Correct me if I am wrong, but from 1958-1970 (going out on a limb, here) there were very few COVERED (re-made) songs - looking at the Top 40. I am not counting songs that may have entered the Top 40 more than once by the same artist.
Anyhow, who did the first COVER song that charted on the Top 40? Hmm… the closest early remake might be Music Man’s “Till There Was You” which the Beatles re-did, but I don’t count that.
What your story, doc?
Well, the earliest rock stars usually DIDN’T write their own material, so MOST of their hits were “covers.”
Start with Elvis, in 1956: “Hound Dog” was a cover (Big Mama THornton did it before he did), and so were “My Baby Left Me” (originally sung by Arthur "Big Boy Crudup) and “Blue Suede Shoes” (originally sung by Carl Perkins). Heck, on his famous “Sun Sessions,” Elvis did a few covers of Dean Martin songs!
Yes, guys like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard wrote or co-wrote some of their own songs- but most early rockers were doing cover songs from Day One.
Ummm. Well, I think this depends a lot on how you define it. I mean, the concept of “covering” someone elses song didn’t become relevent until it was common for songwriters to perform there own songs, and for them to be thought of as “their” songs…which happened right around the early 60’s with the Beatles and Dylan.
I mean people don’t think of Elvis as “covering” Hound Dog, but he wasn’t the first person to record it.
Ooooh, RnR stands for “rock and roll”?
“Twist and Shout” was a cover, released as a single in March 1964, and made it to #2. It hit #17 for the Isley Brothers in 1962. I think that was their first cover.
Damn. Six minuteds too late, astorian :).
Off the top of my head, the first rock’n’roll cover to chart was Bill Haley’s version of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll, originally done by Joe Turner. That was in 1954.
Yup … and guys like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard were covered all the time in the 50s. Pat Boone, for example, charted his own versions of “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Tutti Frutti”.
Contrary to popular belief, the Isley Brothers’ version of “Twist and Shout” was not the original. The original was by the Top Notes; the Isleys’ remake was the first hit version.
Nitpick: the word “cover” has come to refer to any remake of a song, but the original meaning of the word is a competing version of a current hit. Example, which also answers the OP: the Cadets’ version of “Stranded in the Jungle,” which surpassed the original by the Jayhawks on the charts in 1956.
As long as the grinning specter of Pat Boone has been invoked, I’d like to point out that his cover of “Tutti Frutti” ranks up there with Leonard Nimoy’s “Proud Mary” in the Worst Songs Ever Committed to Tape.
(Sorry. I was intrigued by this discussion but had nothing substantive to add.)
Wish I had a proper cite, but I recall reading once that Pat Boone irritated the stuffing out of Little Richard by covering his songs all the time, so Little Richard would deliberately sing fast so that Pat Boone couldn’t figure out the words.
Hmm…I stand corrected! The problem was I wasn’t considering that rock-n-roll (RnR) type songs existed pre-1958, I guess. I associate the RnR era starting with Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock”. I believe Elvis’ “Hounddog” came later, correct?
“Hound Dog” was 1956 (and wasn’t Elvis’s first major hit anyway, that was “Heartbreak Hotel,” earlier the same year); “Rock Around the Clock” was 1955.