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08-31-2020 10:35 PM
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No. Don't mess with perfection.
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The problem with this cover, apart from the absence of Herbie Flowers and the coloured girls, is that Suzanne Vega lives a long way from the wild side. When she sings, 'Valium would have helped that bash,’ she sounds like a nurse.
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I think the cover is fine. I prefer the bass line in the original and the backing singers, but then, that was a studio recording and this is a live one. The way the guitar is arranged works well enough. And is much easier to hear than the bass on the original recording when played on the radio (or a cassette player) before the era of Bass Boost.
She sings it better than Lou did.
As for Suzanne Vega having or not having a wild side, I don't know. I don't think that matters. Sinatra wasn't black but sang "Old Man River" well.
Curiously, Suzanne knew Lou and said she rarely heard him sing this song live. I wonder why. It was his most popular song.
I do miss the sax solo. (I sometimes wonder if Lou had much of anything to do with the recording of that song other than talking the vocal.)
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Oh, Mark, I can't agree she sings it better than Lou.
I do agree about missing that wonderful sax solo!
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"Walk on the Wild Song" is a great song. It has been covered many times. I doubt if any of the covers match Lou Reed's version. I will not investigate. It leads to the question: Is it the singer, not the song, or vice versa?
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I think she finds more tune in the lyrics than Lou actually put there.
Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
His voice does have more presence, and that's no small thing.
I can see prefering his vocal to hers. I grew up hearing Lou sing. In the Velvets he wrote songs with melodies and sang. Afterward, he seemed to decide to talk / narrate. His narration could be flatter than normal speech.
But I think her version is fine. It's a tough song for a singer to do a lot with because there's not much melody there. (There's not a lot of musical development either.) David Bowie and Mick Ronson did a helluva job producing the original.
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There is a version of her performing it with Lou. The live version of her singing the chorus was recorded here at SXSW in 2014. My neighbor has a recording studio in his garage which allows about 30 members of an audience to watch and I saw her perform this song live there last year.
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I think everyone agrees Hendrix did "All Along the Watchtower" better than Dylan did (and for those who don't know, Dylan wrote it.) Originally Posted by Phil59
Covers can surpass originals. (I am NOT saying Suzanne Vega's cover of "Walk on the Wild Side" surpasses the original. I think it's fine.)
Johnny Cash's version of "The Beast In Me" is at a whole other level than Nick Lowe's original. (Johnny did a lot of covers that some think surpass the originals: Girl From The North Country, It Ain't Me, Babe, God's Gonna Cut You Down, No Expectations...)
This is a less-well known cover that I think works damned well, the Allman Bros doing the Stones' "Heart of Stone." (While we're on this subject, the blues is a genre in which many people have made their mark with covers---Koko Taylor didn't write "Wang-Dang Doodle",but she sure sang the hell out of it, and the Allmans (following Junior Wells) took Willie Cobb's "You Don't Love Me" to a better place... Bobby Bland's guitarist added the "Stormy Monday changes" to T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" around 15 years after the original came out, and a decade later the Allmans recorded a version many consider the best of all.
This may be my favorite cover version of all, Amos Milburn's cover of "Down the Road A Piece" (which the Stones and Chuck Berry also covered.)
The Stones themselves have covered many songs but three stand out from their early days: Not Fade Away, Time Is On My Side, and It's All Over Now.
And then there's Johnny Winter And Live, a rousing set of covers from 1971. (The only original is Johnny's "Mean Town Blues" ) Standout tracks: "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl, "It's My Own Fault", "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and "Johnny B. Goode."
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Suzanne Vega’s own work is so much better than this cover. While we are on the subject, we should remember Tom’s Album, Vega’s rather brave compilation of covers of her song, Tom’s Diner.
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Dig all those versions. Can't you just enjoy, why make this into some sort of a contest?
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So once there is a great recording of a song, no one else should ever record said song again? Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I sometimes hear that type of POV from rockers and pop listeners but never at a jazz forum.
For me, with jazz there is no such concept as a "cover"; One main reason is that most initial recordings of a jazz standard were NOT done by the composer (e.g. Kern, Porter, etc...).
But hey I feel similar when it comes to film; no such concept as a 'remake', only new adaptations.
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Oh, chill. I really don't care that much about it.
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I'm all for covers.. but I so commensurate with this on so many topics.
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The thing about so called 'covers' (new adaptations), is that they bring attention to prior versions, especially the original one. Originally Posted by Spook410
I have heard way too many people cry about "'how dare they mess with this classic song" (or movie). I find that silly (at best).
The vast majority of the time a new adaptation will turn-on younger generations to the original version. This is true with music as well as film. Thus the status of the original is enhanced and not being messed-with.
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the great herbie flowers! who played basses on the lou reed transformer original
his blue fender jazz bass is a grail item!
cheers
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Herbie double tracked the bass - one electric and one acoustic - so he could get paid double. True story! Originally Posted by neatomic
And what a cool bari sax solo (Ronnie Ross? Bowie's old sax teacher..)! - dom7 against maj 7 - still scratching my head over why it sounds so good...
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