multiple recordings of songs

[fabrisse]

I like music. I wasn't bad, though never great, on the piano. I stopped playing when I realized my hands were too small to play the single piano version of Rhapsody in Blue. I got through the first page, but the other twenty needed to be able to chord far wider than I can reach. I still occasionally play guitar. It's been awhile since I've sung, but I always enjoyed being in choirs.

Still, like many people, I listen to more music than I produce -- especially now that I no longer attend church.

My iTunes list is probably somewhat predictable, if you know me, but I do have duplicates of many songs. Some of this is just the nature of liking jazz as much as I do. Anyone who's listened to Miles Davis play a song from Porgy and Bess is never going to mistake it for someone else playing the same thing. Nor is it ever going to be mistaken for a track from the opera.

One thing that's been intriguing to me is how much I've loved some of my multiple tracks. As a teenager, my favorite vocalist was Ella Fitzgerald. Now, to many jazz afficianados, that's roughly equivalent to saying I really like air. Of course, I like air. It's necessary to breathe.

My dad's favorite was Sarah Vaughn, and as I get older, I find that if I just go to iTunes and listen for a song that I want/need, I'll very often end up with a Sarah Vaughn recording. There's a song that was popular in the late 1960s called Just a Little Loving. It is a song for grown ups. It was used in the US version of Life on Mars with a recording by Dusty Springfield. I have the Dusty Springfield recording and like it.

But then I found the Sarah Vaughn version. You can taste the coffee when she sings. I don't know a better way to put it. It's an overwhelming sense that the woman knows whereof she speaks.

Just a little loving
Early in the morning
Beats a cup of coffee
for starting out the day

Just a little loving
when the world is dawning
makes you feel good things
are coming your way

This old world
wouldn't be half as sad
wouldn't be half as bad
if each and everybody in it had

Just a little loving ...

I often find that I don't listen as much to the "original" version of a song as I do to others. I know that when I hear This Guy's in Love with You in my head, it will always be Sammy Davis Jr singing it.

Anyone else do this? Have multiple recordings of the same song? What makes you have so many?

This post courtesy of seeing Julia and Julie. They use an instrumental of Time After Time (Not the one written by Cyndi Lauper which I also love, but the song by Jule Styne.). I came home to find I have four copies of it, including terrific versions by Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[snopes-faith.livejournal.com]

I've never seen that clip before - that was amazing. The contrast between his nerves in the intro and then visibly relaxing into the groove as if into a warm bath brought a tear to my eye. Outstanding. Thank you for the reminder as if it were needed of just what a talent Sammy Davis Jr was. Incidentally, as a somewhat depressing anecdote, Simon Dee is on record as saying he had defy orders to be able to get his star guest to be allowed into the BBC restaurant and bar.

As to what songs I've got in most version, probably "Can't Take My Eyes Off You". I've got versions of it by Andy Williams, Frankie Valli, The Boystown Gang and The Pet Shop Boys. Of them all, I only don't actually care that much for the PSB cover, I adore all the others each in their own way.

ETA: I forgot I also have a version by the Manic Street Preachers too - if nothing else, notable for breaking their self imposed "no love songs" rule.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

So, the clip. When I was a little girl (around 7) in London, I was allowed to watch very little television. Blue Peter, Hullaballoo, The Herbs (when I was home sick from school), and Magic Roundabout were pretty much it. There were three exceptions. The first was, on Thursday nights I was allowed to stay up a half-hour later and watch Top of the Pops. I loved Lulu and Sandy Shaw, and heard The Rolling Stones debut Brown Sugar one week. The second was an hour long news program that my parents watched on Sunday afternoon -- made me terrified of ever going back to the States because 1968 was that kind of year. Either just before or just after the news program was a variety show. And I remember Sammy Davis singing this song on it.

I don't really know how to say it, but in a way this was my first encounter with sex. I knew pretty and handsome. I understood "love song" as exemplified by Lulu and Sandy Shaw, and I was too young to "get" The Who or The Rolling Stones -- though I do remember a Beatles special.

But Sammy Davis singing "This Guy's in Love with You" was different. This was something for grown-ups, and I knew I wanted to hear it again and again.

I really like the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." I am now going to look up various versions of it. I must admit, my iconic version of it is Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You.

eta: Have not been able to find Manic Street Preachers' version. Thank you, though, for introducing me to a new band. Cool. *G*

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I really like the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You."

I can remember swinging on the swings in my backyard singing that song. :-) I think that would have been the Frankie Valli version that I remember from back then.

[snopes-faith.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObAB5kREci4&feature=related here you go, hon. I think out of context it doesn't have TOO much going for it except it is *so* much lighter and fluffier than their overtly earnest agit p(r)op stuff. They always had better image and interviews than songs anyway frankly, but I followed them from just before signing their first major record contract and so I always kind of feel ultra protective of them.

I can well understand the appeal of Sammy Davis - he is utterly magnetic. I can only imagine how much more so it must have seemed seeing it back in 1968 when it is so forceful even now.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I liked that. Thank you.

Two Sammy Davis videos I think you'll like.
He sings One for my Baby in many different styles. The Mel Torme floors me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeDaNGzUYM8
This is one of his last performances. Note the words he speaks to Paul Schaffer about rehearsal at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls33JN395OE&feature=related

[snopes-faith.livejournal.com]

The second one especially was so amazing. I'm sure as with Fred Astaire he worked damn hard at making his work look effortless but it still nonetheless blows me away that someone could just stroll over to a new band and just trust them to work with him like that. Beautiful watching the little glances of band and singer all doing their thing, having the trust/hope that they are all vaguely on the same page and yet having the confidence to take the tiny bits of the unexpected directions in their stride. Amazing.

I was interested his little bit on Tony Bennett was so short because in many ways, I think their voices have a very similar quality (or maybe its just me). Possibly that actually made it a tough one to stylise? Interesting that both audience and singer were uncertain about including Nat King Cole, despite his obvious sincerity about it being meant in respect. Maybe like me the audience just immediately reflected what a tragic loss Cole was and it brought them down.

Speaking of whom, Cole's version of "Stardust" is my favourite of all the excellent versions of what I think is the greatest song ever written by anyone.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Anyone else do this? Have multiple recordings of the same song? What makes you have so many?

Yes. I often have multiple versions of the same song--sometimes even by the same artist. I'll have the studio version, the live version, the acoustic version, the piano version--whatever is out there, if I like the song enough. I'll also get cover versions of the same song if they're good or if they are cheesy and fun or there's something distinctive about them.

Usually I can't stand the poor sound quality, but I have even been known to rip the audio from horrid, fan-recorded, concert video from YouTube if I like the version of the song well enough.

I especially love the acoustic versions of songs if they are new recordings and not just the same vocals set to a different guitar track. I also love it when a modern artist will do a new take on an old song--sometimes a really old song or sometimes just a song from the 80s or 90s with a different feel to it.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I have acoustic versus electric versions too. Thank you for reminding me. *G*