Rhino’s Got You Covered: Curtis Mayfield, The Three Degrees, David Bowie, and Morrissey

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?

•    Curtis Mayfield, “We’ve Only Just Begun” (Live @ Bitter End, NYC) (1971): The Paul Williams classic was made famous by The Carpenters, but it sure doesn’t sound like easy listening when Mayfield delivers it.

•    The Three Degrees, “Isn’t It a Pity” (1975 / 1995): We’re pretty sure that this George Harrison cover was recorded somewhere in the ’75 range, owing to the fact that it was included as a bonus track on a reissue of SO MUCH LOVE, the group’s album of that year. As far as when it was actually released, however, that date is more concrete, since it didn’t make its debut until 1995, when the compilation THE ROULETTE YEARS was released.

•    David Bowie, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” (1973): Nowadays it’s hard to know if more people think of this as a Van Halen song or as a Kinks cover done by Van Halen, but Bowie did his version of the tune between those two musical poles, and given our current state of social isolation, it’s a question that seems more apt than ever.

•    Morrissey, “Moon River” (1994): This used to be referred to as an “extended version,” but one presumes that at some point it was discovered that there is no un-extended version, since it’s no longer described as such. At over 9 minutes in length, this “River” runs for quite some time, including an extended instrumental break, but when he’s singing, Morrissey’s languid delivery works perfectly for the arrangement at hand.