I’ve been seeing this West Virginia tourism commercial on TV quite a bit lately, and the background music to it is a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” that sounds very vaguely rock, or maybe the more rock-leaning version of alt.country. Not hard rock, but not soft rock… jeez, I know this is a horrible description. Acoustic guitar, lots of other instrumentation that I can’t recall right now. multiple background vocalists but the lead singer is a young male with a slightly rough, mid-range voice.
It’s the best version of that song I’ve ever heard, but how am I ever going to get to hear it outside of the context of that commercial if I can’t figure out who it is?
I’m hoping it’s by an actual band, and not just some studio musicians who only got together to do a jingle for the tourism department.
I can’t answer your question, but I heard the commercial, and liked the version of the song, and had the very same question as you! So here’s hoping that someone out there has an answer for us.
Both summer (“contemporary”, male voice) and winter (“traditional”, female singer) versions of the commercial can be heard here. Unfortunately, neither vocalist is identified in the accompanying text. Perhaps you’d like to use the easy online form available at the West Virginia Division of Tourism site.
I was at a piano bar in Myrtle Beach and one of their song war bribes was between “Country Roads” and “Rocky Top”. We got our revenge by starting a song war with “Freebird” (and some dude paid like $80 for them to finish the song).