Something I wrote a while back with a Stevie mention or two...
 

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The cover song. For better or for worse, the cover song has been a staple of recorded music almost from its inception. Before we continue, let's define what a cover song is. A cover song is a song that was originally recorded by one artist that is later re-recorded by another singer.

In many cases, a young artist trying to establish herself as a singer in the industry will pick at least one recognizable song to put on her CD or release on iTunes in an effort to promote herself. Sometimes, a veteran artist will pick a song from a contemporary or one of his heroes and sing it. Still other times, a veteran artist will fall in love with a song by a younger artist and record that.

There have been a number of times when an artist will cover a song and the reaction that artist gets is one of indifference or downright distaste. Perhaps the artist had to cover a song and was told to cover that particular one. Perhaps the artist was trying too hard to sound like the original singer. There can be a number of reasons why a cover song doesn't work.

However, we are going to examine two vastly different approaches to cover songs that have both been successful. The two approaches are 1) staying true to the original, which means the music is either the same or similar or 2) doing a completely different take on the song, one that essentially makes the song the cover artist's own.

A recent example of the former is Stevie Nicks's latest cover of a Tom Petty song, "You Wreck Me." Musically, her nine-piece solo band performs the song very similarly to the way Tom Petty originally performed it on his 1994 album Wildflowers. Lyrically, Nicks didn't stray very far from Petty's original, save for changing the third verse from "I'll be the boy/In the corduroy pants/You'll be the girl/At the high school dance," to "You'll be the boy" and "I'll be the girl." However, Nicks received high marks from some observers for singing the song with conviction.

She also did similar justice to Bob Seger's "Face The Promise" beginning in her 2008 tour. Prior to that, her best-known cover was arguably her far more emotional rendering of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers "I Need To Know," which she sings with such power that even Petty himself said, "you've never heard this one until you hear Stevie sing it" during his PBS Soundstage special Live From Gatorville, during which he introduced the song and announced that Nicks would sing the song.

Some examples of the latter include Tina Turner's interpretations of two classics. On her second solo album Acid Queen, Turner turned Led Zeppelin's guitar-heavy chugger "Whole Lotta Love" into a soulful, R&B-influenced number dominated early by a bass riff. One comment about Turner's take on that song came from a self-professed critic who bragged that he was not the type to fawn over any artist. He wrote that he actually preferred Turner's rendition to the original, citing the conviction with which she sang the song, and the fact that her singing it turned the song's meaning around.

The other cover is the song that routinely closes one of her shows and is considered her signature: "Proud Mary." She takes the original by Creedence Clearwater Revival and adds a story to it about performing the song "nice and rough," saying "this is the way we do 'Proud Mary'" before beginning the song. She sings the first two voices in a slow rhythm before the music turns faster dramatically. On stage, that's when Turner shines and dances with such fervor that she'd exhaust someone a third her age. Believe me, I've tried.

Another example of the latter category is Joe Cocker's take on a classic tune by another legendary British band. Again, he turns The Beatles "With A Little Help From My Friends" into a soulful number, imbuing it with such passion and fire that he closes his shows with that song. A musician friend of mine told me that at the beginning of one of Cocker's concerts, people were scattered around a pavilion and some were heckling him. However, by the end of the show, they'd all crowded into the middle and many were chanting, "Joe! Joe! Joe!" According to my friend, "he'd won that crowd over."

There are several ways to approach a cover song, and each has its own merits. The path you choose may vary depending on how you interpret the song, but a little conviction can go a long way toward making any path work well.