Thank you for sharing - that was fascinating. Here’s a little bit more information (not paywalled, at least in the UK) from, of all things, the Financial Times:
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I was surprised to find out recently that The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was a folk song dating back to the 1950s. I always thought Roberta Flack’s 1972 version was more or less the first time it had been recorded.
Here’s an interesting one, Most people are familiar with Blue Suede’s ‘Hooked on a Feeling’, especially since it was prominant in Guardians of the Galaxy.
I knew that it was a cover of a B.J. Thomas song from a few years earlier, but it’s actually a cover of Jonathan King’s cover of the B.J. Thomas song. It was King that took the original and added the ‘OOGA-CHAKA-OOGA-OOGA’. bit to the song. B.J. Thomas’s version had sitars and a country flavor, but still hit #5 on the billboard chart. King’s version with the additions only cracked the top 30. But King was also a producer, and undaunted by the poorer reception his cover got over the original that had charted only three years earlier, he gave the song to a little-known Swedish band called Blue Suede, and it was their version that went to #1 on the U.S. chart, and is pretty much the only one people remember. So the song made it onto the billboard charts in three different versions in a space of only six years.
Hooked on a Feeling - BJ Thomas 1968
This is probably more well known than a lot that’s been mentioned here, but it wasn’t that long ago I found out that Ram Jam’s Black Betty was a cover.
I think “Hallelujah” counts for me. I actually heard several covers, actually, but I assumed that one of them was the original. I’d heard the name Leonard Cohen, but I assumed he was one of the people I’d heard. It wasn’t until I was later trying to find one of the covers I’d listened to before that I stumbled upon the original version.
There are also some Beatles songs that I originally only knew the covers, but I don’t remember which specific ones offhand.
The band is called Blue Swede. It’s a pun on blue suede and the band being Swedes.
Here is a straight cover by Gabriel Cilmi
the original
Not much to choose between them really except that I think Connie shades it
I did not know about this one and I love the original! I’m a fan of the 60’s garage bands so this is a new one for me to check out. Thanks!
I’m not entirely sure if there is a Beatles song that I didn’t know was a cover, but I did only recently (as in, within the last month) find out that Peter & Gordon’s #1 hit from the 60s, “A World Without Love” was a Lennon-McCartney song. The Beatles didn’t record it and, from my understanding, it actually predates the formation of the band, but I had not idea. Only one other Lennon-McCartney song made it to #1 in the US charts by an artist other than the Beatles: Elton John’s version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Wilson Pickett’s Hey Jude got to #23, and I’ll post it again: Pickett owns that song.
Incidentally, I just asked our smart speaker to play Elton John’s version of “Lucy…” and I have no recollection of ever hearing it.