A current thread notes that the Traveling Wilbury song “Tweeter & The Monkeyman” is an obvious nod to Bruce Springsteen, made even more amusing by the fact that many consider Bruce’s early work to be in the Dylan style.
Another example is Led Zeppelin’s “The Crunge”, their tribute/parody/ripoff (as Robert Christgau described it) of James Brown.
Utopia’s album Deface the Music consists entirely of songs done in the style(s) of The Beatles.
Ditto The Rutles.
Well, there are plenty of parodies. Some of the best are the Harvard Lampoon’s Dylan parody “Twenty-Three Miles from Waukeegan my Canteloupe Died” from The Surprising Sheep and Other Mind Excursions.
There’s also Neil Innes’s Beatles parodies in his time with the Rutles, the best being Piggy in the Middle (Click for MP3)
Isn’t “(You’ve Got to) Hide Your Love Away” by Lennon with The Beatles generally considered Lennon doing Dylan? I get the impression that the Beatles did a lot of this…
Terry Stafford’s “Suspicion” (Elvis)
Matt Monroe’s “My Kind of Girl” (Sinatra)
True or not, Dean Martin said he stole his singing style from Bing Crosby.
Lies, by the Knickerbockers, was a deliberate Beatles imitation. I have read the REM’s At My Most Beautiful was an homage to the Beach Boys.
Surely if we can invoke “Lampoons” the National Lampoon’s Lemmings is king. A lovely little bit here
Crazy Little Thing Called Love- Queen
Sounds a tad like Elvis.
Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress by the Hollies sounds like they were trying to emulate Creedence Clearwater Revival’s sound, and did a pretty good job of it.
Since Mad the Swine stole mine, I’ll offer Buckcherry’s “Sorry” as a lame imitation of Aerosmith when they were going through their lame ballad phase. In the video the lead singer even does Stephen Tyler’s stomping foot , thrusted hand of angst move.
Everything Ween has ever done is in someone else’s style. But slighty different.
The Beatles’ Back in the U.S.S.R. is something of a Beach Boy parody.
Some of the Beatles’ songs were done in what Paul calls his Elvis voice. You can hear echoes of Little Richard in some of their early numbers with the falsetto wooo. Some may disagree, but I see Back In The USSR as a nod to Chuck Berry.
Leann Rimes channelled Patsy Cline in most of her Blue album.
In addition to flat-out parodies, Weird Al Yankovic also does pastiches. “Dare to be Stupid,” of DEVO, “Bob” of Bob Dylan, and “Pancreas” of The Beach Boys are all examples.
Peter, Paul and Mary’s “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” parodied several popular acts of the 60s. Lousy song, but the imitation of The Mamas and the Papas was dead on.
Long before Stevie Ray Vaughn started covering Hendrix, Robin Trower was heavily influenced by Hendrix; unlike Vaughn, though, he didn’t do a bitwise copy.
Gene Vincent’s entire catalog seems to be an imitation of Elvis. Imitating Elvis was not unusual in the 50s, but Vincent was particularly good at it. A lot of people thought Be-Bop-A-Lula was done by Elvis.
We all know that Oasis = recycled Beatles.
The Beatles’ “Back in the USSR” is definitely a nod to the Beach Boys. But I can see where AskNott would see Chuck Berry’s influence, and am prepared to call it a hybrid.
I was going to say Back in the USSR.
America’s Horse with No Name sounds more like Neil Young at the time than Neil Young did.
Country musicians are evoking Jimmie Rodgers when they throw a yodel into their song. An early example of such an homage is “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” by Hank Williams.
You occasionally hear Dwight Yoakam imitating other artists. He slips into a George Jones impression sometimes, though I’m having trouble naming a specific song at the moment.
Buddy Holly and the Crickets were knowingly copping Bo Diddley’s style with “Not Fade Away.”
Since Weird Al got claimed already, I’ll offer Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ Come Back to Me, an homage to Sammy Davis Jr. Pure lounge music.
No surprise at all that people hear a Chuck Berry/ Beach Boys blend there. The Beach Boys were so influenced by Chuck Berry that he ended up with the writing credit for “Surfin’ USA” due to its similarity to “Sweet Little Sixteen.”