One of the side benefits of Beatlemania '95 may be that fans, old and new, might be impelled to reinvestigate the works of John, Paul, George and Ringo both during their heyday together and after the 1970 breakup. Obviously, other performers and record companies are doing so. Here are examples of three albums on which various artists - from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Randy Travis to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd - interpret and update Beatles and ex-Beatles "standards" - and a few "not-so-standards."
VARIOUS ARTISTS; "Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon" (Hollywood).
The just-released "Working Class Hero," a new tribute to John Lennon, couldn't be more timely. In just over an hour, 15 individuals and bands reprise his post-Beatles songs. (Thirteen of these emerged to varying degrees of fame in the past 15 years, so Lennon would never have had a chance, before his death, to hear of them or their own tunes; Cheap Trick and George Clinton are the exceptions.)
For some the album may prove a revelation: Lennon, with his dark skepticism, primal wail and occasionally clangorous music, was almost certainly a godfather and precursor to today's grunge and alternative music movements as much as he was to mainstream pop and rock. "In rock and roll, he created the boundaries we all exist in," observes featured singer Scott Weiland. But what may be truer is that Lennon stretched the lines so far that we're still trying to catch up and figure out what he was trying to say.
The anthology delves into Lennon's iconoclasm with the Red Hot Chili Pepper's determinedly low-tech "I Found Out" (what is that recording equipment hum all about?) and Candlebox's "Steel and Glass." Screaming Trees takes on the effective title number, adding a cello for atmosphere to what was originally an angry and explicit Lennon-as-Dylan folk tirade (consider this a "parental advisory").
A definite misstep is Weiland and friends' (as the Magnificent Bastards) remake of Lennon's diatribe "How Do You Sleep?" The song was an unnecessarily cruel jab at Paul McCartney in its first incarnation, and Weiland, etc., add nothing to it except length, seemingly trying to turn it into an anguished "Cold Turkey" - which Cheap Trick tackles three tracks on.
While the bulk of the tribute focuses on Lennon's lyrical confessions and his therapeutic anger, there are a few covers of less-caustic songs. Toad the Wet Sprocket tackles "Instant Karma!" - and musically seems to miss the point of its sarcastic-yet-hopeful lyrics. Remaking "Imagine" would seem a daunting prospect, but Blues Traveler handles it well; in fact, John Popper's free-form harmonica comes off as a bonus tribute to the harmonica-playing songwriter. REM guitarist Peter Buck is among the Minus 5, who re-do "Power to the People," turning it into a grungy anthem.
The surprise in this "alternative" company has to be folk-country favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter, who beautifully personalizes the already gentle-sentimental late-Lennon ballad "Grow Old With Me." Clinton brings it all to a rousing conclusion with a funk-spacey orchestral-rock treatment of "Mind Games," abetted by a host of other vocalists and the Detroit Symphony.
Also following Lennon's activist lead, 50 percent of the royalties and net profits from "Working Class Hero" will go to a fund administered by the Humane Society of the United States toward reducing the suffering and overpopulation of dogs and cats.
Program: "I Found Out" (Red Hot Chili Peppers); "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier" (Mad Season); "Steel and Glass" (Candlebox); "Imagine" (Blues Traveler); "Working Class Hero" (Screaming Trees); "Power to the People" (The Minus 5); "How Do You Sleep?" (The Magnificent Bastards); "Nobody Told Me" (Flaming Lips); "Well, Well, Well" (Super 8); "Cold Turkey" (Cheap Trick); "Jealous Guy" (Collective Soul); "Isolation" (Sponge); "Instant Karma!" (Toad the Wet Sprocket); "Grow Old With Me" (Mary Chapin Carpenter); "Mind Games" (George Clinton).
BUGS & FRIENDS; "Bugs & Friends Sing the Beatles" (Kid Rhino-Warner Bros.).
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Taz (the Tazmanian Devil) are the principal 'Toons on these Beatles tunes. The result: an engagingly silly, often irreverent 11-song "audio-cartoon." And even though kids might get a kick out of the album, it certainly helps to have a grounding in both Beatles and Looney Tunes trivia. (The notes are by "Taylor Derek," press agent to "the Furry Four" (shouldn't that be Furry/Featured Four?); Derek Taylor was the Beatles' equivalent. These guys were discovered by "Carl Sprawling"; Carl Stalling was the genius behind the manic music of WB cartoons, etc.)
An Ed Sullivan soundalike introduces the lads, who've "taken the country by storm." They proceed to happily massacre such songs as "She Loves You" (peppered with Daffy's ecstatic-staccato "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!"), "Fool on the Hill" (with a swami who speaks in Beatle-lyric platitudes) and "I Get By Wit a Wittow Hewp Fwom My Fwends" - uh, "With a Little Help From My Friends." Elmer, of course, sings the latter, though he's essentially portraying George and Ringo sang the original. (Such switches are almost the rule here.) Bugs is Paul-like, Taz is Ringo-ish and Daffy is a lot like John. (More trivia: Daffy's best seller? "A Mallard in the Works." John was an evolving "Spaniard," of course.)
Most fun among the parodies are "Hello Goodbye," which becomes a disputatious duet between Bugs and Daffy; "Yesterday" - a serious ballad that goes seriously wrong in Daffy's overdramatic hands (if cartoon ducks can be said to have hands); and two songs with guest performers, Yosemite Sam in need of "Help!" and Road Runner on the concluding "The Long and Winding Road" ("beep beep"), essentially an instrumental with sound-effect saws sawing, planes plunging and fireworks exploding throughout.
"Bugs & Friends" is a wacky take on the long tradition of covering Fab Four songs (and even recalls the similarly titled "The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles," from 1964).
Isn't it too bad, though, that the name "the Buggles" had been co-opted long ago? Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!
Program: "She Loves You," "The Fool on the Hill," "Birthday," "Hello Goodbye," "With a Little Help From My Friends," "It Won't Be Long," "Yesterday," "Penny Lane," "Help!," "Can't Buy Me Love," "The Long and Winding Road."
VARIOUS ARTISTS; "Come Together: America Salutes the Beatles" (Liberty).
Contemporary country and the music of the Beatles? Actually, they're not that much of a stretch. The Beatles always appreciated and emulated American musicians like Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, who had country roots, and recorded songs by the likes of Carl Perkins ("Matchbox," "Honey Don't") and Buck Owens ("Act Naturally"). And today's country has maybe more to do with pop - and often even rock - than it does with the Carter Family and Hank Williams. In fact, Jim Bessman writes in notes for this collection of
17 Beatles covers, country artists nowadays are more likely "to have grown up listening to the Fab Four than to the Grand Ole Opry."
The big ballads lend themselves to interpretation in a broad range of styles, so it isn't surprising that they dominate here. Tanya Tucker's "Something" (or is it "Somethin'?") is nice, and Sammy Kershaw gives "If I Fell" his full broken-hearted treatment. Best, though, is Suzy Bogguss and Chet Atkins' simple and lovely "All My Loving." (Atkins is a Beatles veteran - he did a cover album way back in '66; even donned a Beatles wig for a photo. . . .)
As the program unfolds, the rollicking remakes almost catch up to the ballads - and these performers seem to be having a much better time. Shenandoah and Little Texas give their country-rock twist to "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Help!" Phil Keaggy & PFR show they learned a thing or two from the originators by mixing rock and classical music on "We Can Work It Out." Delbert McClinton - who gave John Lennon lessons on the harmonica way back when - essays "Come Together." And leave it to Willie Nelson to select a non-standard, "One After 909" - an early McCartney number that didn't hit vinyl until "Let It Be." It's a good version, too, with a chugging rockabilly beat.
None of these outstrip the originals, and a few are downright unfortunate. Monotone Kris Kristofferson, in particular, is terrible on "Paperback Writer," and David Ball is weak on "I'll Follow the Sun." Generally, though, the quality of these generically faithful covers is steady and listenable.
The biggest laugh is music writer Chet Flippo's comment in the album notes: ". . . what the Beatles needed most was a steel guitar."
He was joking, wasn't he? Maybe on "Bungalow Bill."
Program: "I'll Follow the Sun" (David Ball); "Something" (Tanya Tucker); "One After 909" (Willie Nelson); "The Long and Winding Road" (John Berry); "Come Together" (Delbert McClinton); "If I Fell" (Sammy Kershaw); "Let It Be" (Collin Raye); "We Can Work It Out" (Phil Keaggy & PFR); "Yesterday" (Billy Dean); "Can't Buy Me Love" (Shenandoah); "Nowhere Man" (Randy Travis); "Oh! Darling" (Huey Lewis); "Help!" (Little Texas); "In My Life" (Susan Ashton & Gary Chapman); "Get Back" (Steve Wariner); "All My Loving" (Suzy Bogguss & Chet Atkins); "Paperback Writer" (Kris Kristofferson).