Had a few that surprised me but the biggest was:
Close to You by Carpenters … originally by … wait for it…***Richard Chamberlin ***
It’s Richard Chamberlain. He was TV’s Dr. Kildare. Back in the day, after Ricky Nelson became a smash, everybody who was on a TV show was shoved in front of a microphone, including many who couldn’t sing. That apparently includes Richard.
The song was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, who would go on to do better.
Who could possibly believe that Kim Carnes’ classic rock earworm, Bette Davis Eyes, actually started out as this, uhhhh, unique interpretation by Jackie DeShannon?
I remember in the 90’s, singing along to Smashing Pumpkins’ Landslide, and my mom chimed in and sang it with me. Astonished, I asked her how she knew a Pumpkins song. She laughed at me. “Oh, child, that’s a Fleetwood Mac song from the year you were born!”
I just found out last year that Foghat’s “I Just Wanna Make Love To You” was originally recorded by Muddy Waters, then recorded by Etta James, then recorded by The Rolling Stones…all before Foghat in 1972.
And the Chad Mitchell Trio’s remake of Paxton’s The Marvelous Toy was a hit.
For years I was smug in the knowledge that “Train Kept A-Rollin” was originally by the Johnny Burnette Trio, long before the Yardbirds, let alone Aerosmith. That is, until I learned that the Johnny Burnette version was a cover of the original by Tiny Bradshaw.
(Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the song was derivative of “Cow Cow Boogie” in the first place.)
I don’t know how you could have missed the Dolly Parton version. It was in the movie, too, in the bar scene… played on a jukebox.
I suppose the question might be whether the Houston version was a remake of an older Parton original, or if both versions were new for the movie. But frankly, if the Parton version was a new song, it would have had to have been written pretty damn retro-country to sound like it did: like a piece of country music from the early '70s.
Black Betty by Ram Jam
Too late for edit, but I correct myself: the version in the bar scene isn’t Parton’s original, but another cover: John Doe’s
Clearly this was a case where what I knew in one context (the history of that song) screwed up my memory in the other context (the movie’s bar scene). Funny how hard ignorance can fight back.
Anyways, carry on.
Red Red Wine, that UB40 had a huge hit with in the 80’s, was written and first recorded by Neil Diamond.
This not necessarily true, it was much harder, but in most cases you were aware of other versions.
In the days before MTV and the internet, audiophiles such as myself, studied the album covers and pored over the liner notes, songwriting credits, guest musicians, etc… usually while listening to singles or LPs.
We read music reviews in newspapers, collected music magazines, and listened to the radio to gleam any information we could about songs or artists.
We shared and discussed music with peers, parents, and relatives.
In fact, if the songwriter credits did not match its performer(s), this was a curiosity. We’d almost always assume that it was a cover version then head off to the record store or library to research it.
Radio DJs, critics, and even the artists would acknowledge a song’s influences and/or previous versions and then hunt would begin the track down copies!
The Byrds’ “Turn Turn Turn” was a remake of a much more folk-rock version by Pete Seeger which is much less commonly known, which was itself largely based on Ecclesiastes 3.
God I miss those days…let me rush to the store, buy the LP, race home, tear it open, put the needle down, put on the giant headphones and scour/study the album cover, front and back, and read the lyrics, liner notes, writing credits, producer credits, engineer credits, thank you’s, endorsements and studio locations.
A few decades ago, I bought an album by a little-known group called Glass Moon. One of the songs was called “Solsbury Hill”, and I really liked it. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that it was written and originally performed by some guy named Peter Gabriel. I still like the Glass Moon version better.
Not all of us have bothered to watch the movie.
Oh, yeah. And if you were lucky the record store would have an up to datePhonolog binder where you could track down every version of the song that had ever been released on disc!
Speaking of weird originals, here’s “Southern Nights” by New Orleans musical legend Allen Toussaint. Compare to Glenn Campbell’s hit version.
Yep, then you could fill out an order slip and wait by the phone for a couple of weeks for the store to call you when your record was in! 
There was a movie? 