I made it down to the concert, yesterday, on the mall. Was pretty awesome--I thought Garth Brooks was actually the highlight. White music, indeed! Anyway, worst moment was Jon Bon Jovi's take on Change Is Gonna Come. No one should ever cover that song again. Even, Anthony Hamilton, who I linked to a few weeks back. It's no slight to Bon Jovi to say this. He isn't qualified--nor is anyone else on the planet. Moreover, whenever people do the cover, they take the drums and horns that come in at that "I go to the movies part..." The song isn't the same without that. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, let it be. You can only mar it.
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Oh fucking God ! What's in your head ? Bettye Lavette was awesome and carried Bon Jovi through (he wasn't that bad, actually.) Seeing Bettye Lavette, one of the "lost treasures" of soul music, performing at that event was worth the price of admission. Give some love to black people who deserve it before you yammer about the white boys ruining the music. (Also, plenty of younger black "artists" have already contributed mightily to that unfortunate project !)
Solomon Burke, among a handful of others sucha as Aretha, have also done beautiful covers. Also, Bettye sang the "lost verse."
High horses, this morning, man. Yours and mine.
I loved the concert (NPR broadcast live) but missed the end for a meeting for one of my kids' sports--dull meeting, still muttering.
Arlo Guthrie was the one who had me snivelling in the car...Old guy singing "and up above me I saw a skyway" while the crowd sang along. I sang along.
"yammer about the white boys ruining the music."
Did I say this?
Incidentally, Bettye covers George Jones' "Choices" on her most recent album - something that I'd also advise most people not to even try - but she pulls it off and bests the "master" of whiskey-soaked classic C&W.
Check this woman out. She kicks Beyonce's ass kinda like Coltrane kicks Kenny G's.
And one of his 10 favorite songs is Nina Simone's version of Sinnerman, which is my favorite song--I stopped to dance around the kitchen when NPR played it while waiting for the concert to stop. My husband laughed.
You didn't "say it" - maybe I was unfairly reacting to the fact that you failed to even mention the great Bettye Lavette, who artistically carried the song you're complaining about in that performance, not Bon Jovi. I was thrilled to see her - didn't think Obama was that hip.
There's a really good version of Change is Gonna Come by the Neville Brothers on their record Yellow Moon. Other than that, you are right. Verboten!
Yeah, in all honesty, I consider myself a serious soul fan, but I didn't know who Bettye Lavette was. Yeah, I know, ignorant. Thanks for the education. I'll look her up.
I've heard Solomon Burke's cover, and Otis Redding's. I don't like either version--though I love both artists. Some things are better left untouched.
Embarrassing admission:
First time I heard Sinnerman: Second season of "Scrubs"
The Band's version, sung by Richard Manuel, is a beautiful interpretation, more personal than Cooke's, but with a similar poignancy, since he also died afterwards.
Wallyz, I first heard it in The Thomas Crown Affair, but that led to a collection of Simone cds. (There's also a nice use of her music, and memory, at the end of the film Before Sunset.)
There are lots of songs - especially certain gospel classics - that Sam Cooke "owns", but I wouldn't advise that folks quit singing them. I'm happy to see guys like Seal and others covering "Change" - it was an anthem of the campaign and is embedded in his rhetoric (not just the word, but a conscious invocation of the Cooke refrain). Somebody's gotta sing it for him. I was shocked to see Bon Jovi come out and join Bettye and he would have been at the bottom of my list (I can't even name a Bon Jovi song, he's so far off my radar) but I didn't think he embarrassed himself (and in fairness you didn't say that.) But personally, I thought she worked it and with a different twist - she's not a "sweet singer" and Sam was the greatest of those (when he wasn't shouting hard gospel.) I'm just a major fan of hers and was very pleased to see her because she's not "A" list and still mostly works clubs and more obscure venues, doesn't top the pop charts, etc, didn't have a record deal for years and has only recently re-emerged. She's the generation that "dug the wells" when performers weren't "branding" themselves and pushing lines of products but just struggling to make it in an industry that kept them as "contract workers" while moguls made most of the money.
So the question: Is Bon Jovi the new Pat Boone?
I did not hear the stuff on yesterday but do know Cooke's " A Change is Going to Come" and Simone's Sinnerman, and I do not recall anyone having recorded or performed they respective music very well( Maybe Valarie Simpson and/or Otis Redding with a couple of songs.). Simone's range and ability excludes most as does Cooke's clear voice; I have the malady of hearing them in the day. As with most classics few can match or expand on the original as in Ray Charles' America and Geogria.
You can't advise people not to cover songs that have already been done perfectly, nor should we, really. After hearing Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's version of Summertime, I couldn't understand why anyone else would ever sing the song again. And yet, they do. Eventually I decided it was okay -- everyone can bring their own thing, even if their thing doesn't ever completely measure up. Art is to be shared and celebrated, not perfected, if one may be a little grandiose about it.
I have the "Yellow Moon" album and it is one of my favorites of all time. Aaron Neville's voice is beautiful and his version of "A Change is Gonna Come" is actually good and works well within the context of that album.
Some songs are sacred, to be sure, and no one will ever come close to the Sam Cooke version given his incredible voice and the fact that he was singing a song that he wrote. The man delivered that one straight from his soul.
No one on this blog ever mentions Robert Cray. If I could have picked anyone to sing "A Change is Gonna Come" it would have been him, although I haven't heard him sing recently.
Cray was inspired by Cooke which is probably why there is a little similarity.
I used to feel that way about people covering Bob Dylan. It seemed ridiculous and pointless. Then The Band came along with great versions of songs he hadn't released and Nina Simone did some "deep" covers so I got over it and am open to interpretation. But they gotta be damned good !
Huge applaude for Deborah...i LOVE Nina Simone's version of sinnerman...her voice and that piano is forever playing in my head. Can't stop listening to it. Concert was ok in my book...it wasn't all-time, but it had it's greater moments. Can't agree more with Brucds...she was great...although i don't feel that Bon Jovi's voice fits the song very well...
I'm glad dnzmo remembered The Band's version of "Change". It doesn't quite cut the Cooke version, but it has a weird Cracker Soul of it's own, sort of like Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
The song is out of Bon Jovi's emotional range but, then again, so is "Wooly Bully".
Be careful. There are many great songs that have been covered to better effect. My best example is Joe Cocker's cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends," which has the greatest scream in musical history. For a more mellow example, James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend" is miles above Carole King's version (yeah, I'm white). While I agree that Sam Cooke's "Change is Gonna Come" is a hard version to beat, people should keep trying.
As a side note - the same cannot be said for movies. I do not think remakes ever work to improve a great movie (see, e.g., Psycho, Inherit the Wind, Willy Wonka).
I think that Bettye Lavette has a beautiful voice, and sang that song very well.
I was STOKED when Bettye LaVette came walking out to the beginning of the song. I teared up as soon as the notes started coming out of her mouth.
And then Bon Jovi came in...........
All things considered, he surprised me. He wasn't terrible. However, it would have been MUCH better w/ just Bettye.
One thing that made Bon Jovi's piece of the duet more-or-less okay was that I think he knew he was outclassed and he sang in response to her and with obvious respect and deference. Frankly, if he's got any sense he should know that was the greatest moment of his career - dueting with Bettye Lavette.
Also, while I wouldn't call it the highlight - although it was probably geared perfectly if you were there live more than for watching it on TV - I was also impressed by Garth Brooks, another guy who is totally off may radar. He had an energy that was terrific with the kids' choir, and his genre-bending blend of material totally worked. It's funny how ubiquitous American Pie was for folks "of a certain age" - both adult Obamas clearly knew the words.
Sometimes there are circumstances that surround a song that make it untouchable.
Think about "Ohio" by CSN&Y.
With "A Change is Gonna Come" a singer is up against one of the most beautiful voices of all time singing what is essentially an autobiographical song. In addition, there is the tragic death of Sam Cooke and the fact that the song was released post humously.
When I listen to "A Change is Gonna Come" I am affected not only by what the song is saying but also by the death of Sam Cooke. We lost one of the most talented singer/songwriters of all time and he had so much more in him that we will never know.
And that, my young friends, is why no one is ever going to touch Sam Cooke. Not ever.
Deborah,
That was pete Seeger, arlo isn't that old:-)
"singing what is essentially an autobiographical song"
But it wasn't just personal autobiography - it was the "autobiography of a people." That's why - while I'd challenge anyone as a bigger fan of Sam Cooke's than myself - the song still lives as an anthem and NEEDS to be sung.
Thanks Eric. Arlo somehow sticks with me ever since revealing that the missing time on the Nixon tapes is the length of Alice's Restaurant.
Link to Garth Brooks. Because I can't figure out how to link to the original video this is embedded in a call for Garth Brooks to be Commerce Secretary, not the worst idea out there.
brucds,
I totally agree. The song is an anthem, it belongs to those whose story it tells. That's probably exactly the way Sam Cooke wanted it to be.
By "untouchable" I meant that the original version cannot be surpassed by any new performance.
First of all, I want to tell you, Ta-Nehisi, how wonderful it was to hear you read your book, (which I cannot seem to set down),and chat it up with you and other folks at Eso-Won Books in Liemert Park,last Friday evening! Just a great experience and I appreciated, as a writer, your words of encouragement.
I'm not stating this to be obsequious, but, c'mon, people, Jon Bon Jovi? Are you serious? Whoever stopped him from "going downtown" and "hangin round?"Plausibility matters! Yes, he hit notes. So? Howard Stern's father Ben recorded himself singing "Old Man River" and he hit some notes. Is that believable as a song--a middle class Jewish record engineer singing Porgy and Bess? It's hysterical. That's how I felt watching Bon Jovi.
He seemed symbolic, that's all--which is ok. I got it.
Still, a song is a story told with music. What story can he tell unless it's in 3rd person , e.g., Dylan writing "Blowin' in the Wind?" Dylan doesn't sing, "How many roads do I walk down..."
Sure, sure, maybe ol Sam is up there in heaven, (and if there is scotch on the rocks, he's having one) laughing, enjoying the homage that began with Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and has included covers by Aretha (so far the only person who did it justice), and numerous others,none of whom, even Ms. LaVette (who came close because she was has lived the lyrics) could capture what Sam Cooke captured.
Sam had said the song "scared him." He never performed it for money, rarely if ever,in fact.
It was all to pay tribute to Dr. King, and to assuage his guilt that "a white boy like Dylan" had written "Blowin in the Wind" while he was singing "Cupid." (Yeah, but even that song has to be the official Valentine's Day Song.)
Sam could make up songs on the spot and just tell a story with soul, hitting every note. He made every note tell his story. The line between where Sam ended the song began seems blurry in every one of his songs. He was the song...
Listen to "Meet me at Mary's Place," and you want to go there. "Sad Mood" makes you want to cry about everyone who ever left you lonely. "Havin a Party" could be your basement rec room in the 60s.
Songs are always better when sung by the writers.The Tokens in 1960 butchered the Weavers Wemoweh, but the government labeled the Weavers Communists so this was the version white America heard. Trini Lopez vs Peter Paul and Mary vs Pete Seeger singing Pete's "If I had a Hammer?" Three different songs. Elvis, in fact, destroyed "Hound Dog," compared with Big Mama Thornton's blues original.(She died broke, incidentally. Big surprise.)
Still, I don't fault anyone for singing 'Change.' A dear friend of mine watched that rendition yesterday and wrote me that it recalled his being shipped off to Vietnam in 1965, a poor black kid from South LA, with limited options at the time. He sang that song over and over as if to reassure himself.
Performing it? Not so much.
It's always prudent in such situations for guys like Brooks, Mellencamp and, yes, even Bruce to work with a large (predominantly black) choir.
Those folks were great and none of the choral groups, except the military one Tiger announced, got an introduction or even a lower third chyron during the performances. I think they were identified in the credit roll, but they helped make the day and elevated the scruffy white guys' performances considerably.
I hate to nitpick anymore, but it would have been nice to have more Latino and Asian-American representation. Los Lobos would have been cool, and at the very least some Asian-American actors reading parts of the script. (Also thought the "Lincoln Portrait" motif throughout of "So-and-so said..." was neat. Lots of great history along with the music.) Also, in the annals of symbolic cultural representation, too bad that the gay bishops's invocation wasn't on HBO's broadcast.
I couldn't agree more. Even when Otis Redding covered it, his version couldn't hold a candle to Sam's original. If the second greatest soul singer of all-time can't pull it off, how can the guy who did "Living on a Prayer" have any chance?
My husband had to take a job in California and left this weekend. "Sad Mood" just keeps playing over and over in my head.
To that Brandon K. Charles quote at the end, I'd add, "And Malcolm X shouted so Barack could talk." Well done.
Although Porgy And Bess was written by an upper-class Jewish guy.
Re: Porgy and Bess:
Irrelevent.It was written for somebody to perform. Jewish writers wrote most Christmas songs too, but the idea was for others to perform them. It is a different kind of cat to write a book, play screenplay or song about somebody else or for another performer. You write autobiographically it's pretty tough to have someone step up to your own plate and deliver 100% of what you intended.
Re: Porgy and Bess:
Not relevent.It was written for somebody to perform. Jewish writers wrote most Christmas songs too, but the idea was for others to perform them. It is a different kind of cat to write a book, play screenplay or song about somebody else or for another performer. You write autobiographically it's pretty tough to have someone step up to your own plate and deliver 100% of what you intended.
I have to agree that Garth Brooks was the performance highlight. I was pretty surprised but he was more high energy and soulful than anyone else.
For me personally old Pete doing the forgotten commie verses for "This Land is your Land" was the spiritual highlight though.
"Jewish writers wrote most Christmas songs too, but the idea was for others to perform them."
Like Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond...
"Although Porgy And Bess was written by an upper-class Jewish guy."
And Billie Holliday's classic "Strange Fruit" about lynchings was written by a Jewish HS teacher.
I think the Otis Redding cover is arguably superior to Sam Cooke original. More soul and feeling. You need Cooke to stick to the script and lay down the melody in the original, but then others are freed up to loosen it up and play around with it more in subsequent covers. Sometimes that looseness becomes a mess, but in Otis Redding's hands it became classic, possibly more classic than the orig in my opinion.
Sam Cooke undoubtedly owns A Change is Gonna Come.
Coates and all Obama supporters need to pull out all the stops for the next 4 years because Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Joe Scarborough and their feeble minded wing nut followers will do everything humanly possible to prevent the change that Sam Cooke sang about from becoming reality.
There is a bootleg version of Al Green covering Change, and let me tell you, it's not far off from Sam Cooke's version. And, fwiw, if you want to be seriously moved, check out "Bring it on Home to Me" on Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club. Best song on one of the best live albums I've ever heard.
If you think Bon Jovi was bad, do not, under any circumstances, watch Roger Clinton's Inauguration 1993 rendition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWDgk2oBJRY
En Vogue was not able to save it.
Its okay to dis Bon Jovi. We do it all the time.
I spent the entire concert crying.
There are just so many emotions circulating. There's obviously the history of the moment, and the enormity of it given our past...and present. There's that hope thing, which we so desperately need at this time. (I keep coming back to Cornel West's line about being a "prisoner of hope.") And there's the emotional relief--and release--of finally sending Bush away, of being able to let go, just a bit, of the shame and pain this administration has caused.
And, there's the fact that music just moves me.
Loved the concert, most of all the cut aways to our new first family. But I really wish the great Teddy Pendergrast (sp?) could have been there to sing the anthemic 'Wake Up Everybody." Agree that I get a Chris Matthews "a tingle goes up my leg" whenever I hear Sam's version of "Change." But speaking of covers, the best singer of all time, Ella Fitzgerald is always a hard act to follow but her WW2 version of "Boogie Woogie Cowboy" is the absolute best.
The horns are key. KEY.
anna,
Didn't Teddy Pendergrast die a couple years ago?
1.Again, I don't care if Jackie freakin Mason covered White Christmas; it was not written for them and it sounds lame to have people sing it that are simply out to cash in. I'm appreciative of Diamond Streisand, etc. but not a fan. I don't even like the idea, frankly and not because I'm some gungho uber-Christian, just that I think if Sinatra sang Kwanza Klassics it'd be equally rude. I like Adam Sandler singing the Hannukah song; I don't think Bing Crosby should have covered it.
2. Summertime should be sung by anyone with great vocal range who can elicit heat. It is not a civil rights anthem like Change is, nor a religious holiday song. Faulty parallelism here, maybe?
3, Pete Seeger, as mentioned, was blacklisted for 20 years for his role with the Weavers, that group of Commies who sang evil songs of freedom (sic)to Americans. If I Had a Hammer, et al. To sign a petition awarding Pete the Nobel Peace Prize--I mean, the man is 89 and picks up the guitar like it's a damn sandwich--go to: www.NobelPrize4Pete.com. The guy could've gone bitter and retired to Montana, but he just started a whole rebirth of folk, and I think did some short jail stays for his singing protests during the civil rights era.
eric k. I know he had a really terrible accident many years ago that left him paralyzed, but I don't think he died recently, I could be wrong but I hope not.
Look at Bettye LaVette's performance of The Who's "Love Rein O'er Me" on on the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors on YouTube for a real heart stopper. She was incredible!
Woah, BG - you're going off on a joke about Jews who churn out Christmas albums...I guess I should learn to use emoticons.
I am glad I am not the only one who thought Garth Brooks did a great job. When I thought that I thought something was wrong with me.
I go back and forth between the two, but I think I actually prefer Otis Redding's version of "A Change Is Gonna Come" to Sam Cooke's.
It's hard to choose between two of the greatest voices ever put on wax, but the Stax instrumentation gives Otis the slight edge.
Seriously, what a great song.
Re: Sinnerman
Not only an amazing song, but the jump off for two amazing hip hop statements in one year. Both Talib Kweli's anthem "Get By" and Brother Ali's Picket Fence" use the song to stunning effect. Kweli uses it to talk about the things we as humans do "just to get by," while Ali reflects on his growth and the people who helped him gain self-confidence as a young albino child.
Damn, I'm too late on this for anyone to see, but Lauryn Hill does a great rendition, only slightly marred by Wyclef adding "one time" and "uh" in the background. And as mentioned by others, Otis Redding is no slouch when it comes to Cooke covers, either.