A few weeks ago, we found ourselves in a local watering hole listening to 80s cover tunes. The band clearly knew what the crowd wanted to hear and had their set perfectly rehearsed. It especially warmed my heart when the singer’s 80-something-year-old mother proudly told me that it was her daughter on stage belting out Gold Dust Woman. It was just fun to watch, and it got me thinking deeper into the long history of bands playing covers.
It's clear that throughout the history of rock and roll, artists have been inspired to perform the music of others. Before the Beatles performed Twist and Shout on the Ed Sullivan Show, it was recorded by The Top Notes and then The Isley Brothers. And before Elvis sung Blue Suede Shoes, there was Carl Perkins. You get my point.
All this gets very interesting when you start thinking about the covers that actually became Top 40 hits, with some becoming wildly more popular than their original version. In fact, there are quite a few of these, including the following which are a few of my favorite which have ties to our beloved Rock and Romance Cruise.
The Show Must Go On
Most are familiar with the Three Dog Night version of The Show Must Go On which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. Yes, it’s that song with the extended circus music opener. Yet, the song was originally co-written by Leo Sayer and was his first hit, reaching its chart peak of #2 in the UK in 1973. It’s a dark, haunting, and wildly difficult song to sing, showcasing Leo’s incredible voice in the original and Chuck Negron’s voice in the Three Dog Night version. On the 2019 cruise, I was simply blown away by Leo’s performance of it, and I can’t wait to see him again in 2023.
Fast Fact: The last line of the chorus in the original is “I won’t let the show go on.” Perhaps, Three Dog Night wasn’t keen on the melancholy message and changed it in their version to “I must let the show go on”. I’d love to hear Leo’s thoughts about this hit and the somewhat pivotal lyric change that Three Dog Night made to it.
Heart and Soul
Now, this one is a cover that I knew nothing about until the Rock and Romance Cruise. Being from the Bay Area, I grew up listening to Huey Lewis and the News’ fantastic version of Heart and Soul. I just assumed that they had written it. But then, here comes Exile belting it out in the Constellation Lounge. What, what? Could that be? Oh yes! The song was first recorded by Exile in 1981. My guess is that they’ll be playing this crowd favorite again for us in a few months, and I’m looking forward to it!
Fast Fact: Heart and Soul was written by the production/songwriting duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn who also wrote Exile’s Kiss You All Over, as well as hits for Sweet, Suzy Quatro, Smokie, and Mud.
Without You Many artists have performed the heart-wrenching ballad Without You through the years—including Mariah Carey in the 1990s and even Renee Zellweger who offered up a cringe-worthy karaoke performance of it in Bridget Jones’s Diary. But most of us know the Harry Nilsson version which became a chart-topping hit from his Nilsson Schmilsson album.
However, the song was actually composed by two members of Badfinger and was featured on their 1970 album No Dice. At the time, Badfinger didn’t consider the song to have much potential.
Fast Fact: Paul McCartney once described Without You as “the killer song of all time.”
I Just Want to Make Love to You I’m super excited to see Foghat on our next cruise and especially want to hear I Just Want to Make Love to You. But this isn’t an original Foghat song. It’s actually a 1954 blues number written by Willie Dixon, first recorded by Muddy Waters. Etta James also did a version of it for her debut album in 1960 which was a hit in the UK and Ireland.
Fast Fact: The Etta James version of I Just Want to Make Love to You was featured in a Diet Coke ad campaign in the UK, resulting in the song hitting the charts for the second time, more than 30 years after it was first released.
Muskrat Love Perhaps one of the oddest, most syrupy sweet songs of all time, Muskrat Love was a bona fide hit for Captain and Tennille in 1976. Yet, one of our favorite Rock and Romance Cruise bands had a minor hit with it in 1973. Who, you ask? America! Yes, they featured the song on their 1973 album Hat Trick. Interestingly their record label Warner Bros. didn’t care much for the song and begged for them not to release it as a single. They did it anyway, and it hit the Top 40.
Someone else on the cruise also performed this somewhat polarizing little ditty. No other than Mr. Todd Rundgren who wholeheartedly acted out the strange synthesized dialog of the muskrats in his version—much to our delight. Man, he needs to do a cruise encore, even if it’s just to perform Muskrat Love!
Fast Fact: The original title of the song was Muskrat Candlelight—which makes this song even weirder, if that's possible.
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