OK I just read another stupid clickbait article that has no clue. So I have to post.
The only cover that ever beat Chuck was: Route 66 by the Stones from the first LP.
Best cop was Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bobby.
Best rip was Come Together by The Beatles, although I don’t think I would come down on the judges side on the plagiarism thing.
Honorable mention to Bye Bye Johnnie and Carol by Stones. Chuck covering himself in 1972 on Reelin and Rockin, Lonnie Mack with Memphis, Rod Stewart with Sweet Little Rock and Roller.
I never thought the Beatles did justice to Chuck really. I’m sure there are great country rock covers from the 70s but I can’t place them right now.
Just went back and listened to three versions of it. I gave pride of place to Lonnie’s because my impression was that he invented licks that became the signature part of the song. They seem to exist as a latent part of chucks original, but not totally there. Lonnie’s version seems to have an original instrumental verse for starters, but in the chorus he brought out the lick we know as that song, which filtered into Johnny’s and the Venture’s versions among many.
You might say that Lonnie did for Memphis what the Stones did for Not Fade Away.
Not saying it tops Chuck Berry’s version, but I still remember the best rock concert I ever saw on TV, an edition of Don Kirshner’s In Concert in 1974, which featured E.L.O. doing “Roll Over Beethoven”. Other performers included B.B. King and the Guess Who.
I couldn’t find video from that show, but here’s a pretty good E.L.O. rendition from a few years later.
Yes I forgot that. Great. Little queenie was another. Any list like this is going to be mostly stones. I hear “Down the road apeice” on my youtube right now. That’s a Chuck arrangement, so it’s another one!
This was going to be my contribution to the thread. Their version of “Roll Over Beethoven,” with a long instrumental jam in the middle, has been how they’ve closed out concerts since the 1970s.
Like this Emmylou Harris track?
Interestingly enough, I was listening to my local “Breakfast with the Beatles” show and they faded this song into “Back in the USSR” and yeah the influence on the lyrics is obvious. (Paul McCartney admitted this in old interviews).
Yeah I know. But they were covering Chuck. Like when they did “I’m movin on”- they weren’t covering Hank Snow. They were covering Ray Charles’ version.
True. I listen to songs like The Time Warp from Rocky Horror and hear the same thing.
I don’t have any favorite covers - I mean, I hear his roots in everything. Whether an artist is covering a specific Chuck song is fun, but he’s everywhere.
Nice to see he is getting as much coverage, and it is as reverential as it is.
Some trivia about this one. The guitar music actually heard in the film was played by Tim May, but Michael J. Fox learned to play so that his fingering would look accurate on the film.
Their version of “Roll Over Beethoven,” with a long instrumental jam in the middle, has been how they’ve closed out concerts since the 1970s.