The trick to covering "Come On In My Kitchen" is to avoid putting a slash between "on" and "in".
I would have thought that Fahey'd do a good job.
There's a really great picture of him looking incredibly doofy with an old blues guitarist who had recently been rediscovered. I can't find it, though.
I know a Dave Bromberg. It's probably not the same one.
Fahey's is good. There are no vocals, which is where most people kill the song.
Cassandra Wilson's Robert Johnson covers are excellent. If you don't think so, you're wrong.
Here's some cat power covers not on the covers record, but not the John Peel session, either.
I'm not entirely sure of the contents yet.
ok, that's Werewolf, Up and Gone, and Knocking on Heaven's Door
Thanks, Michael. It's the particular songs in the BBC session that I was hoping to get. Seriously, is that buyable? I don't get it.
Those last 3 were part of the BBC session. And yeah, this is proving elusive. Thanks for alerting me to this; I want it too, now.
Clapton did a pretty good live cover of "Ramblin' On My Mind" on some VH1 special several years ago (which I've been looking for ever since, and not finding...)
And of course there's always Elmore James doing "Dust My Broom"
They are only accessible to British IP addresses, I think. Those are streaming audio so they'd need to be ripped using a stream ripper.
Quite a few Peel sessions are released. No idea if that one is though.
I myself cover some Robert Johnson songs (or "one Robert Johnson song") in a non-awful manner.
Johnny Shines (who came by RJ covers honestly) did excellent covers. So did Robert Lockwood and Johnny Young. These are all contemporaries or near-contemporaries of Johnson who were playing (and recording) the songs before Johnson was widely known. One afternoon in Memphis about 15-20 years ago, Sines and Lockwood, playing back-to-back sets, did who-knows-the-most-Johnson songs.
Lockwood died recently, as did Henry Townsent, leaving Honeyboy Edwards the only active musician who played with Johnson. See him if you can, please. He still tours out of Chicago. Even better if you get to talk to him; he is a wonderful font of stories unrelated to Johnson, with a great memory and skill at telling the stories. His memoir is wonderful, and he has stories he didn't get around to (e.g. busking in the Peabody Hotel with jug band folks...).
Under the heading of covers in the sense of "learned from a record," Lonnie Pitchford (who died of AIDS in the last 10-12 years) did excellent RJ cover, but he had the advantage of coming up playing blues and gospel in Lexington, MS on the edge of the delta. The limited available recordings are representative but not as good as you could have heard live.
I agree with the comment about Cassandra Wilson. I haven't heard the Bromberg covers in 30 years, but liked them at the time. Beyond that... Johnson's own performances dominate those who cover the songs too much. I do have a soft spot for the Rolling Stones coverying Johnson.
Someone mentioned Fahey. What Johnson songs did he record? I'm very familiar with him working with songs from Charley Patton, Bukka White, etc, but can't remember any Johnson.
when our house was broken into when I was in seventh grade, the David Bromberg greatest hits was the only CD left by the thieves. Us kids never forgave them.
Thanks, Tom. I believe it was pursuant to your first comment here that we talked about Honeyboy Edwards.
There's a Fahey cover of "Come On In My Kitchen" on Rhapsody, from his album The Epiphany Of Glenn Jones.
I think I've heard Taj Mahal do a decent cover of "Come on in My Kitchen." That's a tough one, though.
Now I'm trying to think ... I don't think I've ever heard anyone even try to cover "Hellhound on My Trail."
Does anybody cover "They're Red Hot"? I like that one a lot.
re: 24
The Red Hot CHilli Peppers do it.
Suits their name. Do they do a good job of it?
I haven't heard it in a while, but from memory it's a slightly comic high-tempo 20s swing style version. Sung in falsetto voices.