Is the Pearl Jam song “Yellow Ledbetter” a copy of the Kenny Wayne Shepherd song “While We Cry”? They sound remarkably similar except “While We Cry” doesn’t have any lyrics. “While We Cry” is on an album entitled Ledbetter Heights.
Well, the one is pretty clearly not a copy of the other, since, “Yellow Ledbetter” was released in 1993, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s album came out in 1995. However, they’re BOTH ‘copies’, if you will, of Jimi Hendrix (specifically the song “Little Wing”). I’m not too familiar with “While We Cry”, so I’m guessing at its similarity from what you say.
“Yellow Ledbetter” is not a direct cover, but more of a tribute, with Mike MacCready playing Hendrix-style on purpose. I assume Kenny Wayne Shepherd would be doing the same.
Huddie Ledbetter, by the way, is better known as Leadbelly, the famous blues guitarist. I don’t know where the Ledbetter-Hendrix connection comes from, other than that they both could play the blues.
Correction – That’s McCready, not MacCready as I misspelled it.
Here I go again …
“Yellow Ledbetter” was actually first released in Europe in 1992, on the B-side for ‘Jeremy’. It was not released in the U.S. until 1995, but was well-known from performances by then.
I took the 1993 number off my import release of ‘Daughter’, which was from 1993 (and had a live version of Yellow Ledbetter on the B-side).
By the way, although I’ve just said B-side, I only have the CD single.