Of course an artist can cover their own work. James Brown is on here with a bizarre Latin-tinged 7os cover of his 60s hit "Please, Please, Please". It's from his album Hell, on which every song starts with a gong.
Richie Havens does a nice cover of Curtis Mayfield's deeply romantic "The Makings Of You". I've had the original on another mix, here I've included the original backing track by Curtis Mayfield, highlighting his wizardry as a composer.
Also on here: Clash non-album single "Cool Confusion", Squeeze's witty "Cool For Cats", Wilson Pickett's ballad "I'm In Love", early Tom Waits bootleg "What Else Is New", the fizzy "Mass Romantic" by The New Pornographers, Kanye West's heartfelt "Hey Mama", and the fun "Mary, Mary" by Run-D.M.C.
Back to songs that repeat: The Amboy Dukes were a psychedelic rock band fronted by a young Ted Nugent. Here they tackle an old blues song, covered by many including Van Morrison's band Them, called "Baby Please Don't Go". The original from 1935 by Big Joe Turner is here as well. Also included is an acoustic version of Nirvana's "Pennyroyal Tea" as well as the full band album version.
"I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by The Kinks gets a nice introduction by Ray Davies on a live version here. The original 60s b-side is the second song of the mix. There was once an idiotic IBM television commerical that wildly misappropriated the song, playing it against a head-scratching scenario of expressionless office drones mouthing the words, walking around like zombies while shilling the ubiquitous product. Acting, in other words, like "everybody else". You wonder if the "brilliant" creative lead and arrogant director had a clue. It's almost too obvious to guess they learned of the song, and were inspired to use it, from the ending credits of an episode of The Sopranos. There, as in so much of the music on that series, the song was deftly used. The difference between art and artifice.
Beatles related: There is no greater peak of John Lennon's solo career than "Whatever Gets You Through The Night". Elton John, who is also on this mix with the reflective "Into The Old Man's Shoes", has a guest appearance on this song. It's such a joyous and fun song, I can't help but want to turn it up whenever I hear it.
The second ever Beatles single "Please Please Me" features Lennon's vocals equally shared by Paul McCartney, in a style inspired by The Everly Brothers, which soon became uncommon for them. I've also included a rare studio bootleg of a clearly wasted Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones playing a slow acoustic version. I love the late night feel of this, carried by Keith's weathered vocals. Especially when he stops for the bridge of the song and announces, "Horrible Beatles bridge. Not gonna do it."
No one tells Keith what to do.
