I had been thinking that I might use my midweek post this time for one of my roundups of what I had been watching on YouTube, but as I began to compile the setlist it struck me that several of these were covers, and that got me thinking: how long has it been since the most recent of my occasional Under The Covers series? The answer was that it was a year ago this week, which seems far too long a gap, so I’ve changed course and we’re going Back Under The Covers this week.

I’m playing six tunes today. Four of them are recent, one is slightly older, and I’m closing with a classic cover which I have played several times before, but not for ages. And trust me, it’s good!

I am indebted to the inimitable Jim Borden for finding this first one for me, as he played it some weeks back and we got into a lengthy comments chat about it, as you do. It is ten minutes long, but is so worth the investment of your time. Not strictly a cover as such, as it is a version of a traditional song, but that’s good enough for me:

I think that’s incredible, and as I hadn’t previously heard of any of them Jim’s post prompted me to find out more. I then proved to myself that if I ever thought I knew everything, I was wrong. Very wrong! All three have multi-million YouTube followings. Jacob Collier is an incredibly talented musician, and there is another video from the same show – 18 minutes of musical joy – in which he works with the orchestra to create a piece of music. Laufey – the one on the left – is a jazz musician and singer, and dodie (her styling) is a British folk musician. They all have their own videos with huge viewing figures, so what did I know! This one has added to their totals, currently standing just shy of 1.7m views.

Back on more familiar ground for me with this next one, a favourite band:

The Big Rock Candy Mountains, first recorded and copyrighted by Harry McClintock in 1928, is a country folk song about a hobo’s idea of paradise, a modern version of the medieval concept of Cockaigne. It is a place where “hens lay soft-boiled eggs” and there are “cigarette trees”. McClintock said that he wrote the song in 1895, based on tales from his youth hoboing through the United States while working for the railroad as a brakeman. It is catalogued in Steve Roud’s Folk Song Index at #6696. The Old Crow Medicine Show have featured here several times previously, and they are always a fun watch. This performance is from a couple of weeks ago at the Grand Ole Opry, as part of a show to mark the 25th anniversary of the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? Jeez, is it really that long! That is a wonderful movie, and if you haven’t seen it I urge you to try it: George Clooney does comedy, and does it very well.

I mentioned just now that Laufey is a jazz musician, which isn’t usually my style, but one of my favourite singer-songwriters – Joni Mitchell – has many jazz influences in her music, so it isn’t a complete no-go area for me. Coming across Laufey covering one of Joni’s songs I just had to watch, and then share it with you:

Slowing the song down and playing with the orchestra works well for me: I think that is beautiful. Both Sides Now is one of Joni’s best songs, and has even managed to survive Judy Collins speeding it up and going pop-py with it. Joni took it at a more restrained pace, and Laufey really does her and the song justice.

A covers band I have been following for many years is up next. They started out by playing shows in restaurants, often in the open air next to the car park, and then began creating their music in their own studio. I don’t think that was entirely prompted by the pandemic but it certainly helped concentrate their minds, though they have in the past year taken to playing live again, with much success. They are Foxes And Fossils, and this is their latest offering:

Sorry about Maggie’s plug at the beginning, but Foxes and Fossils are self-managed and deserve every penny they make. Friend of the Devil was, as the video shows, originally recorded by the Grateful Dead:  it was on their album American Beauty, released in November 1970 peaking at #30 in the US. Foxes And Fossils’ cover is very faithful to the original and, like everything they do, it is a polished performance.

I have recently played tunes by Nathan Evans from his collaboration with Saint PHNX, and I couldn’t resist this one:

I’ve never been a big John Denver fan – too sickly sweet for my tastes – but there’s something in the warmth of Nathan’s voice, and that of the Saint PHNX guys, that draws me in to this. Denver released Take Me Home, Country Roads as a single in April 1971 and it got to #2 in the US, though it didn’t make the UK charts – I guess we didn’t need long cross-country treks to reach our homes!

I said I would close today with what has become a classic cover version of a song, and in the process has achieved phenomenal viewing figures. Remember this one?:

Just the 195m views to date, along with several millions more in other (unofficial) postings of this video. The song, of course, is Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know, which to be fair to him has also done rather well on YouTube: 2.6bn views! It was a huge hit, being released in different countries on various dates in 2011 into 2012, topping the charts just about everywhere, selling 14m in the US and 3m in the UK in the process. Walk Off The Earth (WOTE, for short) released their version in January 2012, at around the time that Gotye’s original came out in North America, and rode the wave with him. It is typical of their inventive, creative approach to music, and is one of the reasons why I love them so much. Maybe one day I’ll do one of these devoted entirely to them – the problem would be deciding which of their many brilliant videos to leave out!

That’s all for today. I’m off to count the views and likes coming in for my two posts featured by WordPress in their Freshly Pressed part of The Reader. They aren’t quite in the Gotye area, but have delighted me with the response. If you’re wondering what I’m taking about, this post from last Friday tells all. At the time I wrote it they had just included one of my pieces, but added in a second – Tuesday Tunes 292 – shortly afterwards. Maybe it’s a loyalty bonus for my being with them for over thirteen years!

I’ll be back here for Song Lyric Sunday and hope to see you again then. Take care 😊