering the spectrum of Bowie's music. Nothing more, nothing less. Yup, we've got you well covered again, David.  

Edit: I mislabeled an artist on the comp. It's Cornbread Red, not Iron Horse who cover "Under Pressure". I've changed the tagging in the new donloadable version. 

We've Got You Covered Again, Geno, Even If It Took Some Time...

While I was busy compiling and sequencing and recompiling and resequencing new volumes of the Bowie-We've Got You Covered series, I realized that the series that had started it all had been stuck in neutral for a while again. The second volume of We've Got You Covered - Gene Clark followed the first one by a month and now it has been *checks notes* seven months?!? Thank god these things don't have cliffhangers...(and don't fear, All Pearls, No Swine fans, that series hasn't been forgitten either...coming soon with a new, bold volume...)

Anyway, so time to get back on the horse with folks covering Geno, especially since there are still too few covering too few different songs. I can probably fill up a disc or two with covers of "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better", much like, as fellow Little Feat compiler Jonder pointed out, you can make a whole disc out of "Willin'" covers alone. The entire point of this series, though, is both discovering artists you wouldn't otherwise (or see some old musical friends you haven't seen in a while) and also discovering the Clark songs that not everyone knows. 

So, this is where Vol. 3 picks up. Of course, there's another "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better", this time courtesy of British 60's jingle jangle revivalist The Coral. "Eight Miles High" is covered by fellow folk veteran Leo Kottke.(a solo acoustic version, not the band version from 1971's Mudlark) and Gene friend and duet partner Carla Olson covers "She Don't Care About Time", here in a duet with Richie Furay (and Clark's mid-80s running mates John York and Pat Robinson). But that's pretty much it in terms of huge classics, unfortunately, because the general public's memory covers those songs and not much else. 

Several of his too little known 60s classics are here:  underrated Dillard & Clark single "Why Not Your Baby?" as faithfully covered by Saville, minor Byrds classics "Here Without You" covered by Reigning Sound and "I'd Want You" as covered with a tinge of garage rock by Thin White Rope, "So You Say You Lost Your Baby" as covered by Thistill, and orchestral experiment "Echoes" as covered decidedly more rustically by Leo Koster. 

What Gene Clark comp would be complete without superfan Sid Griffin (who often takes over liner notes duty on Clark reissues)? Here he is covering "Silver Raven" with his band The Coal Porters. Another Clark superfan is Italian musician Marco Zanzi, showing up with a superb version of "Full Circle". Chris & Rich Robinson, the brothers behind The Black Crowes played concerts as an acoustic duo as Birds Of A Feather (before the inevitable band reunion), where they covered "Polly". My personal favorites on this volume are Bob Holden's delicate acoustic cover of Clarks's last classic "Del Gato", The Mother Hips' great take on "Out On The Side" and Carrie Ashley Hill's dreampop_ish version of "Dark Of My Moon", a late 80s demo that Clark never got to cut in the studio. 

Of Clark's contemporaries, there's Fairport Convention covering "Tried So Hard" for the BBC and of course ever loyal Ian Matthews, this time delivering a beautiful version of "For A Spanish Guitar" with Plainsong. 

As for the surprises that come up with each volume? Well, I wouldn't have had Depeche Mode-front man Dave Gahan on my 'most likely to cover Gene Clark' shortlist, but here he is with The Soulsavers, covering the relatively obscure White Light track "Where My Love Lies Asleep". Red Feather, of which I know next to nothing, are a sludgy psych noise rock outfit, not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Gene Clark's music. They played an ultra heavy, ten minute slow metal crawl version of No Other. I edited several shorter versions, and finally decided to keep the longest one at around six and a half minutes, which gives you a good impression of what they are doing with the song, without the squalls of pure noise they also produced. I programmmed this as the album closer, so if this admittedly unusual take isn't your cup of tea, you can simply delete it without retaging or other hassles.

So, there's again tons of great covers herewithin, and a bunch of unknown or little known artists to discover. Without further ado, We've Got You Covered Vol. 3 for the songs of Mr. Gene Clark...

If you want to complete your collection, links for volumes one and two have been updated. 

We've Got You Covered, Ziggy...uh, I mean...David

In the beginning, the We've Got You Covered series existed solely as a vehicle for Gene Clark covers. Then I opened up the series to Little Feat (with a little help of some friendly neighbourhood bloggers), and recently I figured that we definitely need some new blood in the series. And who has not only a huge back catalogue of great songs, but also songs in a variety of styles and songs that could invite artists that cover them to try and do something interesting with them? That's right, it's Ziggy The Thin White Duke Mr. David Jones. Bowie, whether you like him or not,  had one of the most adventurous discographies out there, and the possibilities for over artists are varied. Sure, you can fill whole albums alone with the most popular picks like "Life On Mars?" and "Space Oddity", but obviously in these and the following editions of We've Got You Covered: David Bowie we also hope to dig into some lesser known songs of the Bowie back catalogue. 

Some of the versions in this series are from dedicated tribute samplers, others from b-sides, various artist comps, album deep cuts or live in studio performances. Ian McCullough's and Sharleeen Spiteri's take on "Changes" is exclusive to this comp, as is the "Intro" track by the David Bowie Tour Band (featuring Gail Ann Dorsey who will pop up in later editions). which was the intro to their tribute to Bowie at the Brit Awards in 2016. 

Gail Ann and her perfect haircut

It's interesting how many new wave and new romantics acts declared allegiance with Bowie, possibly as a direct reaction to punk's rejection of him. The often maligned Culture Club deliver a fantastic, moody version of "Starman", while Duran Duran consider the ramifications of "Fame". Frankie Goes To Hollywodd take a trip to "Sufragette City" and Tears For Fears - even if it's the early-90s, Roland Orzabal-only version of the band - chime in with a really nice version of "Ashes To Ashes". 

Sure, there's some traditional-sounding covers here, not least from Bowie's backing band, the Spiders From Mars, but of course the more adventurous versions are what really make these series interesting. The Moonshiners' reggae take on "Modern Love" certainly qualifies, as does the theatrical take on "Life On Mars?" courtesy of the unlikely combination between The Divine Comedy and France's Yann Thiersen. There is also Beck's idiosyncratic re-imagining of "Sound And Vision" (presented here in a special edit) and Iva Davies & Icehouse's absolutely magnificent, slowed-down version of "Heroes", conceived for a ballet performance. Like Tears For Fears, Icehouse in the mid-90s were at that time basically only frontman Iva Davies, plus whichever sidemen he would work with, but they had a special knack for Bowie covers, as we will see a little bit later on.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Davies....perfect haircuts 2

And then, at the end, we let the weirdness take over completely: First there's American wild card group The Gourds (already familiar to long-standing One Buck Heads for their unique take on Snoop Dog's "Gin and Juice"), whose take on "Ziggy stardust" can best be described as, uh, Calypso Bluegrass?! And then we end things with those bona fide weirdos The Flaming Lips and their cosmic take on "Space Oddity". Oddities, indeed. 

To start things off I did include the heavy hitters of Bowie's backlog in this first volume, but future editions will include some lesser known numbers. In the meantime, there's lots of fun to dig into. So dig! 

Let's Get Covered In Some Funky Groovy Music Again...

The first volume of this series did come with a bit of surprising backstage shenanigans. Having received a bunch of Little Feat covers from, so I was told, "an unknown source", it turned out the very last second - I was just retagging the files right before uploading them - that the author wasn't that unknown. It was your dear blog pal and mine, Jonder, who compiled the majority of these songs firs, but it was late and I was tired and just wanted to get the whole shebang uploaded, so couldn't include more than a fleeting mention. So yeah, thanks to Jonder for doing a lot of the grunt work on this one. He also right afterwards compiled a fabulous sequel that you should check out. He reused three of the tracks from his older comp, so these will show up here as well, but nothing like hearing a good song twice rather than never, am I right?! 

So, adding to the usual suspects already present on Vol. 1 (Robert Palmer, Linda Ronstadt, Nicolette Larson), we have Lowell's old duet partner (and song co-writer) Valerie Carter on her version of "Heartache", gospel queen Oleta Adams' take on "Long Distance Love" or Bob Weir's take on "Easy To Slip". OBG additions to the playlist this time around include the dark lord of mainstream country that ruled the 90s - let's call him Darth Crooks, shall we? - with a surprisingly credible funky take on "Dixie Chicken", Eddie Money calling up the "Rock'n'Roll Doctor", good ol' Randy Newman tackling "Sailing Shoes" and - fresh outta the press - Pure Prairie League's fun take on "Six Feet Of Snow", one of Lowell's most underrated tunes. 

That song also proudly fits into Lowell's collection of truck driving songs, the first of which was of course "Truck Stop Girl". The Byrds covered that one before it even came out on Little Feat's debut, but Clarence White's take was a strangely nasal take that made some of the lyrics almost unintelligable. So I decided to switch this out for a live track from the Byrds' England tour in 1971. Other additions are Joey Landreth's "All That You Dream" and Jason Dotson's take on "Lafayette Railroad". So that's seven tracks that weren't on the old Little Feat Covered playlist, so I'd highly recommend you pick this up as well. 

As with volume one, there is a ton of variety on these tracks, all coming back to how great these songs are in the first place. So, let's get groovin' with these fine artists and these very fine songs...

What'd you say? You want more Gene Clark covers? Oh boy, have we got you covered...

So folks, time for round two of We've Got You Covered, featuring the one and only Gene Clark. Or rather, a bunch of cool but (too) unknown folks covering songs of Mr. Harold Eugene Clark, pride of Tipton, Missouri. And since launching the series I'm happy to report that we will have definitely five volumes of this series. 

The other thing that is important for me in this series is variety of song choices. As we discussed with secret author Jonder when covering the other segment of We've Got You Covered, starring Lowell George and Little Feat that you could probably fill an entire album with covers of "Willin'", which thankfully his last cool Little Feat covers album over at Jokonky's wasn't. With Gene Clark, the song that is more often covered than any other is "Feel A Whole Lot Better". But Clark's song catalogue is so rich and my 'no doubles on an album' policy strict enough to limit each disc to a single "Feel A Whole Lot Better" - on this album provided by country-pop lady Juice Newton - and different songs all around, as well as no doubles in terms of artists per volume. We'll see whether that principle can hold until the end, but for right now variety of songs, styles and artists is assured. 

So, what goodies do we have today? 

There's the British music collective built around 4AD label head Ivo Watts-Russel who kept the relatively high-profile Gene Clark covers coming in the late 1980s and early 90s, here with their appropriately arty take on "Strength of Strings". There's contemporary artists and co-workers like Linda Ronstadt, Byron Berline and Iain Matthews, an artist who has been faithful to covering Clark, from 1974's Sometimes You Eat The Bear And Sometimes The Bear Eats You all the way to 2017's A Baker's Dozen, from which this version of "Silver Raven" is taken. There's younger admirers like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, also rans from the 1990s 'cool cymru' run of successful bands from Wales or Wilco, of which three of the most prominent members (thus the band name Demi-Wilco) cover "Tried So Hard". 

But, as ever, I'm happy to have lesser known artists with some of the lesser-known Clark songs: Speed Hearse covering "Dark Of My Moon", Velvet Crush covering "Why Not Your Baby", Ross Thomas covering "In A Misty Morning" or King Penguin covering "Gypsy Rider", a song which has surprisingly often been covered by Clark admirers. Or, you know, almost completely unknown atist with known song, such as Jrsn2Music, a guy named John doing covers on YouTube, including this very lovely reading of "She Don't Care About Time" with dubbed over mandolin. And finally, there's family, with brother Rick paying tribute with a very fine version of "Del Gato", the song he co-wrote with his big brother.  

So, yeah, a wonderful mix - if I dare say so myself - of known and lesser known songs by known and lesser known artists.Which in many ways is a lot more like the artist being paid tribute to than an all-star, all-known 'hits' comp would have been. Enjoy. 

 

We've Got You Covered, Geno, yes, we do...

Time for some more Gene Clark around here, albeit indirectly. The first Little Feat entry might have been posted first, but this was the beginning of our hopefully soon to be loved We've Got You Covered series. As with most other things in his life, musically and otherwise, even tribute albums to him were a difficult proposition. Nothing of course happened in the 90s, the lowest time for any Clark afficinado, but in the early 2000s, at the very beginning of the slow Gene Clark revival, two tribute albums appeared: Full Circle (which I have), a really good two-disc set from (mostly) American independent recording artists that was supported by the Clark estate and featured a tribute song by his son Kai, and You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, an indie compilation from down under (which I don't own). So far, so good. Still, despite the recognition of Gene Clark hitting a high in the early 2010s (think The No Other Band), no high-profile tribute album has come along. 

We've Got You Covered: Gene Clark, Vol. 1 isn't exactly high profile, either, but it will hopefully do its very modest part to raise Geno's profile just a little bit more. For right now, this series is scheduled for four volumes, but we'll see. The roster for the whole series is divided into the usual suspects (Sid Griffin, Iain Matthews), friends & family (Carla Olson, Rick Clark), cult artists covering another cult artist (This Mortal Coil, Mark Lanegan, Leo Kottke, Yo La Tengo), a bunch of rather random folks paying tribute and tons of tons of little-known or unknown artists. 

Since the idea was to discover what these lesser known folks do with Clark's work, I left off the one really high-profile cover he received, which was a blessing and a curse for Clark during his lifetime. After Tom Petty covered "Fell A Whole Lot Better", Clark was suddenly and unexectedly relatively flush with money, which he then used for his bad habits that contributed to his maddeningly early death. Still, it's crazy that singers with a nose for a great song like Emmylou Harris (before she became a more than respectable songwriter) never recorded a song by Gene Clark. Oh, I forgot: Semi-high profile Robert Plant & Alison Krauss are also not part of the line-up.  

So, off to the roster of this first volume, shall we? We got contemporary colleagues of Clark like The Cryan' Shames (opening proceedings), Starry Eyed And Laughing and Johnny Winter (on one of the early recordings for Roy Aymes). Aforementioned cult bands like Yo La Tengo and Midnight Choir are present and accounted for, as is a quasi-dB's reunion, with an appropriately jangly cover of "Here Without You", from the 1991 duo album by Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey. And there is a ton of bands that before compiling this series I had never heard of before: The Marsh, The Piedmont Brothers Band, WolRus, The Birdy Nam Nams, The Improper Bostonians or Hungrytown. The quality control button has been pushed to 11, so all of these are really good. All pearls, no swine, if you know what I mean. And for the wild card in the bunch we have an appearance of Peggy Bundy, erm, I mean Katey Sagal with a really nice, subtly electronics-enhanced version of "Feel A Whole Lot Better"! 

So, this will hopefully remind you of how fantastic these songs are, and once you're through listening to We've Got You Covered: Gene Clark, Vol. 1 you should go back and listen to some of the man's work. And if you don't know where to start, there are always the alternate versions of his albums that I have compiled. Because as ever, you can't have enough Gene Clark in your life. 

Old Folks' Boogie? Everyone boogies to Lowell George & Little Feat

If you've been around here for a little while you'll know that the One Buck Guy loves nothing more than launching new series, so here we go again! Almost all of the tribute albums I posted so far have been either slimmed down editions of longer sets or ones where I simply changed the sequencing for a better listening experience. The Fleetwood Mac one was arguably the first entry in my homebrewed tribute albums, but hey, here's the official premiere of We've Got You Covered, a series of cover albums paying tribute to an artist or band. 

When I say homebrewed I'll be honest and say that some work has been done for this one, the first volume of what looks like it'll be three volumes dedicated to Lowell George and his merry men. The bulk of the tracks come from a playlist Farq shared over on his island (with a Farq-approved bit rate), but it came off as exactly that: More like a playlist on a computer than a music album, with several tracks having artists follow themselves in rapid succession, something I tend to avoid, and having the same songs repeated right after each other, another big no-no for me. So, there was a bunch of material there, but I felt it could be put into better shape. (Sorry, Jonder, just tagging the tracks right before publication and it looks like this is an old comp of yours!) Over the course of these discs I also added a bunch of additional tracks from various sources, including one or to you might not know or have. And I hope you're charmed by rather than ashamed for the admittedly DIY-looking album cover...

Impeccable look, impeccable song choices...

It's probably not necessary for you, dear experienced music blog reader, to talk about the greatness of George or peak Feat, so let's have a quick look at the line-up of this first volume, shall we? One part of contributors are Lowell George's friends and running mates like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Nicolette Larson or Linda Ronstadt. There is of course also George's old compadre Robert Palmer, who not only had the good taste but also the skills to cover Little Feat several times and always come up with winners. Or label mate Claudia Lennear who launched her solo career (after years of background singing, both in The Ikettes and on a ton of classic songs, with a cover of "Two Trains", only to see it stall out completely after that single and one album. 

Country fans will find Kathy Boguss and The Golden Palominos and their lovely take on the eternally underrated "Brides Of Jesus". Americana fans will no doubt cherish the dream duo of Kelly Willis and Jay Farrar. Speaking of dream duos: How 'bout Susannah Hoffs and Matthew Sweet covering "Willin'". Yup, very good. 

And then there's the group of, well, miscellaneous artists like Cher, Whishbone Ash, dutch actress and singer Ricky Koole , John Sebastian, Dan McCafferty and Sandy Denny. Really, we got a bit of everything for everyone on this. Plus, obviously, some really awesome tunes courtesy of Mr. George. What's there not to like?