Whether someone like Bach or Beethoven counts depends on how strictly you interpret the OP’s requirement that they “recorded the original version.”
Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill, the writers of “Happy Birthday to You”:
If you’re counting just the number of songs that were covered at least once, Black Sabbath has got to be up there. Thanks to innumerable tribute albums, just about every Ozzy-era song and most Dio-era songs have been covered by somebody somewhere.
Who wrote ‘The star spangled banner’?
Francis Scott Key wrote the words, as a poem. Key’s brother-in-law matched the words up with a popular melody, “The Anacreontic Song” (a.k.a. “To Anacreon in Heaven”), which was the official song of a London gentlemen’s club, the Anacreontic Society.
That hymn long predates recording technology, so there’s no original recording artist to “cover”.
Or the Kingsmen. If you’re at a jam session and you can’t find a song that everyone knows, just start playing Louie Louie.
Radar, is that you?
Yeah, I like that guess. Just saw him recently in The Best Years of Our Lives. I was thinking somebody older, who wrote “standards” like that, rather than regular pop groups. Though the Beatles are a good guess.
If the answer has to have “recorded the original version”, then my guess, Stephen Foster is out, just like Bach and co, along with every other pre-20th Century composer.
George Gershwin (his estate is the reason the copyright term keeps getting extended; once his work goes PD, they’re sunk).
Or at least the first 4 notes of it are.
I came here to say this.
Every singer who styles themself as a good singer seems to do this song.
I’ll also add that most of the covers of “Hallelujah” suck with a few that are outstanding (it is a difficult song to do right). K.D. Lang’s rendition is my favorite. That woman has an amazing voice.
That’s why I said “first”. The same thing can be said about the classical composers mentioned in this thread.
The most covered? Obviously not the Naked Cowboy.
How is it not this? The fact that restaurants are charged royalties if their crews sing it is, to me, what makes any sung version a “cover.” So in all the places this is the birthday song it’s getting covered.
Besides specific anomalies like that, I also assume it is The Beatles.
You’ll be happy to learn “Happy Birthday” is now in the public domain and the last copyright holder (Warner/Chappell) had to pay back $14 million in royalties they collected for that copyright.
That’s right - I remember that.
Done crudely (I didn’t dissect out medleys)
Most covered songs:
“Yesterday” 71
“Eleanor Rigby” 55
“Come Together” 51
Artist covering most Beatles sings:
The Hollyridge Strings 53
Yellow Matter Custard 30
Phish 30
“Sweet Home Chicago” is a blues standard first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1936. I’d bet there’s not a blues band in the entire world who hasn’t done a cover.
Heck, I can name that tune in 3 notes.