The Highway Men singing Me and Bobby McGee. Their joy in making music together is infectious. The Highwaymen - Me and Bobby McGee (American Outlaws: Live at Nassau Coliseum, 1990) - YouTube
This showed up in a scene in a mediocre TV show. I found out its not the original.
Jonathan Coulton gave a pretty good cover of Baby Got Back.
Not to mention Weird Al Yankovich’s cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.
I taught a “How To Be More Creative” class. I’d tell them that one thing that I swear made new neural pathways in my brain was listening to a song and then realizing it was a cover that was done in a very different style.
I cued up Coulton’s Baby Got Back so no one got a clue for quite a while, then you could hear a collective “Ohhhh…”
But my favorite genre-switching was Straight Outta Compton…
UFO’s cover of Alone Again Or, originally recorded by Arthur Lee and Love.
I fell in love with this song when I heard Calexico’s beautiful flamenco-meets-roots version.
Then I went back and listened to Love, who were clearly ahead of their time.
The Damned 's version was what I’d first heard, not knowing about Love until a couple of decades later… testament to how great the song is that it covers so well…
Gin and Juice as a pop song…
I just ran across another one by Tim Akers & The Smoking Section doing Adele’s “Hello” that’s pretty bad ass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXCkJMQesQ
I liked. And on the subject of Paul Mc: As an American I’ve been generally immune to Mull of Kintyre, but this cover got through my defenses. A bearded Glen Campbell feeling his Celtic roots on a sweltering night in Dublin.
W.A.S.P. - “The Real Me”
This version of Abba’s Mama Mia from the Josh Turner Guitar Youtube channel is a lot of fun. It’s arranged for guitar and banjo, and the boys have a blast with the singing and the playing.
They performance is about 5% winking, and 95% happiness with the song and the joy of performing it.
Sanctuary - “White Rabbit”
[https://youtu.be/zLeO003g6Dc](https://)
Thanks for posting that - I love’s me some Josh Turner. Here is a fun clip with Carson McKee:
Folsom Prison Blues
And Josh killing it on Bare Necessites
They also play a lot with Reina Del Cid and Toni Lindgren. Toni is quite the guitarist herself:
My wife is recovering from surgery, and I pulled her into the Josh Turner Universe last week. She’s says it’s almost the only Youtube channel she can put on shuffle and like (almost) every song. That’s partly because we’re children on the 60s and 70s, and partly because Turner is so darn likable. I haven’t watched Bare Necessities yet, but will check it out tonight.
Here are another three:
Swingtown
Ventura Highway (On the Chase Eagleson channel)
Can’t Help Falling (It’s hard to mess the song up, and they don’t – three million views)
Other favorites include Honey Pie and It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.
Jon Baptiste reworks Blackbird back in 2016. Solo piano and vocals. It’s made me cry more than one time.
Yep, I love Honey Pie - that’s been on my playlist lately.
I’ll check out the other suggestions.
For holiday songs I like Baby Please Come Home
Another one featuring Toni. And she’s wearing lipstick, ha ha. I like her playing because it almost seems doable for a novice guitarist like me.
They also have a very fun original called Roswell.