Nobody’s fault but mine
It being a rainy bank holiday weekend, I’ve been working, although I didn’t start until I’d done the Sunday crosswords and watched the football on the telly. Now it’s too late to post anything substantial, so I’ll resort to something from my back catalogue of bookmarked masterpieces from Youtube. This is a wonderful bluesy gospelly piece by the late great Nina Simone, a rare example in my opinion of a cover version being better than the original (in this case by Blind Willie Johnson).
Incidentally, I wonder if either of my regular readers can think of cover versions better than the original? Jeff Buckley’s intensely moving version of Leonard Cohen’s great song Hallelujah springs to mind, but I’d be interested to hear other suggestions…
In the Dark 
May 3, 2010 at 12:15 am
Most of Eva Cassidy’s covers were pretty astonishing. She stamped her own distinctive and wonderful style on them.
May 3, 2010 at 3:58 am
Jeff Buckley’s version of Kangaroo might be better than the Big Star version, too. I’d also add Cat Power’s version of I Found a Reason (original was Velvet Underground).
May 3, 2010 at 8:46 am
Got to go against the prevailing wisdom here and say that I prefer Cohen’s version of Hallelujah. That aside, I think Hendrix’s cover of All Along The Watchtower is much better than Bob Dylan’s original.
May 3, 2010 at 9:02 am
Joni Mitchell’s “This flight tonight” as played – transformed – by Nazareth.
Anton