COCKTAILS WITH TERRY

Agreat meal at St. John in London followed by a Patti Smith show upon my return home to Malmö got me thinking about covers and remakes…

Before going further, it may be best to establish just what is meant by a cover and remake.

In popular music the first recorded version of a song is considered the ‘original’ recording. A cover or cover version is a recording by a performer other than the performer of the original recording. Interestingly, originally a cover referred to a version of a song released around the same time as the original to compete with it or expand its market reach (more on that later). What distinguishes a cover from a remake, is that with a cover the artist duplicates or reinterprets a song in their own style, while in an arrangement that remains essentially true to the original. A remake, on the other hand, the artist changes the style of the original, effectively reworking it into a version all their own.

The meal at St. John began with a Fergroni, essentially a version of a classic Negroni created by Fergus Henderson, founder of this ground-breaking noseto-tail restaurant just around the corner from the historic Smithfield Market in London. Fergus plus Negroni begets a Fergroni and it was delicious! But was it a cover or a remake?

Shortly after returning from London, and with the memory of the meal and Fergroni still in my mind, I attended the last of two sold out Patti Smith shows in Malmö. Midway through her set, Smith covered “All Along the Watchtower,” which was originally recorded by its composer, Bob Dylan. But this night it sounded as if Patti was covering Jimi Hendrix’s remake of the song before launching into “Gloria,” a remake of the Van Morrison’s classic composition, originally recorded by Them. “Gloria” was released in 1961 as the B-side of the single “Baby Please Don’t Go,” which was itself a cover of a blues standard. In 1966, it became a hit when covered by the seminal punk band The Shadows of Knight. In 1975, the Patti Smith Group recorded their first album, “Horses.” The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry. “Gloria” is the lead off song, with Smith’s opening words: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”, added from her poem “Oath.”

In the strange way my mind works, this got me wondering if Fergus’s Fergroni was a cover or a remake, which in turn inspired an all-consuming consideration of those terms and my relationship to much beloved music and cocktail versions and variations.

This is a topic that is endless, so some boundaries for our purposes here are needed, and for that reason, jazz, songbook, classical, and folk revival recordings will not be considered, with the focus being on pop music, while further ignoring the aspect of sampling (no matter how much I love P.M. Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” based heavily and effectively on Spandau Ballet’s “True”).

Christmas albums, which seem to be a requirement for any recording artist of a certain stature to release, will also be excluded as we quietly back out of the room as David Bowie and Bing Crosby uncomfortably begin their cover of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Additionally, in the age of YouTube, video covers will be excluded, as that is also an equally endless topic of its own, with careers of current superstars like Justin Bieber beginning with bedroom covers going viral, combined with professional and amateur concert footage flooding social media in all forms, including television talent show contests and contestants.

However, it must be said that voiding this topic is a bit painful, as one of joys of this social media age is the multitude of truly remarkable video recordings that can be found online, such as Maggie Rogers “Light On” in a truly joyous La Blogothèque live acoustic version, with a choir of fans and friends, filmed in a single sinuous take that goes from an apartment to the streets of Paris, with a wonderful visual play on the phrase “If you leave the light on / Then I’ll leave the light on.” For those who might want to see it and the many other remarkable clips available on the highly recommended La Blogothèque site, click this link.

In fact, this is particularly painful in that I believe, along with my dear friend Ernesto, who runs the Barcelona branch of his family’s Supersonido audio video stores in Spain, in using video clips, often in lo-res, to demo hi-res systems to great effect, and in some cases bringing the audience to tears, reinforcing my belief that any system, whether two or multi-channel, should be able to play anything to a level that is ultimately satisfying, and for the entire household.

Ironically some covers of Beiber’s songs can find greater emotional depth and nuance than his original recordings of his songs might provide, suggesting that the most important aspect or nature of a cover may not be that the interpretation may be better or more interesting than the original, providing new insight into the song or recording, but rather the very act of curation, of selecting that specific song for consideration by a contemporary audience or differing demographic.

For example, currently country artist Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car is rocketing up the Billboard country music charts. And while I am pleased to think that this will mean that Tracy Chapman will become the first black woman to score a number one country song as sole writer, and possibly introducing to a new audience what in my opinion is a seminal recording artist of the late 80’s,