Music Rewind

What do Seal, George Michael, Tina Arena, Rod Stewart, Simply Red and James Taylor all have in common? They have all had major success with cover versions of classic songs.

Sometimes something unique happens and the cover surpasses the original recording. James Taylor in the early 70's as he was embarking on his successful career covered "You've got a Friend" originally written and recorded by Carole King and featured on her widely acclaimed and commercially successful Tapestry album, and yet Taylor's version still stands as the classic cover and remains to this day his only number one.

In the same mould, "If You Don't Know Me By Now" originally released by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and a classic in its own right found bigger world chart success when Mick Hucknall (Simply Red) made it his own. Seal released in 2011 his own excellent version on the Soul 2 album, which also included a re working of Al Greens "Lets Stay Together" and Rose Royce's "Wishing on a Star".

Reflecting his diversity George Michael celebrated a very successful covers album in 1999 with Songs from the 20th Century, covering "Secret Love" by Doris Day and "Roxanne" by The Police.

Rod Stewart's career had stalled by the late 90's but was rejuvenated by his American Songbook albums going completely against his rock/soul roots heritage. These were followed in the zeros by his Soul Book and Rock Classics covers albums.

Rumer, one of Britain's new leading female vocalists with a silky golden voice similar to Karen Carpenter, released in 2012 Boys Don't Cry - a mix of 70's songs reintroducing forgotten classics such as "Sara Smile" by Hall and Oates, and "Goodbye Girl" by David Gates. What is interesting with artists of such talents is that they make the song their own, and the original sometimes fades from memory.

Even Nilsson, of "Everybody's Talkin" fame took an old Badfinger forgotten album track, and recorded "Without You", one of the classic love songs of all time.

Australian artists such as Tina Arena, Kate Ceberano and Christine Anu have all successfully covered classic songs. Tina had two big selling ARIA award winning albums "Songs of Love and Loss" 1 & 2, and her beautiful interpretation of Alice Coopers "Only Women Bleed" and Elton Johns "Your Song" widened her audience further and maintained her momentum.

Ceberano's version of Joan Armatrading's "Love and Affection" stands shoulder to shoulder with the original, and Anu is currently celebrating huge success with her Rewind – Aretha Franklin Songbook tour and album.

In my recent interview with Christine Anu she concurred that artists are certainly tapping into the pulse of the public mood, by reworking and re recording the classic songbooks.

Will the dilution of CD sales due to YouTube and ITUNES, many of the major artists realize that it is the covers albums, if done well that will enjoy huge success In his 15th studio album even Sir Paul McCartney is not adverse to such direction. This year he released Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of old songs from the 30's and 40's, and this was his first number one in the US for many years. Not bad for a Liverpool lad, who started with a little band called The Beatles, who in their first album released 50 years ago, covered "Twist and Shout" and made it the definitive version.