Good songwriters are a dime a dozen. Great songwriting is something to treasured.
Which makes three new tribute albums particularly enjoyable: All three albums feature artists paying tribute to country-rock pioneers who maybe haven't been given credit where credit has been due.Certainly the most commercially successful of the bunch has been "Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles" (Giant Records), an album of Eagles tunes performed by a host of worshipful country stars.
The album's popularity - it is lodged comfortably near the top of the Billboard album charts - has a lot to do with the timeless quality of the Eagles' music and the fact that a good portion of today's adult population danced to these tunes in high school.
But aren't these the same Eagles who seemed good but unremarkable when they first flew the coop in the early 1970s? Sure is. And it's becoming more and more evident that the songwriting of Don Henley and Glenn Frey has not only survived the test of time but has become an inspirational foundation for dozens of country-rockers who, raised on Eagles music, mastered the art of imitation with breezy harmonies, acoustic undertows and devil-may-care lyrics.
"Common Thread" features some of the biggest stars in country music paying homage to their favorite Eagles tunes. That they sound suspiciously like the Eagles is no accident.
The one critical knock on "Common Thread" - and it is a minor one - is that the covers rarely deviate from the originals. But since the originals were pretty good, why not sit just back and enjoy them as Henley and Frey intended?
No singles have yet been released from "Common Thread," but numerous cuts have garnered radio airplay, not only on country stations but also on folk-rock and even classic-rock stations.
Making the radio airwaves locally is Travis Tritt doing "Take It Easy," "I Can't Tell You Why" by Vince Gill and "Tequila Sunrise" by Alan Jackson. Clint Black's cover of "Desperado" is particularly good, too.
Proceeds from the sale of "Common Thread" go to the Walden Woods project, an ongoing effort to save the woods immortalized by Henry David Thoreau.
While the Eagles songs will all sound familiar, that might not be the case with "Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt" (Rhino Records). Arguably the most "covered" songwriter in the business who's never had a real hit of his own, Hiatt is spoken of in reverential tones by other singers and songwriters - most of whom are captivated by Hiatt's razor-sharp humor and penchant for taking the mundane and turning it into compelling stories.
"My motto is, the only thing anyone's album needs is a Hiatt song," he joked during a recent interview with Associated Press.
Hiatt's songs have been recorded by everyone from Paula Abdul to Bob Dylan, and at last count the list of cover songs was at 73 titles, with cult favorites like "Drive South" being recorded several times by different artists.
Two songs on Hiatt's new album, "Perfectly Good Guitar," were covered by punk godfather Iggy Pop and country singer Suzy Boggus before Hiatt even had the chance to release his own versions.
Rhino Records' compilation of other singer-songwriters doing Hiatt songs is a treat, albeit an incomplete one. This tribute features mediocre-to-great artists taking brilliant songs and molding them to their own strengths, occasionally even making a good tune even better.
The best of this lot include Emmylou Harris' version of "Icy Blue Heart," "Angel Eyes" by the Jeff Healy Band, "Someplace Where Love Can't Find Me" by Marshall Crenshaw, "She Loves the Jerk" by Rodney Crowell, and Rosanne Cash's version of "Pink Bedroom."
Missing from this batch are two tunes that probably made Hiatt a truckload of money: Bonnie Raitt's smash hit "Thing Called Love" and Suzy Boggus' version of "Drive South."
So what's Hiatt's favorite cover? "Washable Ink" by the Neville Brothers.
While "Love Gets Strange" suffers from inconsistency, the best part is Rhino should have plenty more raw material to draw from for the next three or four volumes.
"Conmemorativo: A Tribute to Gram Parsons" (Rhino Records) is an eclectic, often-uneven mix of covers of songs by the late Gram Parsons, a largely forgotten pioneer of the country-rock movement in the early 1970s.
Parsons attained brief fame as the songwriter of the Byrds' classic "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," and followed that with two stellar releases with the Byrds hybrid the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Parsons is perhaps best remembered for "discovering" a plaintive female voice to accompany his rough vocal style. The vocalist: Emmylou Harris.
"Conmemorativo" - which takes its name from Gram Parsons' favorite tequila - pulls together bits and pieces from all eras of Parson's short-lived career. (There's even a version of "November Nights," a song Parsons wrote in 1965 but never recorded, performed by the Coal Porters, the group headed by ex-Long Ryder Sid Griffin.)
This tribute album is clearly dominated by the younger crowd of singer-songwriters, including the Mekons doing "$1,000 Wedding," Joey Burns and Victoria Williams doing "Return of the Grievous Angel" and Peter Holsapple and Susan Cowsill's "A Song for You."
One of the more interesting cuts is "The New Soft Shoe," delivered by Parson's daughter Polly.
A real shame is the lack of covers by those musicians who have long championed Parson's music - including Emmylou Harris. Hey Rhino! How about "Con-me-mor-a-ti-vo II," and this time highlight those who have kept his music alive for the past 20 years?