I love R&B, Soul and Funk. I also love Top 40 pop. Combine the two-- I’m in heaven. So far, all the R&B covers I’ve come across I love and I’d like to hear of more like:
Al Green’s cover of the BeeGee’s How Can You Mend A Broken Heart
The Manhattan’s Tomorrow (from Annie)
The Isley Brother’s Summer Breeze
Earth, Wind and Fire’s Got to Get You Into My Life.
Are there anymore out there that I don’t know about?
Tina Turner’s cover of “Let’s Stay Together”.
Taylor Dayne’s cover of “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” is better than it has a right to be.
Is Stevie Wonder’s cover of “We Can Work It Out” the kind of thing you’re talking abou?
If you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods, you would love my cover of Barry White’s Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe. Alas, I only perform in the shower.
That sounds great! I’ll have to seek it out.
Yeup, exactly what I’m talking about.
“Tracks of My Tears” by Go West doesn’t suck.
Otis Redding’s versions of both “Day Tripper” and “(I can’t get no) Satisfaction” are outstanding. “Satisfaction” is fun because he uses horns on the classic opening riff where Keith used a fuzz guitar to imitate horns.
Wilson Pickett’s “Sugar, Sugar” and “Hey Jude” are wonderful as is Aretha Franklin on “The Weight” and “Eleanor Rigby”
Are you only interested in “white” songs performed by soul groups? Or are “white” covers of soul songs welcome too?
If you’re looking only for the former, there’s:
Aretha Franklin’s covers of Burt Bacharach’s "I Say a Little Prayer, the Band’s “The Weight,” and Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.”
Stevie Wonder did Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind”
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles covered Dion’s “Abraham, Martin & John”
Or Fats Domino’s cover of the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna”
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If you’re open to white covers of soul classics, let me know.
Billy Stewart’s cover of Summertime is a favorite.
Err…though reading the OP a bit more carefully, I’m not sure if Gershwin counts as Top 40 pop ;).
I’d also recommend Ray Charles’ funky cover of “Eleanor Rigby” as well as his version of the country standard, “Busted.” Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg for Charles who did many covers of standards and country songs during his long career.
As for white covers, you already may be familiar with Cream’s live versions of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful.” I also think Dion did a little-known but great cover of the latter song.
Oh, again maybe not quite there, but I like Richie Havens’ cover of Here Comes the Sun. But I guess Havens was always way more of a folky than any sort of R&B dude.
Hrrmmm…I’ll come up with a better example ( that I like ) one of these times.
I was thinking of soul covers of poppy tunes. The color of the singer doesn’t matter. Joe Cocker’s cover of A Little Help from my Friends would qualify. Not that I don’t like poppy covers of soul tunes but those are much easier for me to find.