Rhino's Got You Covered
It’s Wednesday, so it must be time to take another dip into the Rhino catalog and trot out a new quartet of cover songs that you may or may not have heard before. Let’s get started, shall we?
• Terry Hall, “This Guy’s in Love with You” (1994): This Bacharach & David cover has been tacked onto the expanded edition of the former Specials / Fun Boy Three frontman’s 1994 solo album, HOME, along with a cover of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.”
• Dionne Warwick, “Monday, Monday” (1977): Actually, this Mamas and the Papas cover was originally recorded at some point in the late ‘60s, while Warwick was still on the roster of Scepter Records, but it wasn’t released at that time. It somehow snuck out in ’77 and landed on a compilation called ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK A HEART on Musicor Records (?), after which it continued to pop up on various other Warwick compilations, but if you want to own a copy of it, the best place to get the best-sounding version of it is on the much-more reputable ODDS & ENDS: SCEPTER RECORDS RARITIES, released by Real Gone Music and Rhino Custom Products.
• The Persuasions, “Willie and Laura Mae Jones” (1977): The odds of you being familiar with this cover aren’t significantly higher than the odds of you knowing that it’s a cover at all, but the song was written by the great Tony Joe White, and it originally hailed from his late ‘60s album BLACK AND WHITE. This version, however, is a pretty fantastic a cappella take by one of the legendary doowop groups of the ‘60s. Clarence Carter may have beaten them to the punch – he laid down a version in 1970 – but The Persuasions unquestionably make it their own.
• Snake River Conspiracy, “How Soon Is Now?” (2000): When it comes to covers of this all-time great Smiths song, it’s the version by Love Spit Love that gets the majority of the glory, thanks to its use in the film The Craft and as the theme song to the original Charmed series. There are others out there, however, and this is definitely one of the harder-edged versions.
