I used to buy all kinds of compilation tapes, being an oldies fan. They’d be tapes from the gas station, or Walmart or what-have-you. These generally had the original versions that I used to hear on oldies radio, with maybe one or two versions that just didn’t sound right. And sometimes you get a whole tape that was clearly not the original, even if it was clearly the original artist as the main singer. It was a crapshoot.
For years I assumed that they were dumping second takes, or recordings re-done like maybe a decade later with different back-up singers. Some way that I didn’t grok, there was money to be had licensing off-versions for compilation tapes. Only a couple of years ago did it come to my attention that a lot of these were probably re-recordings made by the original artist in an attempt to un-screw themselves out of royalties. I feel for them – the record industry is a nest of bastards. But, you know, these reproductions don’t have the sound I grew up with. I’m paying so I can hear that again.
I have that Roy Orbison collection, “In Dreams,” and I prefer that to the original recordings. I do think they sound better, and I have a CD with his original recordings for comparison. However, I did buy the album knowing full well they were re-recordings, so I do not feel scammed. I see your point however, about playing the newer recordings on the radio and passing them off as the originals. It is deceitful to those listeners who are unaware of what they’re hearing. I suppose you could call it truth in advertising.
An example of this would be “Lady '95” by Styx. The original “Lady” was recorded on Wooden Nickel records, but it didn’t become a hit until Styx had signed with A&M Records. In the mid '90s, A&M wanted to release a Styx greatest hits album, but couldn’t reach an agreement with Wooden Nickel for royalties to use the original recording of “Lady.” They persuaded Styx to go into the studio and do a remake of the song. A&M had royalties for the new recording and made money off it instead of having to pay money to Wooden Nickel. Styx temporarily reunited with singer Dennis DeYoung and I’m sure took home a nice chunk of change for the new recording, too.
I didn’t realize their are compilations out there with rerecordings by the original artist. I’ll have to listen more closely to a couple that I bought off the tv ads.
AFAIK Time Life is always legit. Correct?? They seem to be the gold standard for period compilations.
It’s ironic that I work my butt off learning to play hits that I love on the guitar. I’ve even arranged for singing lessons. Hopefully I’ll someday have some nice covers. But, I’d hope people would listen to me play live and appreciate it for what it is. A amateur trying his best. It won’t be the same as the original artists or band but I won’t be burning any CD’s either.
I do sometimes skim YouTube for amateur versions of songs I enjoy. Mostly I listen to doo-wop which I think is often wonderful to hear performed in a subway or somebody’s basement rec room. Country or blues tunes that have been stripped from overproduction and are sung by one person with a guitar come out great this way. Of course, some of these people try to accompany themselves with synthesizers. I can’t understand how actual musicians can fail to hear how bad this sounds.
In England, Woolworth’s in-house label Embassy Records specialised in off-brand versions of hit songs, and kept their own roster of singers and musicians to cover them.
I don’t know if these were the same but on the West Coast where I lived the ads for these “sound alike” hit compilation albums quickly disclosed they were “authentically recreated” by a group called The Homesteaders. Fortunately, I never bought any of them but I knew a few kids that did. I remember one of them was steamed about how crappy the cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” sounded.
Long, long ago I bought an album called The Long And Winding Road, by The Beatles. Well the songs were written by the Beatles, but not performed by them The actual name of the band was in tiny print on the back cover, but I didn’t see it. I remember it was on the Pickwick label though - I think they specialized in that kind of crap back then.
It may surprise some folks to discover that one of the performers recording those crap cover albums was soon to become very famous in his own right: Elton John.
You can listen to some of those versions with a search of Yootoob, here, for example, is young Reg singing Spirit in the Sky.
When I was 7 or 8, my grandmother bought me a walkman as a birthday present. That was at a time when these things were still relatively new and futuristic (early 80s). I was thrilled.
She also got me two tapes to go with it: one was Michael Jackson’s Thriller (the real deal) and the other was one of those fakes that you’ve described. I have absolutely no recollection of what the songs were apart from the fact that they were hits from that time. All of them fake.
I do remember the cover, though: a blonde woman with a black leather peaked cap and what looked like a black swimsuit holding a microphone. Yep, it was as lame as the fake songs.
If you listen to a Beatles song on Youtube, and want to buy it via one of the links to the right (well, off of Amazon at least), you’ll invariably get one by a knockoff band. The Beatles have never released their songs for MP3 downloads. In this case, by one calling itself “The New Beatles”
Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” entered the U.S. Top 40 charts in March of 1970, peaking at #3 several weeks later. In the UK, it peaked at #1 on May 2, 1970.
One assumes that the song would not be recorded for any knock-off collection until it was established with some certainty that it actually was a hit.
So this puts the recording date for the version of “Spirit in the Sky” linked above no earlier than March of 1970.
Problem is, by that date Elton John had already released his first album under his own name (Empty Sky) in June of 1969, and had recorded his self-titled second album, which would be released in April of 1970.
It seems unlikely that an artist with a major-label recording contract and two albums of his own (and Bernie Taupin’s) compositions under his belt would be bothered recording knock-off versions of others’ songs at this late date.
If a discography of the knock-offs Elton recorded is available somewhere and shows a session for this song, I’ll retract my comments. But based on available information, I’d say we’re looking at the interesting phenomenon of a knock-off purportedly by Elton John that’s actually sung by some anonymous and long-forgotten session singer.
…which is a bit of an irony in this thread!
ETA: I see the compilation album this track is taken from also contains of cover of “Neanderthal Man” by Hotlegs (early 10cc). That song didn’t even enter the UK charts until June of 1970, by which time the Elton John album had been released and would have been well on its way to becoming a hit. So it makes even less sense that Elton would have recorded a cover of this song.
Hey, I have this and the follow up album. Now all I need is–I think it’s called–a turntable(?) to play them.
You have to give the compiler fellow some credit: he actually tried to get the rights to every song on those records. Some people wouldn’t, some couldn’t, some were too expensive and some didn’t exist anymore–you can’t believe what some people destroyed/recorded over once upon a time.
But the “cover” version of (third season) “Lost in Space” does indeed bite the big one.
There have been compilations of Elton’s cover song sessions around since the 90s, perhaps earlier. These aren’t bootlegs, they’re genuine releases and they’re credited to Elton John. You can hear that it’s Elton John singing, it’s quite distinctively him. And he could easily put an injunction on someone misrepresenting recordings as being by him, if they weren’t.
Now, I’m a musician myself, and I’ve recorded quite a few sessions in my time, and I can tell you for sure that the only musicians who are going to turn down easy money are the ones who are already major successes. In that era, cover versions were recorded and released very quickly, and through the 60s and into the 70s you sometimes found competing versions of the same songs fighting it out on the charts to see which would be the hit.
Elton John’s rise to stardom was quite gradual. The first album did little business and wasn’t even released in America at the time. The second album was a slow grower; it may have been released in April, but it didn’t start commanding a lot of attention until towards the end of the year, and both the album and the “Your Song” single (strangely timed to correspond with the release of the next album, Tumbleweed Connection) didn’t make a big noise on the charts until 1971. Elton was surely happy to pocket a little spare change from sessions until that time. (He got paid £250 for a King Crimson gig that year–he was hired by the band’s management to do lead vocals on In the Wake of Poseidon–even though Robert Fripp cancelled the session and Eltie didn’t sing a note.)
Oh, I will say this though for those crappy tapes I used to buy: sometimes the filler material on those tapes were actual original tunes that were just not hits, and I made many fantastic discoveries that way.
One of my friends once bought what he thought was a Jimi Hendrix tape, only to discover “The Sounds of Jimi Hendrix” by “Foxy Experience”. I still crack up thinking of him destroying the tape with a hammer.
The actual name of the band was in tiny print on the back cover, but I didn’t see it. I remember it was on the Pickwick label though - I think they specialized in that kind of crap back then.