Zappa Tribute Update: The Cover Freak Zappa Tribute is progressing nicely. There’s still time to get involved if you’d like. Details are available here. If you’ve already contributed a song, thanks. If you’ve promised me a song and haven’t gotten it to me, please be sure to get it to me by mid-November.

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My neighbor owns a house in southwestern Michigan. It’s the house she grew up in. After her parents died she tried renting it out. Her last tenant was a meth freak who sold everything that wasn’t nailed down and a few things that were. When the gas company cut off service because she didn’t pay her bills she started taking doors off the walls and shelves out of the closets and burning them in the fireplace.

My neighbor has since evicted the meth freak and decided to use the house as a vacation retreat. My family is helping her furnish and repair it, so my thoughts have turned toward home furnishings lately.

Ensemble Ambrosius “Sofa No. 1” (Frank Zappa)
Since I started out talking about FZ I figured I’d post a cover of one of my favorite FZ songs. It’s a beautiful, sentimental melody even if the alternate version has German lyrics that don’t make a whole lot of sense in English or German. The Ensemble Ambrosius does a wonderful job with it. Nobody has stepped up to cover this song for the Cover Freak Zappa Tribute, but there’s still time. Not that I’m hinting or anything. Special thanks to Uncle Flakey for sending this song my way.

Rotary Connection “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” (Jimi Hendrix)
The original version of this song is pretty grand and trippy, but Rotary Connection came up with an arrangement that would make Jimi proud. It’s full of soaring choral vocals and orchestral flourishes.

Inspiral Carpets “Tainted Love” (Gloria Jones)
Most of the rooms in the Michigan house have wall to wall carpeting. It’s nice enough, but not particularly inspirational. Or inspiral, for that matter.

Shelby Lynne “Breakfast In Bed” (Dusty Springfield)
Since my neighbor is using her childhood home as a sort of clubhouse for her friends we’ll be needing a few more beds so we can maximize the number of folks who can sleep there. Then we can all have breakfast in bed. This song comes from a Dusty Springfield tribute album that Shelby Lynne put out a few years ago.

Jerry Garcia and David Grisman “Rockin’ Chair” (Louis Armstrong)
My neighbor’s house is a 1950s ranch house, so it doesn’t have a front porch. As a result there’s not a huge need for a rocking chair, although it still might be nice to find one for the place.

It’s Independence Day, time to reflect on all the great things about this country that bring us together despite our differences. Warts and all, America is a great place to be.

Willie Nelson “America The Beautiful” (comp. Katharine Lee Bates)
It would be great if this became our national anthem instead of the militaristic “Star Spangled Banner.” It’ll never happen, of course, but we can still dream of singing a song about the glories of the USA before baseball games.

Richard Cheese “American Idiot” (Green Day)
It’s a happy, loungy version of Green Day’s indictment of America’s ills. I love the way he starts singing “Tequila” at the end.

Brecht Fist and Amy Rica “Breakfast In America” (Supertramp)
I’ve never been a huge Supertramp fan, but I’ve always liked this song about a foreigner’s perceptions of America. This version has an accordion, which I always like. Stick around for the frantic ending.

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass “America” (from West Side Story)
Every Herb Alpert song is charmingly cheesy, including this song about how the US is better than Puerto Rico. People sometimes forget that the original stage version of the song included lyrics that disparaged Puerto Rico, while the movie version included lyrics about American racism and the difficulties of Puerto Rican immigrants.

Yes “America” (Simon And Garfunkle)
Paul Simon’s folk tune about a cross-country bus ride gets the bloated prog-rock treatment.

One of my fellow computer consultants is out of town and asked me to help cover any emergencies that her clients might have while she was gone. I was happy to oblige because she’s a good person who has helped me quite a bit over the years professionally. I wound up going out to visit her clients on Thursday and Friday. The only thing is that both of those clients were about as far as they could possibly be from my home, meaning that I spent quite a bit of quality time in my car last week. These are the songs that were running through my head as I crept through traffic.

Katie Melua “On The Road Again” (Canned Heat)
The original is one of the greatest examples of hypnotic boogie music ever recorded. This version is much more sophisticated and upscale. It starts out with some simple acoustic strumming, then the horns, percussion and piano come in. Ms. Melua has a wonderful voice to boot.

Jim White “King Of The Road” (Roger Miller)
Talk about your radical reinventions. This song just cries out to be played at top volume on the highway with the top down. Mr. White takes rhythmic liberties with it that I’m sure would have appalled Roger Miller. The only part I don’t like is when the original version is spliced in at the end. As if you wouldn’t have known otherwise how far this version is from the original.

The W’s “Country Roads” (John Denver)
I’ve never really liked this song, maybe because of where my musical taste was when it came out. Here we have a rockabilly version with a smokin’ horn section and it sounds great to me. For my money it’s way better than the original.

Ghoti Hook “On The Road Again” (Willie Nelson)
Remember the South Park episode where Cartman puts together a Christian rock group because he figures that Christians will buy anything as long as it mentions Jesus and/or God? While there’s plenty of bad Christian rock out there, just like any other musical style, some of those bands would be good playing any kind of music. The good Christians of Ghoti Hook showed that when they did a covers album that had Christian and secular songs on it.

The Bobs “The Golden Road” (Grateful Dead)
My favorite a capella group is from San Francisco, which might probably explains their fondness for the Grateful Dead. In the past I’ve explained my feelings about the Dead, but I like the harmonies on this song. Heck, I like the harmonies on just about any song the Bobs sing.

I was having trouble coming up with a theme this week and then the power went out in my house for 24 hours, making it harder to lovingly craft a theme. So this week it’s just a bunch of songs with nothing particular in common.

Toadsuck Symphony “Stop In The Name Of Love” (Supremes)
Ever wonder what Diana Ross would sound like backed by a banjo and fiddle? Now you can rest easy.

Lin Yu Chu and William Shatner “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” (Bonnie Tyler)
What can be said about Shatner that hasn’t already been said? His music is truly a genre unto itself. I admire Shatner because he seems completely self-aware regarding his limited skills and is willing to laugh at himself. Those are traits that we should all cultivate.

This recording comes from the George Lopez Show by way of the charming and talented Ms. Lee. It’s the first clip from that show I’ve ever seen anybody repost. I see stuff from Jimmy Fallon’s show more often, which can’t bode well for Mr. Lopez’ show.

Look At The Fields “Miracles” (Insane Clown Posse)
I wasn’t aware of the original version of this song until some youthful recent house guests were mocking it. Then Heather (who’s cooler than I can ever hope to be) turned me on to this very charming, earnest ukulele-drenched cover. It makes me smile every time I hear it. Thanks, Heather.

Sly & The Family Stone “Que Sera Sera” (Doris Day)
Buying a ticket to see Sly Stone perform live is always an act of faith. You never know if he’ll show up at all or if he’ll be sober enough to play if he does. But his recordings are consistently great. Here he takes Doris Day’s signature song and turns it into an incredible slow jam. Man, do I wanna make out with somebody right now.

Camper Van Chadbourne “I Talk To The Wind” (King Crimson)
Eugene Chadbourne is an eclectic guitarist and banjo player who is probably best known for his time with Shockabilly and for inventing the electric rake, an ordinary garden rake with a guitar pickup attached. I saw Mr. Chadbourne in the early 90s playing with the bassist and violinist from Camper Van Beethoven. It was a good show but he didn’t pull out the rake. I was mildly disappointed. On this song he’s working with all of the guys from CVB and playing a very odd two-step arrangement of the prog-rock classic from King Crimson’s first album.

The Deepwater Horizon continues to spew oil into the ocean, endangering life on land, air, and sea. There are people calling for President Obama to “do more,” but when I ask those people what specific things he should be doing they mostly mumble and change the subject. On the rare occasions when they cite specific actions that Obama should be doing, it’s usually things that he has already done. When I point that out they complain that he should be doing more photo-ops.

The sad fact is that the federal government doesn’t have a whole lot of experience or expertise cleaning up oil spills in the deep ocean. That has made us all dependent on British Petroleum to clean up its own mess, but I have no doubt that the folks running BP have nobody’s interests in mind but their own. Yes, brothers and sisters, the water is indeed troubled.

Andre Crouch “Wade In The Water” (Fisk Jubilee Singers)
This traditional spiritual has several meanings. It refers to the flight of the Israelites from Egypt as well as a passage from the Gospel of John where an angel troubles the waters of a pool and the next person to enter the pool is cured of all ailments. I don’t think that anybody’s going to be cured by the troubled waters of the Gulf of Mexico any time soon.

Some folks also say that this song is also a set of instructions for fugitive slaves making their way to freedom. The song supposedly advises the escaped slaves to leave dry land and take to the water to throw pursuing bloodhounds off their scent.

Wilson Pickett “Fire And Water” (Free)
This whole mess started with a fire aboard the drilling rig and BP has tried setting fire to the oil slick in order to try to contain it. This song not only has an appropriate title, it’s a great funky horn-drenched take on the classic rock staple.

Señor Coconut “Smoke On The Water” (Deep Purple)
Señor Coconut is really German electronic musician Uwe Schmidt, who seems to collect aliases like some people collect comic books. In this guise he delivers a very nice Latin take on this old warhorse.

Aretha Franklin “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (Simon And Garfunkle)
The troubled waters of the Gulf probably wouldn’t be helped by a bridge. But I still like listening to this mighty gospel version of Simon and Garfunkle’s hit.

Sold Out “Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)” (Prince)
I’ve heard that Kevin Costner has some sort of centrifuge-based machine that can remove the oil from the water. Apparently that’s what he spent his “Waterworld” money on. Which makes that incredibly silly movie just a little more justifiable.

I just love this cover because it takes a funky electronic song and completely recasts it as a raw delta blues tune. That kind of creativity is what Cover Freak is all about.