Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In 1970, the folk singer-songwriter Steve Goodman took a long overnight train journey on the Illinois Central line that ran from Chicago to New Orleans. Goodman had recently been diagnosed with leukaemia, and friends later said the trip took on deeper meaning for him. The passing landscapes, his fellow travellers, the labourers at successive stations, and the fading romance of American rail travel all found their way into the lyrics.

Goodman reportedly wrote much of City Of New Orleans in one session after the journey, with the upbeat chorus: “Good morning America, how are you?” The train itself — the City of New Orleans — is a narrator, an actual setting and a metaphor for a country in transition.

Chicago-born Steve Goodman was a folk singer, guitarist and gifted songwriter known for his warm wit and storytelling. Though he never attained major commercial success, he was highly regarded among fellow musicians and by a loyal fan base. Besides City of New Orleans, he also wrote You Never Even Called Me by My Name (a country hit for David Allan Coe) and many songs set around Chicago life and baseball culture.

City Of New Orleans appeared on his debut album in 1971, produced by Kris Kristofferson, who also provided backing vocals. As did John Prine, who 27 years later featured on Randy Scruggs’ version of the song.

Goodman battled leukaemia for much of his adult life, performing and recording between treatments. His career was cut short when he died in 1984 at the age of 36.

Steve Goodman on April 30, 1983. (Photo: David Gans/ Creative Commons 2.0)

Soon after Goodman’s recording of City of New Orleans it was covered by John Denver on his Aerie album, but it was Arlo Guthrie who scored a huge hit with the song.

According to Goodman, he had relentlessly played the song for his friend Guthrie — at one point even performing it in Arlo’s kitchen. Eventually Guthrie agreed to record it for his 1972 album Hobo’s Lullaby. As a single, his version was a hit, first in the United States and then around the world. It is Guthrie’s recording that most people associate with the song.

City Of New Orleans has been covered many tines — the 50 versions here don’t represent an exhaustive list. It quickly became especially popular among country acts such as Hank Snow, Sammi Smith, Lynn Anderson, The Seldom Scene, Chet Atkins (in an instrumental), Jerry Reed and Johnny Cash, who recorded the song several times, first with June Carter.

In 1984, Willie Nelson recorded City Of New Orleans, and his version became a # 1 country hit in the US and won a Grammy for Best Country Song, awarded to Goodman posthumously as songwriter.

In Europe, the song also found success in translation. Joe Dassin was an early adopter in 1972, rendering it as Salut les amoureux (Hello Lovers), reworking the lyrics as a bittersweet farewell between lovers. In the Netherlands the following year, Gerard Cox topped the charts with ’t Is Weer Voorbij, Die Mooie Zomer (It’s over again, that beautiful summer).

In Germany, the summer theme was popular. A middle-aged chap called Ronny (who had a way of crooning about the Wild West and adventures at sea) took the cue from Cox with his Einmal vergeht der schönste Sommer (Every beautiful summer must end). Dutch entertainer Rudi Carrell, an all-time legend of German television, had a big hit in 1975 by sticking with a summer theme on his record Wann wird’s mal wieder richtig Sommer (When are we going to have a proper summer again), which expressed the timeless cliché of “in my day everything was better” by way of unintended reference to climate change. Much later there was a version in the Kölsch dialect of Cologne titled Wann ward dat Wäder wedder better (When will the weather get better) by De Plattfööt. Even by the loose measures of quality control in Song Swarms, I couldn’t get myself to force that on to you.

Before Rudi was bemoaning the early effects of climate change, the fairly recently late Jack White tried his hand, with less success and no great sparkle, at a more faithful translation, Der Zug genannt die ‘City of New Orleans’ (The train called the ‘City of New Orleans’). White, a former professional footballer, soon dropped his singing career to become a hugely successful producer.

The best of the quartet of German versions here is more recent. Veteran German country singer Tom Astor in 2013 returned the song to its original spirit on Hallo Old Germany, wie geht’s dir (Hello Old Germany, how are you), with the singer taking to the Autobahn instead of the Eisenbahn. Finnish band Karma did something similar in 1976 with Hyvää huomenta Suomi (Good Morning Finland), as did Norwegian singer Lillian Askeland in 1984 with her less than brilliant Hei Mamma Norge (Hello, Mother Norway).

In 1976, Icelandic rock band Brimkló covered the song to good effect as Síðasta sjóferðin, which I invite you to say fast four times in a row. The title means The Last Voyage. Their version is very good.

In 1981, Czech crooner Karel Gott released an album of covers of country songs, performed in Czech. It included a version of City Of New Orleans under the title Vstávej, ty tuláku (quickly, five times in a row), which means “Get up, you vagabond”. Gott — whose name must have seemed ironic in aggressively atheistic Czechoslovakia — was hugely popular in Germany, but he decided to re-record his country set in English.

Polish band Lonstar just sang the song in English in 1999, seven years before Texan country band Lonestar got around to it.

Of the foreign languages on show, other than Dassin’s French, I think Icelandic has the nicest sound for this song, though German suits the chugging rhythm of the song. And let’s say that Czech is not the perfect tongue for folk-rock.

City Of New Orleans has invited no soul covers and little attention from rock acts. The closest to rock we get here is an irreverent hard rock take by Me First And The Gimme Gimmes. And while soul ignored the song, there were a couple of early reggae versions, with Byron Lee transferring the setting to Jamaica. Commendably, he gave himself no writer’s credit for the switcheroo. The other reggae version here is by Hopeton Lewis, who used to be a singer with Byron Lee’s Dragonaires.  Also unusual is the Dixieland jazz treatment by the Fourth Street Five Jazz Band.

More recently, covers of City Of New Orleans have come from the Americana and alt.country genre. But the whole thing ends with a celtic take on the City Of New Orleans.

So, here are 50 different versions of Steve Goodman’s song.  A PDF of the text above is included.

1971:  Steve Goodman, John Denver • 1972: Arlo Guthrie, The Seldom Scene, Byron Lee & The Dragonaires (as Good Morning Jamaica), Joe Dassin as (Salut les amoureux), Kirk Felix • 1973: Lynn Anderson, Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, Chet Atkins, Sammi Smith, Hank Snow, Hopeton Lewis, Gerard Cox (as ‘t Is Weer Voorbij, Die Mooie Zomer), Jack White (as Der Zug genannt die ‘City of New Orleans’), Lisle, Le Grand Orchestre De Paul Mauriat (as Salut les amoureux), Bluegrass Alliance • 1974: Ronny (as Einmal vergeht der schönste Sommer) • 1975: Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Jerry Reed, Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie, Rudi Carrell (as Wann wird’s mal wieder richtig Sommer) • 1976: Brimkló (as Síðasta sjóferðin), Karma (as Hyvää huomenta Suomi) • 1981: Karel Gott (as Vstávej, ty tuláku) • 1982: Karel Gott. 1984: Willie Nelson, Lillian Askeland (as Hei Mamma Norge) • 1987: Suzanne Klee & Harry Shannon, The Country Gentlemen • 1988: Richard Clayderman • 1989: Lloyd Mabrey • 1998: Randy Scruggs with John Prine • 1999: Lonstar • 2002: Willie Nelson & Sheryl Crow • 2003: Fourth Street Five Jazz Band • 2004: David Hasselhoff • 2006: Jimmy Buffett, Lonestar, Luther Wright & The Wrongs, Mary-Lou • 2007: Me First And The Gimme Gimmes • 2008: Roch Voisine • 2012: Moon Dancer, Sarah Maisel • 2013: Tom Astor (as Hallo Old Germany, wie geht’s dir?) • 2014: Chuck Potthast & Lynne Jones • 2018: Derek Warfield & The Young Wolfe Tones

GET IT!

Previous Song Swarms:
Blue Moon
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Georgia On My Mind
Gonna Get Along Without You Now
Hound Dog
Light My Fire
Like A Rolling Stone
Over The Rainbow
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Sunny
These Boots Are Made For Walking

I usually don’t have guest posts — Any Major Dude With Half A Heart is a lone rider. But when reader Léon MacDuff, a contributor to The New Vinyl Villain, offered to do a Song Swarm of the ever-charming Gonna Get Along Without You Now, I decided to move aside and let him do his thing. And, wow, hasn’t he just! There are 67 versions, all reviewed in fine style. Enjoy! 

My impression is that Gonna Get Along Without You Now is not really considered one of the “Great Songs”. Everybody knows it (although I would contend that few know it at its best) but it’s not thought of as one of the classics. Perhaps that’s because it’s not an especially showy melody, and so doesn’t attract the kind of show-off singers whose performance would give it a leg-up in the canon.

And yet, it has something about it that brings every generation back to the well. Immersing myself in these 67 versions – albeit a few of them instrumental or with substitute lyrics in foreign tongues – I think part of the song’s secret is that its attitude of defiance doesn’t falter. There’s never any sense that the narrator is merely putting on a brave face or pining for a reunion; they really are going to be fine.

That attitude was there from the start, but expressed in different ways as the song got rewritten in its early years; the first five versions here each have a different set of lyrics. Jim Boyd’s 1950 country number is essentially prehistory: we get the concept and the key line, but little else.

For this reason, it’s Roy Hogshed who usually gets credit as the originator, as this blog did on The Originals: Country Edition. His version has a bunch of verses that never turn up again, but they are set to the “right” melody, and include for the first time the signature couplet, “You ran around with every boy in town / You never even cared if it got me down”. The energetic sound is very forward-thinking for 1951, effectively rockabilly before rockabilly as we know it was even invented, and it has a streak of black humour which doesn’t necessarily carry through the many subsequent versions. Hogshed’s version also feels like a natural for Lonnie Donegan to revive, though sadly he never did. Possibly my favourite version, and with 65 still to go, I apologise for peaking so early.

Mystery authorship

There’s a bit of a mystery here, though. Milton Kellem is recognised as the sole writer of Gonna Get Along Without You Now. His name gets mangled a lot; you see it rendered as Kellum, Keller, Kellern, and worse, but these first two recordings don’t credit him at all. Jim Boyd’s version is credited to Boyd and Jimmy Allard, and Roy Hogshed’s to Hogshed and Rex May. Neither Allard nor May appear to have any other credits, and the names do not correspond to members of the backing groups. Could they both be pen names for Kellem? He is notorious for having many pseudonyms, though these particular ones appear to have gone unclaimed. But if they’re not him, then somebody ripped somebody off!

1952 brings us two light jazz renderings courtesy of Janette Davis and Teresa Brewer, both adopting a “boom boom” motif. Brewer has the honour of making the first “hit” version (Billboard Jukebox Hits #25) and it’s not hard to see why, as it really is infectiously joyful. Upset about breaking up? Nah, let’s celebrate with full brass! It has to be admitted that Brewer’s overegged exuberance annoyed as many as it charmed, and even she tired of it after a while, but it’s fine in small doses, and Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now suits her well.

Janette Davis’ version wasn’t a hit and lacks the brass, though it’s not to be dismissed. This lyric is the “official” one used in the sheet music, including an extra verse not present in Brewer’s version, “You had me worried, always on my guard / But you laughed at me ‘cos I tried too hard”, which won’t be heard again for another 15 years.

But the most-followed template was that set in 1956 by Californian teenage sisters Patience & Prudence, who had been pushed into the spotlight by their orchestra leader father. This is the version which gives us “You told me I was the neatest thing…” and “You told everybody that we were friends…” as well as the “So long my honey” refrain, and tones the “boom boom” down to “mmm-hmm”. With what is effectively a double-time vocal line, it’s brisker than most of the versions which followed it – if anything, perhaps a little too brisk as it sometimes feels like the sisters are struggling to keep up. But it’s certainly got a charm about it, and was a deserved hit on both sides of the Atlantic, though I wish it hadn’t been this lyric that stuck.

The version by the Bell Sisters represents the last of the early rewrites, with “Boom Boom My Honey” elevated to a main hook, and to the title, and a unique “Not gonna cry about you nor sigh about you” refrain. It’s ostensibly in a calypso style, though the Bell Sisters’ idea of calypso seems to be singing everything very staccato. Popular in the States earlier in the decade, the Bell Sisters’ fame was decidedly on the wane by this point, and the promo issue of Boom Boom My Honey did not lead to a full release.

End of meddling

After 1956, the constant meddling stops for a while and the song’s history settles down to a series of straight covers, with the Patience and Prudence version rapidly established as the preferred recipe. Audrey Marsh & Dottie Evans stick faithfully to P&P’s path, and while Die Sunnies couldn’t be bothered with an actual German translation (instead substituting some unrelated stuff about it being a lovely summer’s day), the orchestral backing is a fair facsimile. Phil Queen’s obscure version breaks ranks by bringing back the Bell Sisters’ “Boom boom my honey” refrain (was he actually familiar with that version, or was this a coincidence?). George Hudson’s amendment of the title to “Gonna Twist Along Without You Now” is silly and opportunistic, but the stomping beat group arrangement does give the song some new life.

1964 brings us Skeeter Davis’ cover, often regarded (particularly in the US) as the definitive version. Perhaps the best distillation of Davis’ pop-country crossover style, her interpretation uses the Patience and Prudence lyric again, but with a light, appealing touch and introducing a distinctive keyboard riff which turns up in many subsequent versions.

That same year, Teresa Brewer recorded an album of recent hits done in her own style, and she certainly wasn’t going to let anyone forget who first made a hit of this one. No concession is made to the Skeeter Davis interpretation – if anything, Brewer makes a point of revisiting the exuberance of her 1952 version and amping it up even more. Strangely, Cash Box editor Ira Howard, who wrote the sleevenotes for the LP, seems unaware of Brewer’s history with the song, identifying it as “the Patience and Prudence oldie”.

One man who certainly remembered Brewer’s interpretation was Bob Crewe, who alongside his masterminding of The Four Seasons was also working with singer Tracey Dey, and provided her with a catchy girl group arrangement to which he added a “Bye bye baby, don’t cry baby” refrain. A minor Hot Hundred entry around the same time as Skeeter Davis, it spawned copycat versions by the Taylor Sisters (seemingly unreleased at the time, but disinterred from the vaults many years later), the “national voice of Puerto Rico” Lucecita Benitez, and The Trixies, a session group churning out cover versions for a budget label. And then it disappears from the fossil record. Shame, I rather like that version. Somebody should revive it.

The Renays, a short-lived girl group from Wellington, New Zealand, did the P&P version with a guitar backing and a breakneck pace, and put it on the flipside of their one and only single release where it was heard by basically no one until picked up for a CD of local bands forty years later. A fun version, and at dead on 1:30, it’s in no danger of outstaying its welcome.

The versions by The Vibrations (1966) and The Melodians (1967) are both well-represented on compilations in their respective genres, and both take the chorus and essentially build a whole new song around it. The Vibrations’ northern soul track – produced by Milton Kellem’s brother Manny – is an odd one since they seem to have forgotten it’s a break-up song, and consequently the verses are rather at odds with the chorus. The Melodians’ rocksteady version seems more attuned to the actual spirit of the song.

Trini Lopez sets his 1967 version apart by devising his own instrumental intro, but then does something even more startling: he revives the full Janette Davis lyric, unheard since 1952. The easygoing charm that made Lopez a star is very much in evidence here, and once again there’s a spate of covers-of-the-cover: The Deejays and Pat And His Peddlers both stick to that lyric, Sea Of Tranquility retain the Lopez intro in their mostly instrumental version, and a succession of non-English versions also take their musical cues from Lopez. Pat and his Peddlers hail from Hawaii and their recording is ostensibly in a Hawaiian style, though that influence is rather subtle; it may as well be a California surf record. All-female Mexican beat group Las Chic’s (it’s their apostrophe, they can put it where they like) are surely just one soundtrack inclusion away from retrospective cult stardom.

Reinvented in many styles

From the mid-60s onwards the song gets reinvented in a bunch of different styles: The Young Americans and The Lawrence Welk Singers turn in easy listening versions, of which I strongly prefer the latter. Chet Atkins gives it a darned good finger-picking, Trio Ternura add a hint of bossa nova, Kristine Sparkle goes glam, and since of course every song of any note must have a lovers rock version, Christine Oliver steps up to fill that niche.

It gets rewritten in French, Spanish, German, Swedish and Norwegian – and those are just the ones I could track down. Renate & Werner Leismann turn the song into a duet. How can Gonna Get Along Without You Now possibly work as a duet? It can’t, really: instead they sing (auf Deutsch) about how everything in life passes, and they’re not even referring to love especially.Also in the schlager genre is the relentlessly upbeat Norwegian version by Wenche, who outside of her native Norway was better known as Wencke Myhre.

Bucking the trend, Laverne & Shirley stars Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams go all the way back to Teresa Brewer for their likeable radio-friendly pop version, offering up verses that everyone else had forgotten even existed.

But for people of my generation, Gonna Get Along Without You Now was always a disco song. Heard in the context of 66 other recordings, it’s rather startling to realise that Viola Wills’ 121 bpm dancefloor favourite is actually one of the slower-tempoed renditions. It’s clearly based on the Skeeter Davis version, adjusting the keyboard riff to taste, and it’s hard to dislike, especially if, like me, you grew up knowing it as the definitive rendering. Lost amid the anti-disco backlash in the US, it was a big hit pretty much everywhere else.

The Cates reside in the same general area of country-pop crossover as Skeeter Davis, but while Davis’ version was slightly on the pop side of the line, I think the Cates are slightly on the country side.

As for Skeeter herself, while it’s a mere curio in comparison to The Hit, I think her version with NRBQ is good fun. In 1981 Davis recorded an album with the New York quartet which didn’t include Gonna Get Along Without You Now – but they did perform it together at the album launch party four years later (it was on the shelf for a long time), and that live version was included as a bonus track when the album was reissued earlier this year. It’s certainly different to her more famous recording, and while it’s a bit rough around the edges, that just adds to the charm.

Bad Manners offer up a pleasant enough version, but with a “reggae mix”, “ska mix” and “radio edit” to choose from, which should I include? Actually, it hardly matters: the reggae mix is just the radio version slowed down by slightly more than a semitone, while the ska mix is sped up by a similar degree. The difference is enough to be noticeable but not really enough to be worth it. So the radio version it is.

Lemonheads issued their cover on a 12” EP titled Patience And Prudence, so we know which version they were inspired by, although it’s a bit more raucous than its model. In contrast, Ann Breen’s version isn’t just easy listening, it’s wallpaper. And cheese. An inadvisable combination.

Stage musicals veteran Maureen McGovern slows the song way down on her covers album Baby I’m Yours, for which the concept is songs she grew up with. Her sleevenote for Gonna Get Along Without You Now identifies it as originating in 1956 and tells us: “From Patience and Prudence in the 50s to Skeeter Davis in the early 60s, this has always been a playful, tongue-in-cheek song.” That’s a strangely narrow window, particularly when you realise that McGovern is actually the one singer who does what you’d think everyone would: she takes the multiple lyrical variants and builds her own custom selection. Her version is a combination of the Janette Davis and Patience & Prudence versions, incorporating for the first and apparently only time both Davis’ “You had me worried…” (which doesn’t appear in any of the 56-64 versions) and Pat & Pru’s “You told everybody that we were friends”. I’m not entirely convinced by the lounge styling but I appreciate the effort.

I have to admit, this chronological survey rather peters out in the final quarter. A lot of the later versions are harking back to Viola Wills and attempting to “update” the disco sound for a modern audience, with less than impressive results. Us It Up go for a sort of Ace Of Base style, then there’s a succession of disappointingly generic Euro dance thumpers through the mid-1990s. The new millennium brings some slightly more successful attempts with Soraya beefing it up (rather than mincing it to shreds), Tanja Thomas (more usually known by the mononym Michelle, but she was having an identity crisis at the time – not a joke) more or less directly copying the Wills version, and the Saragossa Band attempting to do likewise but falling rather short. It doesn’t help that Harry Carrer, Saragossa Band’s singer right from their 1970s origins and despite singing in English that whole time, still struggles with his pronunciation. Although in all fairness, he’s not the worst here.

2010 brings some respite, with versions from She & Him (a ’50s arrangement but with very clean modern production, much as you’d expect from this pair) and UB40, whose fourth volume of cover versions under the “Labour Of Love” banner features a revival of The Melodians’ rocksteady rewrite. After that, it’s largely just more club bangers, hardly worth a description.

We do, however, get an interesting contribution from country-blues guitarist-singer Nate Gibson. Gibson’s “thing” is that as well as a musician, he’s an archivist and historian (and no dabbler – he’s got a Ph.D, no less), so he goes right back to Jim Boyd for his cover, which actually would have been the perfect ending, and frankly I was tempted to stop there.

Instead our end point lies with Ramon Jacinto. “RJ”, as he’s popularly known, is something of a media magnate in the Philippines, owning radio and TV stations and music venues – and he loves his guitars too. His version of Gonna Get Along Without You Now comes from his twelfth studio album, Swinging The Classics, issued just last year, and seems to be based on the Trini Lopez version.

So here’s your song swarm. 67 versions over 73 years, though I couldn’t blame you for bailing around 1995.

Of course, the text above is included as an illustrated PDF. And — good news — all previous Song Swarms are now up again!

1950: Jim Boyd and his Men of the West • 1951: Roy Hogshed • 1952: Janette Davis • Teresa Brewer • 1956: Patience and Prudence • The Bell Sisters • 1957: Audrey Marsh and Dottie Evans • Joan Small • Die Sunnies • 1959: Phil Queen and the Galavants • 1962: George Hudson • 1964: The Caravelles • Skeeter Davis • Tracey Dey • Taylor Sisters • The Renays • The Trixies • Teresa Brewer (remake) • 1965: Lucecita • Annie Fratellini • Majbritt Persson • 1966: The Vibrations • 1967: The Melodians • Trini Lopez • The Deejays • Las Chic’s • Enrique Guzman • The Young Americans • 1968: Pat Henry y Los Diablos Azules • Trio Ternura • Chet Atkins • The Lawrence Welk Singers • 1970: Claude Francois • Wenche • Sea Of Tranquility • 1971: Ken Colyer’s All Stars • Renate and Werner Leismann • 1972: Pat And His Paddlers • 1973: Kristine Sparkle • 1975: Christine Oliver • 1976: Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams • 1979: Viola Wills • 1980: The Cates • 1981: Charly Galatis • 1985: NRBQ with Skeeter Davis • 1989: Bad Manners • 1990: Chevelle and Papa San • 1991: Ann Breen • Lemonheads • 1992: Maureen McGovern • 1994: Us It Up • 1995: Dominica • Mr President • 1997: Donna Welles • Tequila • 2006: Soraya • Tanja Thomas • 2007: Saragossa Band • 2010: UB40 • She & Him • 2012: Hexxar • Nate Gibson • 2015: Radiorama • 2016: Wendy Rivers • 2020: The JNBY Project • 2022: Yolanda Garzón and Michel Velarde • 2023: Ramon ”RJ” Jacinto

GET IT!

Previous Song Swarms:
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Hound Dog
Blue Moon
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Like A Rolling Stone
Sunny
Over The Rainbow
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Georgia On My Mind
Light My Fire
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

RCA Studios, New York. Monday, July 2, 1956. Elvis turned up for his third and final recording session there to lay down the tracks for Hound Dog, the song’s eventual b-side, Don’t Be Cruel, and the ballad Any Way You Want Me.

By now, Elvis had become confident enough to take charge of the session, for all intents and purposes acting as the producer. He had decided which songs to record, and would run through as many takes as necessary for the perfect recording. Occasionally, when a backing musician would make a mistake, he would sing a note out of key or commit another error, forcing another take. In the seven-hour session, 31 takes of Hound Dog were recorded (and 28 of Don’t Be Cruel). Elvis listened to them all, narrowed down the choices. Eventually, he settled for Take 18 of Hound Dog (some sources say it was number 28, others yet suggest the final one).

Before the session, the story goes, RCA had procured the first recording of the Leiber/Stoller composition, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s blues rendition from 1953, to know what their star was planning to record. Everybody was aghast: they thought it was horrible, and were unable to comprehend why Elvis would want to record that, as Gordon Stoker of the vocal backing group The Jordanaires later recalled. Stoker and the other puzzled people in the studio obviously did not watch TV.

Almost a month before the recording session, on June 5, Elvis had performed the song, hip-swivellingly, on The Milton Berle Show, more or less the way he was going to record it on July 2. DJ Fontana had already introduced the drum roll between the verses, and Scotty Moore the guitar solo. He performed the song again on TV the day before the recording session: the performance on The Steve Allen Show when, wearing a tuxedo, Presley had to sing the song to a bemused, top-hatted basset hound. Elvis was a good sport about it, at one point even laughing at the absurd set-up. He later recalled it as the most peculiar experience of his career — and that presumably includes all those bizarre movies! The Berle performance, seen by a reported 40 million people, had created a storm of protest by the guardians of morality at Elvis’ “vulgarity”. Could anybody really have been so oblivious as to regard Rainey’s record as a blueprint, as if Elvis had no idea what to do with the song?

The truth is that Elvis didn’t base his version on Big Mama Thornton at all. In fact, the song had crossed the tracks within weeks of Thornton’s record, with versions by country acts such as Eddie Hazelwood, Betsy Gay, Bob Wills, Jack Turner and Billy Starr. But it was a 1955 cover by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys which provided the template for Elvis’ interpretation. Elvis had seen the Italo-American band during his discouraging concert engagement in Vegas in April/May 1956. Having ascertained that Bell wouldn’t mind, Elvis quickly included their reworked Hound Dog in his setlist.

Elvis probably was aware of Thornton’s version, and perhaps heard some of the country covers that had been released; one source says Elvis was familiar with it already in 1953. But Elvis’ Hound Dog is entirely a cover of the Bellboys’ template, incorporating their sound and modified lyrics (“Cryin’ all the time” for Thornton’s “Snoopin” round my door”, “You ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine” for “You can wag your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more” and so on). Happily Elvis dispensed with the lupine howls. What he produced was arguably the first ever punk song.

Bell and his band enjoyed a mostly undistinguished recording career, with only one real hit, Giddy Up A Ding Dong, which was much bigger in Europe than it was in the US, in 1956. Adapted lyrics notwithstanding, Bell received no writing credit for Elvis’ Hound Dog. The writing credit remained entirely with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who were still R&B-obsessed teenagers when in 1952 they were commissioned by the producer Johnny Otis to write a song for Big Mama Thornton. They did so in 15 minutes. Otis claimed co-authorship, and his co-credit appeared on the label of the Thornton single. Leiber & Stoller fought him in court, and won. Thornton’s recording became a #1 hit on the R&B charts in 1953. Her 12-bar blues inspired a plagiarised response song, which turned out to be the first ever record released by Sun Records, Sam Phillips’ label which would go on to discover Elvis.

Three years after Thornton’s hit, Stoller honeymooned on board of the sinking Andrea Doria. His life was spared. Returning to New York, he was greeted at the pier by Leiber with the news that Hound Dog had become a smash hit. “Mama Thornton?” Stoller asked. “No, some white kid named Elvis Presley,” replied Leiber.

The songwriters, R&B purists both, resented Elvis’ version. When, inevitably, they were commissioned to write for Elvis a year later, for the Jailhouse Rock film, they were not particularly happy. As a form of revenge, Leiber wrote for Elvis to sing this line in the title track: “You’re the cutest little jailbird I ever did see.” The prison in Jailhouse Rock was not co-ed. When they finally met Elvis, the songwriters realised that Elvis was a kindred spirit who genuinely shared their love for R&B, and they became good friends. Stoller even appeared in the film, as a piano player.

There have been many cover versions of Hound Dog, drawing from both Thornton’s and Presley’s templates (but not from the country versions that came after the former and before the latter). The division is fairly predictably between those who in the lyrics are ejecting a freeloader and those who note in the titular canine an Elmer Fuddian rate of failure in hunting down rabbits.

Blues aficionadoes like Eric Clapton will opt for the Big Mama original, with its coherent lyrics in which the term “hound dog” serves as a euphemism for something quite rude — “something like motherfucker”, according to Leiber. The Elvis fans tend to pay tribute to his doggerel version — and to Presley. In his live version John Lennon drawls “Elvis, I love ya”. The Rolling Stones in their horrible 1978 live version from Memphis, provide an example of when a tribute is exactly the opposite.

Jerry Lee Lewis borrows from Elvis’ sound but goes with Thornton’”s lyrics. Conversely, blues master Albert King‘s version is melodically closer to Thornton, but uses the Presley lyrics. And the Everly Brothers employ a martial beat.

Pat Boone, on an Elvis tribute album whose cover references the gold suit sleeve, croons to a pseudo baroque backing before shifting gear into what might be called an easy listening rock & roll groove which even by 1963 would have sounded hopelessly dated. At one point Patrick sings one of the aggressively ungrammatical lines of the Presley version, and then “corrects” it: “You have not never caught a rabbit and you aren’t no friend of mine.” One suspects that Boone did not cherish the song. Rockin’ Rocky Rockwell also betrayed no fondness for the song in what appears to be a mocking take on the Lawrence Welk Show in 1956. Chubby Checker‘s hound dog is — obviously — “twisting all the time”.

If the twisting and surfing versions provide a time capsule, then so might the 1977 version by the Puhdys, East Germany’s leading rock band at the time. One might imagine Erich Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev boogying along to it after a hard day of watching goose-stepping soldiers and interminable processions of tanks on the International Day of Glorious Proletarian Combine Harvester Soviet Friendship Parade.

Obviously Shakin’ Stevens did a version, and does well with a rough-vocaled uptempo boogie treatment, also from 1977. T. Rex‘s outtake came out only in 1993; I don’t know when it was recorded, but it regrettably defies all glam expectations as Bolan comes across all whiney folk-singer with Hound Dog”.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik did their version in 2001, performing it in the way their 1980s incarnation might have expected music to sound like in the year 2000, while Tom Jones‘ take sounds exactly as you’d think it would, Likewise both Jimi Hendrix versions sound as you might imagine them to, even if they are very different from one another (1969’s Hound Dog Blues features Traffic’s Chris Woods on sax).

Among the best re-imaging is, surprisingly, James Taylor‘s 2009 take. I rather like Betty Everett‘s soul cover (like Taylor’s, using Thornton lyrics) from 1964’s It’s In His Kiss LP, or the burning southern soul track by Ruby Andrews, whose invitation to “wag your tail” might mean exactly what we think it does. But the best version of Hound Dog is the one which Elvis Presley recorded that summer’s day in 1956 in New York, Take Number 18.

And count the number of versions in which some barking, woofing or howling takes place — starting with the original.

(This post has been recycled from June 2014)

Big Mama Thornton (1953) • Billy Starr (1953) • Eddie Hazelwood (1953) • Betsy Gay (1953) • Jack Turner (1953) • Little Esther (Phillips, 1953) • Freddie Bell & the Bellboys (1956) • Elvis Presley (Milton Berle Show, June 5, 1956) •  Elvis Presley (Steve Allen Show, July 1, 1956) • Elvis Presley (1956) • Rockin’ Rocky Rockwell (1956) • Gene Vincent and The Blue Caps (1956) • Jimmy Breedlove (1958) • Chubby Checker (1960) • Sammy Davis Jr (as part of a medley with ‘What’d I Say, 1961) • Don Lang & The Twisters (1962) •  Pat Boone (1963) • Betty Everett (1964) • The Surfaris (1964) • Little Richard (1964) • Big Mama Thornton with Buddy Guy (1965) • The Easybeats (1966) • Chuck Jackson (1966) • Duffy’s Nucleus (1967) • Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967) • Jimi Hendrix (as Hound Dog Blues, 1969) • Albert King (1969) • Ruby Andrews (1972) • Conway Twitty (1972) • John Lennon (live 1972) • John Entwistle (1973) • Jerry Lee Lewis (1974) • Elvis Presley (live in Chicago, November 1976) • Puhdys (1977) • Shakin’ Stevens (1977) • The Rolling Stones (live in Memphis, 1978) • Sha-Na-Na (1978) • Scorpions (1978)• James Booker (1982) • Link Wray (1982) • Junior Wells (1983) • Tales Of Terror (1984) • Hugo Strasser und sein Tanzorchester (1978) • Lonnie Mack (as Hound Dog Man, with Stevie Ray Vaughan Man, 1985) • The Delmonas (1986) • Arthur Brown (1988) • Eric Clapton (1989) • Jeff Beck (1992) • Eddy Clearwater (1992) • Koko Taylor (1993) • T.Rex (released 1993) • Carl Perkins (1994) • Bryan Adams (1994) • Susan Tedeschi (1995) • Tom Jones (1999) • The Residents (2000) • Etta James (2000) • Status Quo (2002) • Sigue Sigue Sputnik (2002) • Robert Palmer (2003) • The Stray Cats (2004) • Macy Gray (2004) • James Taylor (2009)

GET IT!
(PW in comments)*

More Song Swarms

In Motown’s happy family it was common that the same songs would be recorded by different artists. So it is with Papa Was A Rolling Stone, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

The Undisputed Truth, who may be remembered for their hit Smiling Faces Sometimes (which was originally recorded by the Temptations), recorded Papa Was A Rolling Stone as a single release in 1971. It did not perform well, peaking at #63 in the US charts. A year later, Whitfield gave the song to The Temptations when he produced their 1972 All Directions album on which it appeared as a 12-minute workout of the kind that recalled the epic soul symphonies of Isaac Hayes (though the Undisputed Truth version sounds more like an Ike arrangement). The shortened single version went on to top the US charts. The original is discussed further in Any Major Originals: Motown Edition.

The Temptations line-up for that period differed significantly from that of the 1970s glory days, with only Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin remaining. Dennis Edwards had replaced David Ruffin; Richard Street, who had been a member of a Temptations precursor, had replaced the troubled Paul Williams; and Damon Harris had replaced Eddie Kendricks.

The Temptations perform Papa Was A Rolling Stone on Soul Train in 1973.

Recorded in June 1972 and released the following month, all but Otis Williams took lead vocals on Papa Was A Rolling Stone (see below), backed by Motown’s in-house session band, The Funk Brothers, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It topped the US charts, but only made #14 in the UK, two positions lower than the Was (Not Was) 1990 cover.

Cover versions sprung up almost immediately. The earliest featured here is by jazz multi-instrumentalist Jay Berliner, in 1972. The same year Stevie Wonder performed it on TV, using the then little known vocoder. Billy Wolfer’s electronic version in 1982 featured the artist on the vocoder, and Michael Jackson — who had been party to the Jackson 5’s live cover in 1973 — contributing to the background vocals. In 1996 Isaac Hayes, who clearly influenced Whitfield in both of his versions, finally got around to recording Papa Was A Rolling Stone, live with Soul II Soul.

A couple of other versions of the 30 featured here are worth mentioning. Malik Adouane gives it the Arab-Funk treatment, and Los Lobos’ soft acoustic version is quite splendid. I’ll spare us the recent versions by Phil Collins and Craig David.

Back to The Temptation’s version, here are the vocal leads:

Dennis Edwards:
It was the third of September.
That day I’ll always remember, yes I will.
‘Cause that was the day that my daddy died.
I never got a chance to see him.
Never heard nothing but bad things about him.
Mama, I’m depending on you, tell me the truth.
And Mama just hung her head and said,

Dennis Edwards: It was the third of September. That day I’ll always remember.

ALL (lead Edwards)
“Son, Papa was a rolling stone.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.
Papa was a rolling stone, my son.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.”

Edwards
Well, well.
Hey Mama, is it true what they say,
that Papa never worked a day in his life?

Melvin Franklin: And that ain”t right.

Melvin Franklin
And Mama, bad talk going around town
saying that Papa had three outside children and another wife.
And that ain’t right.

Richard Street
Heard some talk about Papa doing some store front preaching.
Talking about saving souls and all the time leeching.
Dealing in debt and stealing in the name of the Lord.
Mama just hung her head and said,

All (lead Street)
“Papa was a rolling stone, my son.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.
Hey, Papa was a rolling stone.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.”

Richard Street (left) and Damon Harris, both died in February 2013

Damon Harris
Hey Mama, I heard Papa call himself a jack of all trade,
Tell me is that what sent Papa to an early grave?
Folk say Papa would beg, borrow, steal to pay his bill.
Richard Street
Hey Mama, folk say that Papa was never much on thinking,
Spent most of his time chasing women and drinking.
Damon Harris
Mama, I’m depending on you to tell me the truth.
Mama looked up with a tear in her eye and said,
All (lead Harris)
“Son, Papa was a rolling stone.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.
Papa was a rolling stone.
Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.
I said, Papa was a rolling stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his home.
And when he died, all he left us was alone.”

Here are the featured versions:

The Undisputed Truth (1971) • The Temptations (1972) • Stevie Wonder (1972) • Jay Berliner • Fausto Papetti (1973) • The Pioneers (1973) • Roy Ayers (1973) • The Jackson 5 (1973) • The Temptations (live, 1973) • Gene Ammons (1973) • Sidney, George and Jackie (1973) • 20th Century Steel Band (1975) • Bill Wolfer (1982) • Precious Wilson (1983) • Was (Not Was) (1990) • South Central Cartel (1992) • Isaac Hayes & Soul II Soul (1996) • Third World (1996) • Los Lobos (1999) • Paul Bollenback (1999) • Ray Brown, John Clayton, Christian McBride (2001) • Malik Adouane (2002) • Lee Ritenour feat Lisa Fischer & Chris Botti (2003) • Leningrad Cowboys (2003) • Rare Earth (2005) • Horace Andy (2005) • Gilbert Montagné (2006) • Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry (2009) • Papa John Defrancesco (2011)

GET IT

And more pictures from Soul Train on my Flickr series.

***

More Song Swarms

It took the great songwriters Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers four attempts to arrive at the version of the song most people will know from the versions by The Marcels, Elvis Presley, Mel Tormé (my favourite, from 1961) or from the film Grease.

Rodgers and Hart originally wrote the song, with different lyrics, for a 1933 MGM film titled Hollywood Party, to be sung by Jean Harlow. The song, going by the working title Prayer (Oh Lord, Make Me A Movie Star), was never recorded, nor did Harlow appear in the film.

The following year, the songwriters dug up the song when MGM needed a number for the film Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and William Powell. It was that movie, incidentally, which the bank robber John Dillinger watched before stepping out of the Chicago cinema to meet his death at the enthusiastic hands of law enforcement. With new lyrics, the song now was called It’s Just That Kind Of Play — and was cut from the movie. However, later in the production, a song was needed for a nightclub scene. Rogers decided that the melody was still good, and Hart wrote a third set of lyrics, under the title The Bad In Every Man. This one made it into the film, sung by Shirley Ross, who would go on to work and sing with Bob Hope on film a few times before retiring in 1945.

By now, MGM had appreciated the commercial potential for the melody, but wanted more romantic lyrics. Enter Lorenz Hart again, reluctantly providing a fourth set of words — those we are now familiar with. But even then, an introductory verse was excised, which proved a good decision. Blue Moon was first recorded on 16 November 1934 by Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra (named after the hotel where they once had a standing engagement), with the band’s saxophonist Kenny Sargent on vocals. Four days later, Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra recorded it, and from there on in, a host of performers and orchestras committed the song to record. The biggest hit of these was the version by Connie Boswell with the Victor Young Orchestra, recorded on 15 January 1935 as the theme for the radio show Hollywood Hotel (Boswell changed her first name to Connee only in the 1940s).

After a flurry of versions (including by Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt and Al Bowlly), Blue Moon was intermittently recorded and also appeared in several movies, including as part of a Harpo interlude in the Marx Brothers’ 1939 film At The Circus. In the 1940s and ’50s it was mainly a jazz number, as an instrumental or in vocal versions, by the likes of Mel Tormé (who first recorded it in 1949), Ella Fitzgerald and Jo Stafford. Arguably it was Elvis Presley’s sombre 1956 version which appeared on his debut LP that returned Blue Moon to the world of popular music (the single of it was released between Hound Dog and Blue Suede Shoes). Sam Cooke released his version in 1958, as a b-side. It became a huge hit in the version by the multiracial doo wop band The Marcels, whose recording is probably the best known of the song.

As so often with popular covers that became huge hits, The Marcels recorded Blue Moon in 1961 as an afterthought. Producer Stu Phillips needed another song, one of the band members knew Blue Moon and taught it to the others, and in a matter of two takes the track had been laid down. The bom-bapa-bom intro came from a song the Marcels had in their live repertoire, which in turn was borrowed and sped up from The Collegians’ song Zoom Zoom Zoom. The Marcels were not the first to produce a doo wop version of Blue Moon, however: in 1956 The Emanons released a doo wop take on Josie Records.

The success of Blue Moon and follow-up single Heartaches (also a cover of a 1930s hit; they did a lot of that) led to extra touring for The Marcels. But in the South the band’s racial composition produced problems; those were the days when the dignified Nat ‘King’ Cole was prone to assault racists. Ultimately, the two white members of the quintet left the group.

When Rod Stewart recorded Blue Moon for his interminable series of American Songbook albums, he added something of a twist: a first verse in Rodgers and Hart’s original composition of Blue Moon which everybody else has ignored.

This collection of 38 versions covers all manner of approaches. There are the early jazz interpretations, most of them with vocals (though Gene Krupa, Django Reinhardt and in 1944 the Cozy Cole Allstars do it instrumentally). Then it became something of a torchsong number in the hands of jazzy crooners such as Mel Tormé, Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Julie London and Ella Fitzgerald. Nat ‘King’ Cole weighed in with a more upbeat version. In 1960, Bert Kaempfert — the first producer of The Beatles — contrived an easy listening instrumental that is very much of its time.

Elvis added a rare falsetto (that take is later replicated in tribute by Chris Isaak and The Mavericks). Around the same time as Elvis, The Emanons recorded a doo wop version, which with Sam Cooke”s might have influenced that by The Marcels, which became a huge hit.

In 1970 Bob Dylan released a rather unexpected cover, with a unique arrangement. Another unexpected performer in this compilation is Robert de Niro, who performed it in the 1977 film New York, New York, in which Bob played a bandleader. Likewise, alt-country rockers My Morning Jacket are not the first band one would think of in a mix of covers of Blue Moon.

I’ve included a playlist file, which runs the versions in the chronological order, as listed below.

Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra (1934) • Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra  (1934) • Connie Boswell & Victor Young Orchestra  (1935) • Al Bowlly with the Ray Noble Orchestra (1935) • Benny Goodman and his Orchestra (1935) • Django Reinhardt  (1935) • Gene Krupa  (1939) • Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra (1939) • Cozy Cole Allstars (1944) • Mel Tormé (1949) • Billy Eckstine (1949) • Nat ‘King’ Cole (1951) • Jo Stafford (1952) • Billie Holiday  (1952) • Oscar Peterson  (1954) • Ella Fitzgerald (1956) • Elvis Presley (1956) • The Emanons (1956) • Sam Cooke  (1958) •  Julie London  (1958) • Bert Kaempfert Orchester (1960) • Mel Tormé  (1960) • Frank Sinatra (1961) • The Marcels  (1961) • The Ventures (1961) • Bobby Vinton (1963) • Dean Martin  (1964) • Bob Dylan  (1970) • Spooky & Sue  (1975) • Robert de Niro & Mary Kay (1977) • Sha Na Na (1978) • Mark Isham with Tanita Tikaram  (1990) • Chris Isaak  (1994) • The Mavericks  (1995) • Tori Amos  (1996) • Vidal Brothers (1997) • Rod Stewart (2004) • My Morning Jacket  (2005) • Cowboy Junkies (2007)

GET IT!

.

More Mixes
Song Swarms

Once upon a time, The Girl From Ipanema was the ultimate square song. You’d hear it piped in the elevator before you entered the lounge where the piano player would tinkle out the most laid back song in pop history to the point of banality.

Today, the song is cool again. At the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics in 2016, supermodel Gisele Bundchen came out strutting out to it. And this song swarm shows a fairly high number of recent covers for a song that resides recognisably in the 1960s. The Girl From Ipanema is cool again.

Bundchen got to play the girl from Ipanema, but the actual woman who inspired the song was not invited to the opening ceremony. And it’s not like Helô Pinheiro fell into obscurity after the poet Vini­cius de Moraes immortalised her in the song.

Songwriters Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes were sitting in the Veloso bar in the Ipanema beachfront district of Rio one winter’s day in 1962 when they noticed a pretty school girl — Heloísa Pinheiro — walking past them in her jacket-and-tie school uniform, and later in her bikini on the way to the beach. And day by day, they’d see her again, passing by and being observed by the two middle-aged men. And sometimes the 15-year-old would come into the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother.

Heloísa Pinheiro, the inspiration for The Girl Fom Ipanema, on the beach.

Folklore has it that the men wrote this new, yet untitled song right there in the bar. In truth, they wrote it separately; Jobim working out the melody meticulously on his piano; de Moraes investing his poetic energy in creating that bitter-sweet erotic yearning of man for the unattainable — a melancholy underscored by the rising minor key changes in the “Oh, but he watches so sadly” set of lines. And so the song that started life as “Girl Passing By” emerged as Garota de Ipanema — The Girl From Ipanema.

The newly-hatched song was first performed at Rio’s Bon Gourmet restaurant, with the singer João Gilberto on vocals. Gilberto also recorded an unreleased version before it was cut on record by a vocal group called Os Cariocas (which means The Rio de Janeireans) and then by bossa nova singer Pery Ribeiro and the otherwise quite forgotten Tamba Trio. These four early versions are feature here. They are not bad, but it would take a stroke of genius to create the template from which almost every other version would flow.

In 1963 the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz had become obsessed with that new bossa nova sound from Brazil, and invited its pioneers, Tom Jobim and João Gilberto, to New York for an album of collaborations. Lyricist Norman Gimbel — the only famous songwriter to have corresponded with this blog — was called in to write English lyrics for the lilting tune about the girl from — oh, he was going to change that unpronounceable name. As Jobim remembered it years later in conversation with the music journalist James Woodall — and Gimbel might have different recall — it took a taxi ride in bitterly cold New York to persuade the American lyricist that firstly, a word such as Ipanema existed, and secondly to leave the name of the beach in the lyrics, for “maybe one day everyone will know about it”.

And so Gilberto, Jobim and Getz found themselves in the studio with Gimbel’s reworked lyrics. The problem was that Gilberto’s English wasn’t really up for the new version. So his wife Astrud was roped in — not quite as much by chance as myth would have it, and she certainly wasn’t the novice of legend. Although not yet a professional singer, Astrud had sung with João before, and she was in the studio with a view of singing something. That this something was The Girl From Ipanema was the stroke of genius. Astrud’s cool voice gave the song an innocent sexuality, as if she was the girl from Ipanema singing about herself in the third person. And even as she made the song more sexual, by dint of being a sung by a woman the lyrics lost the innate creepiness of a middle-aged man lusting after a teenage girl.

The Girl From Ipanema was a big hit. Released on the Verve label, it peaked at #5 on the Billboard charts and won a Grammy. And it became an instant standard. Even Mrs Miller did a butchered version (it is here, if you dare to listen). Frank Sinatra recorded it with João Gilberto to great effect, as did fellow crooner Sammy Davis Jr, helped by Count Basie. And Lou Rawls’ take might be the best of the lot. Whereas Henry Mancini turned it into revoltingly cheesy easy listening. In Brazil the Astrud Gilberto template apparently didn’t hold: the 1965 version of by the flamboyant bossa nova singer Cauby Peixoto, who died in May this year, pays no mind to what came before.

What became of the protagonists in this story? Astrud had a moderately successful singing career, though she never shook off the Ipanema girl burden. She unofficially retired in 2002. Aged 76, she is still alive. Stan Getz, whose affair with Astrud put an end to his working relationship with João for the next 12 years, died in 1991. Jobim went three years later, shortly after finishing his final album, Antonio Brasileiro. He died a national treasure, having also written such Brazilian classics as Desafinado and One Note Samba. João Gilberto, who like Gimbel is still alive, is still recording [Edit: He died at 88 on 6 July 2019). Vinicius de Moraes died in 1980 at the age of 66.

And the Girl from Ipanema, Heloísa Pinheiro, who wasn’t invited to the opening ceremony of the Olympics where the famous song about her was highlighted as a legacy of Brazilian culture? She had stints as an actress and as a model, posing twice nude in Playboy (in 1987 and again 2003, with her daughter!).

In 2001 the heirs of the composers sued Pinheiro for naming her boutique Garota de Ipanema, arguing that her inspiration of the song was just incidental and she therefore had no right to use the song title for her store. Pinheiro, who received widespread public support, won the court case, having cited a press release by Jobim (who had been the best man at her wedding) and de Moraes in which the composers named her the original “Girl from Ipanema”.And so here are 69 versions of The Girl From Ipanema/Garota de Ipanema.

1962: João Gilberto Gilberto • Os Cariocas 1963: Pery Ribeiro • Tamba Trio • Getz/Gilberto • Antonio Carlos Jobim 7 Anita O’Day 1964: Henri Mancini • Andy Williams & Antonio Carlos Jobim • Oscar Peterson Trio • Peggy Lee • Stan Getz Quartet feat. Astrud Gilberto (Newport Jazz Festival) • Jacqueline Francois (as La Fille D’ipanema) • Little Anthony & The Imperials • Sarah Vaughan • Julie London • Sacha Distel & Dionne Warwick • Vince Guaraldi & Bona Sete • Nancy Wilson • Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass 1965: Cauby Peixoto • Nat King Cole • Sammy Davis & Count Basie • Charlie Byrd • Petula Clark • Esther Phillips 1966: Walter Wanderley • Lou Rawls • Shearing Quintet • Cher • Supremes • Chad & Jeremy • Freddie McCoy • Chris Montez • Mrs. Elva Miller 1967: Baden Powell • Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim 1968: Erroll Garner • Lena Horne 1969: Denny McLain 1970: Roger Williams 1971: Nara Leao 1972: Percy Faith and his Orchestra 1974: Toots Thielemans 1975: Eartha Kitt • John Holt 1976: Gilla (as Machen wir’s in Liebe) • Giovanni Fenatio  (as La Ragazza di Ipanema)  1977: Astrud Gilberto (Disco Version) 1981: Ella Fitzgerald 1983: Vinicius e Toquinho 1990: Nigel Kennedy 1996: Teddy Edwards & Houston Person • Crystal Waters 1997: Al Jarreau & Oleta Adams • Salena Jones 1998: Gabriela Anders 2000: Rosemary Clooney feat. Diana Krall 2001: Walter Bell 2003: Lisa Ono 2005: Dan Gibson’s Solitudes 2008: Eliane Elias 2011: Placido Domingo • Amy Winehouse • Pat Metheny 2013: Andrea Bocelli

GET IT!

Previous Song Swarms:
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Hound Dog
Sunny
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Like A Rolling Stone
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Over The Rainbow
Georgia On My Mind
Blue Moon
Light My Fire

By The Time I Get To Phoenix is not even my favourite Jimmy Webb song, much as I love it — there are songs on the Jimmy Webb Collection Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 I love more. But I cannot think of many other songs in pop music that traverse interpretations and genres as effortlessly as this. Here I am offering a bunch of versions that cover pop, country, soul, jazz and easy listening.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix sounds like it belongs in any of these genres. And even when interpreted by artists from the same genre, it is an immensely flexible a song. Just compare the soul versions by the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Erma Franklin, Isaac Hayes, the Intruders, Lloyd Price, the Mad Lads, Billie Stewart, William Bell, The Escorts, and New York City. So I think one can listen to all the versions here without necessarily getting bored.

The first version of the song was recorded by Webb’”s mentor, Johnny Rivers, in 1966. Since then it has been covered many time. Apparently there are more than a thousand versions of it.

Rivers” version made no impact, nor did a cover by Pat Boone. The guitarist on Boone’s version, however, picked up on the song and released it in 1967. Glen Campbell scored a massive hit with the song, even winning two Grammies for it. In quick succession, Campbell completed a trilogy of geographically-themed songs by Webb, with the gorgeous Wichita Lineman (written especially for Campbell) and the similarly wonderful Galveston.

Another seasoned session musician took Phoenix into a completely different direction (if you will pardon the unintended pun). Isaac Hayes had heard the song, and decided to perform it as the Bar-Keys’ guest performer at Memphis’ Tiki Club, a soul venue. He started with a spontaneous spoken prologue, explaining in some detail why this man is on his journey. At first the patrons weren’t sure what Hayes was doing rapping over a repetitive chord loop. After a while, according to Hayes, they started to listen. At the end of the song, he said, there was not a dry eye in the house (“I’m gonna moan now”). As it appeared on Ike’s 1968 Hot Buttered Soul album, the thing went on for 18 glorious minutes.

The fine version of soul singer Doug Haynes changes the perspective: here she has gone to Phoenix, and Doug is making the call where the phone is just keeps ringing off the wall. Wanda Jackson“s version, titled By The Time You Got To Phoenix, is really an answer record (turns out, she is not that unhappy to see the dude gone). The Harden Trio don’t change the lyrics, as Haynes does, but offer the twist of the female voices singing from their perspective and the male lead taking the traditional leavers’ narrative.

There are those who scoff that it is physically impossible to complete the song’s itinerary — Phoenix, Albuquerque, Oklahoma — in a day. But I think the itinerary makes perfect sense, presuming it starts in Los Angeles.

He gets to Phoenix when she is normally getting up from bed. From LA to Phoenix it’s about six hours drive. Assuming she rises around 6am, our friend left LA at around midnight. By the time he hits Albuquerque, our narrator thinks she’s about to have lunch; more or less at 1pm. From Phoenix to Abuquerque it’s another six hours. That gave our friend time to spare to reach the city of Walter White. By the time he makes Oklahoma she’ll be sleeping. The distance from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City (guessing that this is his destination) is about eight hours drive. Setting aside aside breaks for food, rest and ablutions, by the time he hits Oklahoma it will be past midnight, when she will indeed be having a tear-interrupted sleep. The timeline fits.

One act that was not going to make any such journeys any time soon was The Escorts. These soul singers were incarcerated in a New Jersey jail. In 1968 one inmate, Reginald Haynes, started a singing group which would become The Escorts. They were discovered by producers and went on to record two albums. Their version of Phoenix is from the first of these, 1973’s All We Need Is Another Chance which became a hit, selling 300,000 copies. After his release, Haynes tried to launch a solo career; that attempt was cut short when he was unjustly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.

Back to the music, I do like the well-executed 1930s radio pastiche by The Templeton Twins. And the best individual moment in this collection might be The Pips responding to Gladys Knight‘s announcement that she was leaving with a sad, “Oh no” on their live version from 1970’s All In A Knight’s Work LP. Also check out Jermaine and the Jackson 5 doing the song on The Tonight Show in 1974; Jermaine takes the lead and Michael harmonises.

So, apart from Isaac Hayes’, which version is your favourite? I think I like Al Wilson’s best. Or the Four Tops’. Or Erma Franklin’s. Or Pete Shelley’s discoish take. Or Thelma Houston’s majestic version from 2007. Or, of course, Glen Campbell’s. Or maybe the 2010 version by the song’s writer, with Glenn Campbell on backing vocals and, I think, Mark Knopfler on guitar.

The above text is included as a PDF file.

1966: Johnny Rivers  1967: Glen Campbell, Santo & Johnny 1968: Vikki Carr, Marty Wilde, Georgie Fame, The Lettermen, Marty Robbins, Roy Drusky, Charlie Rich, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Mills Brothers, Four Tops, Joe Tex, Ace Cannon, Roger Miller, Harry Belafonte, Andy Williams, Nat Adderley, Johnny Mathis, Al Wilson, Herbie Mann, Solomon Burke, Raymonde Singers, Eydie Gorme, Â Peggy Lee, Toots Thielemans, The Magnificent Men, The Intruders, The Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett, Wanda Jackson, The Harden Trio, Frankie Laine, Gloria Lynne, Jack Jones, Tony Mottola with The Groovies, Ray Price, Bobby Goldsboro, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra 1969: José Feliciano, Dorothy Ashby, Billy Stewart, Oscar Peterson, Burl Ives, Andy Kim, A.J. Marshall, Erma Franklin, Henry Mancini, Isaac Hayes, Lloyd Price, The Springfield Rifle, Family Circle, The Mad Lads, The Dells (in a medley with Wichita Lineman), Al Caiola, William Bell 1970: Stevie Wonder, Autumn & Barrie McAskill, The Manhattans, The Templeton Twins, The Ventures, Jimmy Smith, Main Ingredient (in a medley with Wichita Lineman),Wayne McGhie & the Sounds of Joy, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Willie Tee 1971: Jimmy Webb, Fabulous Souls 1972: Shirley Scott 1973: New York City, The Escorts 1974: Jermaine and the Jackson 5, Doug Haynes 1975: Peter Shelley 1976: Junior Mance Trio 1977: Isaac Hayes & Dionne Warwick (with I Say A Little Prayer) 1986: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 1995: Reba McEntire 2007: Thelma Houston  2010: Jimmy Webb

GET IT!

Previous Song Swarms:
Hound Dog
Sunny
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Like A Rolling Stone
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Over The Rainbow
Georgia On My Mind
Blue Moon
Light My Fire
Gonna Get Along Without You Now

Bobby Hebb, the writer of “Sunny”, had a quite remarkable early life, which after 72 years came to an end in 2010. Born to blind parents, both musicians, Nashville-born Robert Von Hebb progressed from being a child musician to becoming one of the earlier black musicians to play at the Grand Ole Opry, as part of Ray Acuff’s band. In the early 1960s Hebb even had a minor hit with a country standard recorded by Acuff, “Night Train To Memphis”. When “Sunny” became a hit in 1966, Hebb was touring with The Beatles — he was among the support acts at their last ever concert, in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.

The genesis for “Sunny” was in a dual tragedy: the assassination of John F Kennedy and the following day the fatal stabbing in a mugging of Hebb’s older brother Harold, with whom he had performed in childhood. The song was a conscious statement of meeting the trauma of these events with a defiantly positive disposition. In 2007, he told the Associated Press about writing “Sunny”: “I was intoxicated. I came home and started playing the guitar. I looked up and saw what looked like a purple sky. I started writing because I’d never seen that before.”

Still, it would be almost three years before Hebb would release the song himself — and even then he wasn’t the first. In a quite curious twist, it was first recorded in Japanese by the singer Mieko Hirota, who had made her debut in her home country in 1962 with a cover of Connie Francis’ “Vacation”. Within three years, the by now 18-year-old singer became the first Japanese artist to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival (the line-up of which included Frank Sinatra), having just recently discovered her talent for the genre thanks to a chance meeting with American jazz promoter George Wein. The same year, in October 1965, she was the first of many to release “Sunny”, scoring a hit with it in Japan with her rather lovely jazzy version.

Eventually Hebb got around to releasing it, apparently having recorded it as an after-thought at the end of a session. Hebb’s recording rightly became the definitive and most successful version. Apparently it is the 18th most performed song in the BMI catalogue.

There’d be no Song Swarm of 64 songs if “Sunny” was not so adaptable. Of those, 45 were recorded within the first two years of its release. The genres cover pop (from Georgie Fame over Cher to Manfred Mann), soul (Marvin Gaye, Billy Preston — especially good — Stevie Wonder, Wilson Picket etc), country (Eddy Arnold, Floyd Cramer), jazz (Les McCann, Wes Montgomery, Young-Holt Trio), easy listening (Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Andy Williams), Latin (Willie Bobo, Trini Lopez, Johnny Colon) — and a few actors got into it as well: Robert Mitchum plays it straight, Leonard Nimoy tries to play it straight. Bill Cosby played it bizarre, but his version doesn’t feature here anymore.

1966: Mieko Hirota, Bobby Hebb, Les McCann (Part 1), Georgie Fame, Young-Holt Trio, Cher, Chris Montez, Willie Bobo, Wes Montgomery (alternate take), Del Shannon, The Walker Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Chuck Jackson, Billy Preston, 1967: Andy Williams, Booker T. & The MG’s, Dusty Springfield, The Ventures, Herbie Mann & Tamiko Jones, Johnny Rivers, Blossom Dearie, Robert Mitchum, Wilson Pickett, Frank Sinatra & Duke Ellington, 1968: The Four Tops, Manfred Mann, Eddy Arnold, Floyd Cramer, Mary Wells, Leonard Nimoy, Stevie Wonder, Frankie Valli, José Feliciano, Maxine Brown, Shirley Bassey, Nancy Wilson, Brother Jack & David Newman, George Benson, Trini Lopez, Johnny Colon and his Orchestra, Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers, 1969: James Brown & Marva Whitney, Electric Flag, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Bra, 1970: Ella Fitzgerald, Tom Jones & Ella Fitzgerald, Melba Moore 1972: Pat Martino 1975: Yambú 1976: Bobby Hebb ’76, Boney M  1978: Hampton Hawes 1986: Stanley Jordan 1992: Joe McBride 1995: Nick Cave 1996: The Head Shop 2000: Jamiroquai, John Schroeder Orchestra  2003: Paul Carrack 2005: Noon, Elisabeth Kontomanou 2012: PillowTalk 2013: Hippie Sabotage

GET IT!

Other Song Swarms:
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Hound Dog
Blue Moon
These Boots Are Made For Walking
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Like A Rolling Stone
Gonna Get Along Without You Now
Over The Rainbow
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Georgia On My Mind
Light My Fire
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

The melody of These Boots Are Made For Walking does not really lend itself to great radical reinterpretation in the way previous song-swarmed songs — such as Light My Fire, Georgia On My Mind, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Over The Rainbow and Blue Moon — do. Instead of allowing itself to be remoulded, These Boots invites idiosyncratic deliveries, partly because the song is something of a novelty number (and, of course, a great pop song with fantastic lyrics). Many versions retain the quite bizarre saxophone outro, the brainwave of the original arranger, Billy Strange, who died in February 2010 at the age of 84.

So many of the covers here are rather (or very) unusual. Some are fantastic (Ella!). Not all of them are good, and a few might make your ears bleed (step foward Crispin Glover, David Hasselhoff and especially Darrell & Teddy). But all are, I think, worth hearing at least once.

Lee Hazlewood – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ (1966)
The great song by the guy who wrote it. Hazlewood introduces it as “a little song bout boots and a darlin’ named Nancy”, and as he sings it he ad libs a few lines about the production of Nancy Sinatra”s version (“and here is the part of the record where everybody said ‘oh it can’t be number one'”).

Crispin Hellion Glover – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1989)
In 1989 George McFly released one of the most demented albums I have ever heard. Bizarre spoken bits intersperse some of the worst singing (more like whining) ever committed to record. And all that performed with apparent seriousness. Ironists have ordained the unsnappily-titled The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution = Let It Be. a cult album, but the real question is how anybody thought it would be a good idea to release it in the first place. Glover’s vocals of These Boots are delivered through the medium of crying. The arrangement is quite good though, and the trumpet riff at the end is brilliant. An appalling version which nonetheless every music collection should include.

British Electric Foundation – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1982)
Paula Yates, the former Mrs Bob Geldof and mother of whichever strange-named daughters of theirs are celebrities now, was a British TV presenter. But in 1982 she appeared on the British Electric Foundation’s modestly titled album Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One, which also featured a pre-comeback-in-fishnets Tina Turner. BEF was a project of future Heaven 17 members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, and on evidence of their version of These Boots, the BEF’s claim of quality and distinction might have been exaggerated. The arrangement is sparse, dominated by a funk guitar, occasional backing interjections which Duran Duran possibly borrowed for Wild Boys, and some fun with the synth. And then there are the vocals by Yates, who died in 2000 at 41. Let’s just say that there were good reasons why she did not pursue a career in singing.

Teddy and Darrel – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1966)
Teddy and Darrell are believed to be Theodore Charach, a film scriptwriter and producer, and Mike Curb. The latter is the ultra-conservative producer and record company executive on the MGM label who once fired a roster of artists whom he knew, or suspected, to be drug users, including Frank Zappa (who himself used to dismiss people for using, or even singing about, drugs) and the Velvet Underground. Whoever Teddy and Darrell were, they made an album of intentionally horrible spoof of pop hits. Regardless of your level of irony, their version of These Boots is one of the worst records ever, with one, presumably Teddy, half-singing in a camp voice and the other fool groaning in way that suggests he had listened to too many Peter Sellers records, and not learnt a trace of comedy from them.

Symarip – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1969)
Their name might sound like a piece of computer Shareware that is advertised as free but once installed reveals itself to contain all sorts of limitations that render it useless for your purpose unless you buy the full version. But Symarip was in fact a ska-reggae group from Jamaica recorded in Britain and released an LP titled Skinhead Moonstomp before decamping under a different name to West Germany. Symarip, an anagram of their alternative moniker, The Pyramids, were one of the earliest bands to serve the skinhead market, long before shaved heads became associated with neo-Nazis. Nevertheless, the adapted lyrics hint at a culture in which recreational violence was not entirely condemned: “These boots are made for stamping” indeed.

Eileen – Ces Bottes sont faites pour marcher (1966)
Eileen – Die stiefel sind zum wandern (1966)
The French and German versions of These Boots, delivered by French singer Eileen. The lyrics and arrangement are faithful to the original. “Stiefel, seit bereit? Wandert!”

Loretta Lynn – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1966)
Think about it: the lyrics of These Boots are totally country, if sung by sassy women who won’t submissively stand by their shitty men. And Loretta, as you’ll now from the movie, takes no crap from anyone, least of all men who are lying when they ought to be truthing. Her version of These Boots is really good, in a honky tonk kinda way.

Marianne Ascher – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1980)
For the new wave fix of These Boots, Canadian songstress Marianne Asher is your woman. To the backing of a dreamy synth of the kind you’d hear on records by Ultravox and a hardworking drum machine, Ascher channels such vocal innovators as Toyah and Hazel O’Connor, with the unnecessary squeals and lack of discernible charm. The thing is topped off by a tinny saxophone solo.

Amanda Lear – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1977)
French-born Amanda Lear is probably best known for being an alleged transsexual (she once published nude photos of herself to prove that she was all woman), but her life story transcends speculation about her sex. A former girlfriend of Salvadore Dali, Bryan Ferry (it is her on the cover of Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure LP) and David Bowie, the deep-voiced vamp became an Euro-disco singer with hits such as Queen Of Chinatown, Blood And Honey and Follow Me. It was high camp for the masses — much as These Boots is a song of high camp. One might debate the merits of Lear’s voice and the arrangement, but this is a very entertaining version.

Adriano Celentano – Bisogna far qualcosa (1984)
He might not be a man of attractive political ideology, but Adriano Celentano was Italy’s original rock ‘n’ roller. Taking the Elvis route, he proceeded to become a crooner of banalities, dotting that artistic decline with the occasional gem. In the late 1960s he recorded the quintessential San Remo-type hit, Azzuro. In 1972 he released the strangest record of his career, the quasi rap number Prisencolinensinainciusol (a title which sounds like a heavy duty drug to control a rare form pancreatic leakage, but was really an appeal for universal love which anticipated Malcolm McLaren 1980s hits and indeed hip hop). And in 1984 he finally got around to covering, in Italian, These Boots. Italian is one of the most beautiful and romantic languages in the world. You can read Mein Kampf in Italian and it would sound like a florid love letter. But Adriano Celentano proves one thing: Italian was not intended to give words to These Boots Are Made For Walking.

Mrs Miller – These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ (1966)
Of all the songs on her optimistically titled Greatest Hits album, it’s on These Boots that dear Mrs Miller manages to hold the tune, for the most part. Having mastered to more or less sing in tune, Mrs Miller decides to inject some personality into this not very difficult-to-sing number. And that personality is, as you’d want from Mrs Miller, of sultry character. Oh yes, Mrs Miller — though at this point you might want to call her Elva, unless you wish to sound like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate — gets her sexy on with some throaty purring. When she encourages those boots to start walking — and to keep walking — I don’t think she is talking about podriatic motion any longer. A year later, another granny, 71-year-old Dora Hall, who in her younger days used to sing for WW1 troops, recorded the song, to rather less camp effect.

Boys Next Door – These Boots Are Made For Walking (1978)
Boys Next Door were the Australian punk band which became The Birthday Party, whose most famous member was the young Nick Cave. His bandmates went on to make a name for themselves, such as fellow Bad Seed Mick Harvey, the late guitarist Rowland S. Howard and drummer Phill Calvert. The neighbourhood boys were mostly doing covers, These Boots being one of them. It’s not very good, though it probably was great fun live. The typical Cave delivery is already in evidence.

Megadeth – These Boots (1978)
The lovely folks of Megadeth have recorded the Hazlewood song, with his express non-approval, twice: once in 1985 on their charmingly titled Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! LP, as These Boots, and again seven years later under the song’s full title. Here the boots don’t just walk all over you, but they stomp. They’re not kidding…

All featured versions:
Nancy Sinatra (1966), Mrs Miller (1966), The Artwoods (1966), The Ventures (1966), The Supremes (1966), Loretta Lynn (1966), Dora Hall (1966), Teddy and Darrel (1966), Eileen (as Ces Bottes sont faites pour marcher, 1966), Eileen (as Die Stiefel sind zum wander, 1966), Lee Hazlewood (1966), The New Christy Minstrels (1967), Dalida (as Stivaletti rossi, 1967), Ella Fitzgerald (1967), Symarip (1969), Amanda Lear (1977), Boys Next Door (1978), Marianne Ascher (1980), British Electric Foundation feat. Paula Yates (1982), Adriano Celentano (as Bisogna far qualcosa, 1984), Megadeth  (as These Boots, 1985), Crispin Hellion Glover (1989), Barry Adamson & Anita Lane (1991), Velvet 99 (2000), The Meteors (2002), Robert Gordon (2004), Barcode Brothers (2004), David Hasselhoff (2004), Chiwetel Ejiofor (in drag as part of a medley in the film Kinky Boots, 2005), Jessica Simpson (2006), Lenny Clerwall and his Guitar (2009), Planet Funk (2012)

GET IT!
(PW in comments)

More Song Swarms

If you were to put me on the spot and demand that I choose one all-time favourite song, I suppose my default answer would be Sunday Mornin Comin’ Down, the Kris Kristofferson version.

One may argue about whether it would feature in a shortlist of best song ever; still it resonates with me on many levels, including as a soundtrack in a particular time in my life. And it is, of course, a great song which ought to feature in a shortlist of best song ever.

Like many early Kristofferson songs, it was first recorded not by the composer but by others, because early in his career KK didn’t regard himself primarily as a singer. In fact, he thought he was a terrible singer. In the event, his limitations are also his strength, with that whisky-soaked, soulful voice giving his lyrics a sense of having been lived. But KK knew he had good tunes and that he wanted to write songs for a living.

It might have been different. The son of an army officer, Kristofferson was earmarked for a military career, and served a stint as a helicopter pilot for Uncle Sam. Before that he was a Rhodes scholar, graduating from Oxford with a degree in philosophy. He was offered a job lecturing at the military academy at West Point. Instead, he left the army, and, having been inspired by a meeting with Johnny Cash after a concert, Kristofferson moved with his family to Nashville to try his hand at the music business.

Things did not start promisingly: in 1966 he landed a job at Columbia Records — as a janitor. But in between sweeping floors and polishing door handles, he gave Cash some of his songs, thereby violating strict company policy. Cash was encouraging but didn’t use any of the songs — in fact, according to Kristofferson, Cash said that he threw them into a lake. Still, it was the genesis of a profound friendship.

A year later, Kristofferson flew helicopters again, for an oil company. He also began a tentative recording career with Epic Records, and finally his songs were started to be recorded by other artists. One day, Kristofferson decided to try and impress Cash again, so he flew a helicopter to Cash’s house to give him some tapes. Cash wasn’t home, though that didn’t stop him from telling a great tale about Kristofferson exiting the chopper with a demo in one hand and a beer in the other.

Still, Cash started to create a buzz around KK, referring to him repeatedly on his TV show. Cash’s introduction of Kristofferson at the Newport Folk Festival especially helped kickstart KK’s recording career.

Cash, of course, recorded Sunday Morning Coming Down (as he corrected the title) in 1970, and won a Grammy for it. Cash resisted pressure to change the line “wishing, Lord, that I was stoned” to “…I was home” in deference to the song’s writer; he however had the kid “playing with”, not “cussing at”, the can that he was kicking.

The song had already been first recorded the previous year by Ray Stevens, who had a minor hit with it. Following Cash’s hit and KK’s definitive version, several artists tried their hand at the song, with varying degrees of accomplishment. Some are featured here, and many tend to play loose with the lyrics.

So, here are 38 versions of Sunday Morning Comin’ Down, some of them live recordings.

Ray Stevens (1969) • Johnny Cash (live, 1970) • Johnny Cash (1970) • Kris Kristofferson (1970) • Roy Clark (1970) • Freddy Weller (1970) • Lynn Anderson (1970) • Mark Lindsay (1970) • Sammi Smith (1970) • Janis Joplin (1970) • Hank Ballard (1970) • Tom Jones • Glen Campbell & Nancy Sinatra (1970) • R. Dean Taylor (1971) • Waylon Jennings (1971) • Hank Snow (1971) • Margie Brandon (1971) • Ernie Smith (1971) • John Mogensen (as Sondag morgen, 1971) • Kristofferson & Friends (1973) • Pavel Bobek (1973) • Frankie Laine (1978) • Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson (live, 1980) • Johnny Paycheck (1980) • Louis Neefs (as Zondagmiddag, 1980) • David Allan Coe (1998) • Shawn Mullins (1998) • Alvin Youngblood Hart (2003) • Kris Kristofferson & Foo Fighters (2005) • Floyd Red Crow Westerman (2006) • Jeff Walker und Die Flffers (2006) • Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (2006) • Mark Chesnutt (2010) • Jerry Lee Lewis (2010) • Marissa Nadler (2010) • Willie Nelson (2011) • Brandi Carlile (live, 2012) • Gretchen Wilson (2012)

GET IT
(PW in comments)

***

More Song Swarms