Also remade: the trippy Beach Boys song "You're Welcome" by Japanese noise rock outfit Melt Banana, who fuse it to a snippet of "Surfin' USA"to make something totally insane; and the appealingly languorous Kinks track "Sitting In The Midday Sun" is covered by Ana Egge. "Still A Fool (Two Trains Running)" is an old Muddy Waters song, covered by The Rolling Stones in the late 60s but never officially released. All of these versions are on here.
Billy Paul's cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" is almost unrecognizable in its slowed-down cocktail lounge vibe. And I mean that as a compliment. The Reverend himself makes an appearance with the deep groove of "Love And Happiness".
The magnificent "Water No Get Enemy" by Fela Kuti is followed by the equally exotically-named Talib Kweli, with his witty track "The Blast." Speaking of wit, I love the old Jerry Irby song about breakfast, "One Cup Of Coffee And A Cigarette". He has a funny spoken word style that's almost like rap. Speaking of, no one better than Rakim, who is here with "When I'm Flowin'".
"Easy Heaven" is a brilliant mash up by Brat Productions of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" over the piano chords of "Easy" by The Commodores. That leads into the old standard, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", here in a lushly romantic take by Coleman Hawkins. I found out it was originally in a 30s Broadway musical called Roberta.
The first song on here is the last one I will mention. Odetta died recently and was scheduled to sing for Obama's inauguration. I wonder if she could have imagined that some 40 years ago when she recorded Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changin'".
