All The Pretty Colors

Last weekend Mrs. Freak and young Freakette went camping with several families with whom we’re friendly. I don’t camp, Mrs. Freak knew that before she married me. When she came back Mrs. Freak commented that the group’s ethnic composition resembled a Benetton commercial. With that in mind I present the United Colors of Cover Freak.

Joel Grey “White Room” (Cream)
Kind of a two-fer here between the artist and the song. I understand the desire to appeal to a younger audience, especially with your original demographic dropping dead from chain smoking filterless cigarettes during the 50s. But this was not the way to do it. The string-soaked tinkley piano bar arrangement would be bad enough without without Mr. Gray trying to hit those high notes. Jack Bruce he ain’t.

Robbie Fulks “Black Or White” (Michael Jackson)
This comes from the extremely excellent Michael Jackson tribute album Mr. Fulks put out called Happy. He does a great job of stripping away the layers of production, bombast, and disco to expose the well-written pop songs beneath.

Petty Booka “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (Brian Hyland)
Part of this song is in English and part isn’t. I’m not sure if they’re singing in their native Japanese or in Hawaiian. Either way it’s a wonderful happy song.

Paul Kelly “Little Red Corvette” (Prince)
Prince is another artist who writes terrific pop songs but isn’t exactly subtle in his arrangements. This acoustic arrangement shows what a talent Prince really is.

The Hassles “Coloured Rain” (Traffic)
The Hassles sound like a lot of other organ-based bands from the late 60s. Their music is notable for containing the first recorded performances of Billy Joel. That’s right, that’s the Piano Man playing that bombastic Hammond organ. I’m not a huge fan of his, but I think he made the right decision as far as his musical direction goes.

10 thoughts on “All The Pretty Colors”

  1. Mogambo

    The best Benneton ad (from a Brit’s perspective) was the one with the black lady who looked exactly like the Queen. I’m anti-monarchist but I like nice old ladies of any colour.

    I was kinda lol when they banned the ad of the very-freshly-born baby.

    Keep up the class covers mate, I love Petty Booka!

  3. Matt

    Had the pleasure of seeing Robbie Fulks play that whole album at Lincoln Hall last winter. An amazing show that even had the elephant man and blanket making appearances. Oh yeah, and some of Chicago’s finest musicians really letting the songs shine.

  4. Sue LaFleur

    I’m liking the new look and the little boxes at the bottom. I hope the facebook one sends a link to my FB so friends can enjoy.

  5. Steve McI

    Matt, I was at the Lincoln Hall show also. Too bad we didn’t run into each other. The rat puppet they used for “Ben” was quite amusing.

  6. Steve McI

    Glad you like the new look Sue.

    The Facebook button allows you to “like” the page, which basically means you are adding a status update with a link to the post. The plugin I’m using does include the option to add a button to send the link to your fb pals, I can add that one as well.

  7. Steve McI

    Thanks for clearing that up for me, Yomikoma. The song comes from the album “Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian” which includes actual Hawaiian lyrics, so that’s what threw me on that one. Well, that and the fact that I don’t speak Japanese. Or Hawaiian.

  8. Steve McI

    Thanks for the kind words, Mogambo. I haven’t seen the ad with the black queen, I’ll have to try to find it.

  9. Shaneka

    Paul Kelly’s rendition of “Little Red Corvette” was perhaps my favorite. I think the harmonica really did the trick in adding especially unique undertones to the cover. Out of curiosity, how did you stumble across it?

    I usually review a range of different cover songs on my page and a friend recommended Chris Cornell’s cover of “Billie Jean”. I think you might enjoy the song too, the artist also has an amazing voice and puts an unexpected twist on the Michael Jackson classic! :)

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