The Best Covers

I believe I can be brief with this post: these are the best covers I've heard of songs that are familiar to most people and many of which are old faves with most people. See if you can guess the original tunes:

It Takes Two To Tango

Ever since the tango became fashionable in 1911, many people around the world have tried to emulate it. One reason is that many Argentine tango artists went on tour in the United States and in Europe. Tango became wildly popular in Finland and the country even has its own tango style and culture. From Eino Gron (the undisputed king of the tango in Finland in the 1960s) to Roland Alphonso (from Jamaica, a very primitive style of tango indeed, complete with bongos), you could travel the world in search of unique tangos.

Songs to Get High On

Music is the best drug there is. I don't need to say anything more, I think.

Geography

Not only are there songs with one-word titles that are people's names, there are tunes that are one-word that are names of places. I have tried to stick to place names sung by people from that place, but there are exceptions, such as that Polish singer who sang about the Galapagos. Many of these songs are about the beauty and wonders of those places.

The Name Game

I will make this short and to the point. There is that odd song whose title is simply a name. More often girls' names than boys'. Most of the names are run of the mill like Julie, Sammy, and Denise, but some are more exotic like Andrei, Jeremie, and Karmela. Some names in certain countries became very popular when these songs were hits.

Foreign Fab Four

Ever since 1963, the Beatles have been loved by millions around the globe and continue to inspire everyone. Just as every country in the world had its own Elvis, every country had its own Beatles. In many places, the most popular groups and singers usually recorded at least one Beatles song. Tunes by the Fab Four have popped up in very interesting places, such as Thailand, and sung in languages as diverse as Latvian and Hebrew. Some people, such as Augusto Righetti in Italy, made a career out of covering Beatles songs.

ELVIS

Every country in the world had their own brand of Elvis. He might have resembled Elvis in looks, he probably could sing like Elvis, or he could have sure as hell sounded a lot like Elvis! Everybody loved Elvis. They also sang his songs in their own languages too. Here is a sample of international Elvis covers:

Pop A Capella

Every once in a while you get that rare gem: a rock and roll tune with just words but little or no musical accompaniment. I meticulously combed my MP3 file collection (which is very large) for a capella tunes but could find only five, and all of them from European groups. Groups in the former Eastern Bloc seem to be especially good at a capella tunes due to the history of pop quartets and choirs in their countries.

Here are a few good tunes:

Mocedades - Jimmy Brown, Part 1 (Spain)


ER Meeskvartett - Vaike Sunfoniett (Estonia)


Trio Relikt - Pozhar (Russia)


4TET - Ja to tady vedu (Czechoslovakia)


Gaya - Sosna (Azerbaijan)

VIA!!!

"VIA" in Russian stands for "Vokalnoe instrumental ansambl." That's right, you officially couldn't call your group a "rock band" in the Soviet Union. This was because the Communist Party didn't like most things that were influenced by the West. They didn't like hard rock (heavy metal and punk only surfaced in the Soviet Union in the mid and late 80s), and you won't see many guys with long hair on Soviet album covers. The party preferred a clean-cut image; kind of like the Beatles in their early days. Looks such as the style the Rolling Stones favored were out. It was considered too bourgeoisie for the Soviet Union. Soviet rock was a little different too; some Western influence was allowed as songs from the West were appreciated by the Soviet youth and were covered, but the music generally sounded a bit watered-down and softer. Also, the non-Russian Soviet groups often liked to incorporate their native sounds into a rock beat. Here are some Soviet VIA and their tunes:

Back in the USSR

Now for more singers from the USSR, this time from the Soviet Middle East... some of them actually have incorporated their oriental rhythms into the music. Again, I have tried to find tunes sung in the native language when applicable. This description is pretty much to the point because if I said anything more, it would be repeating the "Their Address Was the Soviet Union" post.

Their Address Was The Soviet Union

For these singers, their address was the Soviet Union. Sure they may have been Soviets, but not all of them were Russian. Some came from the Baltics, others from the Soviet Middle East (such as Kazakhstan). Some came from Belarus and the Ukraine. Only one of these singers is actually Russian. Nearly all of them sang in Russian at one point in their careers (they had to, especially if they wanted to be stars), but I have tried to include them singing in their native languages when applicable. And oh yes, their record label, was of course, Melodiya, which was the ONLY record label in the Soviet Union.

Diverse Disco

Disco! One would normally think 70s and 80s and ABBA. Now I'm not very fond of ABBA. I like only their song "Waterloo," and that is it. There were other Disco singers and groups who were much better than ABBA. Nobody did disco better than the Dutch and the Germans. Disco was done everywhere, even in such weird places as Thailand. Here are a few diverse disco tunes:

Red Rockers

When I was a kid, I thought that there wasn't any such thing as rock and roll in Communist countries... but when I started getting into global pop, I found that I was incredibly wrong! Plus I was amazed too... there were astonishing beats in the music, the singers were fantastic (some even sounded much better than American singers), and the music was marvelous. Plus some singers even recorded Western (American or British) pop. However, even if you were a popular singer in a Communist country, you still had to be careful. There was no such thing as a one-hit wonder. You had to have more than one hit and you had to be pretty good in order to be taken seriously by the Communist Party, and you were at their mercy. One wrong move and your career could be over or at least suspended. Here are some gems from some Red Rockers, some of whom who are still remembered in their countries:

Before The Beatles

Many people think British rock began with the Beatles. No way...Britain had pop and rock before 1964. In the 50s, a sort of twangy pop known as "Skiffle" became popular, and trad jazz was in as well. Some folks might say that Britain was a little slow on the uptake as a lot of British singers still sounded jazzy long until the mid 1960s. Here are a few British groups and singers pre-Fab Four:

Tropical Tunes

The West Indies were really a happening place back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. First, there was calypso, then ska, then cadence, then an oddly named rhythm peculiar to Barbados (the Spouge), then salsa, to name a few... First they were popular on their home island and then some became really popular abroad, usually in "the mother country," i.e.; the nation that controlled the island during the colonial period, such as England for Jamaica, France for Martinique, and the Netherlands for Curacao. Most of the island stars knew this: if you wanted to be an international star, you had to go to England, France, or the Netherlands in order to record for the international market and in order to make it big. And most stars did this gladly as it would lead to bigger and better things.

Beautiful Covers

Sometimes the cover song sounds even better than the original, and sometimes the language it is rendered in can make it even prettier. Often just the singer's voice can do the song justice, as in the cover of "I Started a Joke" by the band, "De Opels," from Barbados. I know nothing about the band except where they are from, but the lead singer's voice is gorgeous. You may recognize some of the tunes and others you might not, but all the same they're beautiful.

Where Do You Get Your Music?

Nowadays mostly the internet... I just type in a name and usually find something. The hardest way to go about finding music is to type, say, "Algeria" and "1960s." You really need to have a name of a band or a singer if you want to find music from a particular place. The stranger and more exotic place (let's say Andorra) the harder it is to find music. And sometimes it is hard to find singers from a particular country, for example, Ireland, because they might often record in another country (England) and people might not realize the band is not really British. This commonly occurs on the Decca and Pye labels. Same with many artists who were considered "French" back in the 1960s...they might have recorded in Paris, but they were really from another country, such as Morocco. I usually get my music from various blogs and Soulseek, which is a downloading portal.

Back in the days before unusual music (at least unusual in the United States), was readily available online, I would special order, usually through gemm.com for LPs and CDs. I bought at least 10 or so LPs from Hungary over a short period of time and I was probably helping to support the guy I was buying from over there. To tell you the honest truth, I've been to a record store in a foreign country only once, and it really wasn't a record store, even. It was a vintage clothing store in Talinn, Estonia, that sold some records, and I bought a Jaak Joala (a popular 70s singer in Estonia) EP. I have been to Europe three times. I normally don't buy vinyl in Europe just because it's hard to bring it back to the US. The furthest I ever bought any records from was Singapore, which was a bit of a nightmare... the guy agreed to send me 4 7-inch records of Chinese artists, but I had to send him US$100 in cash, and it took at least two or so weeks to get there from Texas. It was a great day when he finally got the dough and he told me he could hear me sigh with relief all the way in Spore. He and I are still friends today (that must've been 8 or so years ago) and he is a major figure in the history of the music business in Singapore.

Downloading music is a daily occurrence in my life. Nearly every day I download something, either on Soulseek, from Youtube, or any of the various blogs I visit. I could not live without music. Someone asked me once how come music was so important to me in my life and I really had no idea how to answer that question, and I still don't have an answer but that's fine. Music makes me happy and that's enough.

Teen Idols

Every country around the world has that special girl or guy who is young, has a great voice, and really appeals to that nation's teenagers. Teen idols. The girls worship the guy singers and the guys think the girl singers are hot stuff. Most teen idols usually have a period in which they are famous for a moment but some remain famous long into their adult hood, and many often remain in music but doing other things such as conducting an orchestra (Rulli Rendo, from Peru) or being a DJ and an actor (Anders Nelson from Hong Kong).

Anders Nelson (Hong Kong) - Out of Sight (used with kind permission)

Rulli Rendo (Peru) - Chinita Linda (used with kind permission)

Vaclav Neckar (Czechoslovakia) - Motejl modrejl (Donovan, "Mellow Yellow")

Rob de Nijs (Netherlands) - Ritme van de regen (Cascades, "Rhythm of the Rain")

Ted Herold (West Germany) - Ich Brauch Keine Ring (Elvis Presely, "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck"_

Sylvie Vartan (France) - Gong Gong (Ikettes, "I'm Blue")

Arlette Zola (Switzerland) - Stop Pour M'embrasser

Carol Kim (Vietnam) - Cai tram em cai

Beat Feet

I already did a post about the twist, but I started thinking of other dances and thought it might be nice to do a blog on dances that were popular around the world and thought of the best tunes for those dances. There were dances like the Madison, the Hucklebuck, the Pony, Mashed Potato, Locomotion, the Boogaloo...you get the idea.

Royal Showband Waterford
Ireland
Hucklebuck

Tony Ronald
Spain
Madison

Sven Ingvars
Sweden
Pony

Tina Banon
Morocco
Mashed Potatoes

White Kicks
Japan
Boogaloo

Monn Keys
Norway
Hand Jive

Cinque di Roma
Mozambique
Watussi

Dimitar Yosifov
Bulgaria
Shake

Drafi Deutscher
Do the Slop
Slop

Frederik
Finland
Locomotion

Counts Four
Canada
Monkey

Singing In Tongues

Today I decided to share songs in several languages that might be peculiar to someone for whom the only spoken language is English. Basque, Romansh (a Romance language spoken in a few villages in Switzerland), Latvian, Bulgarian, are just some of the languages sung in this post. Most of the songs are clearly recognizable and a few aren't.



Credits: Dundurs (Latvia), Gaya (Azerbaijan), Gila Adari (Israel), Elly Vilhjalms (Iceland), Gil & Leonia (Switzerland; Romansh singers), Estitxu (Basque singer, Spain), Pirats (Catalan singers, Spain), Y Trwynau Coch (Welsh singers, Wales, Britain), Virginia Lee (Afrikaans singer, South Africa), Diego Varagic (Serbian singer, Yugoslavia), Royal Sprites (Thailand), Dave Carroll (Greece), Alberto Gemeerts (Suriname), Emil Dimitrov (Bulgaria), Dolly Roll (Hungary)