So after a week of simply an amazing amount of work happening at UW, I decided to take 30 minutes or so tonight to at least get something added to DAC and write a post. Tonight’s additions were Eddie Hazel’s ‘Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs’, James Brown’s ‘Soul On Top’ and Bob Weir’s ‘Ace’.

‘Ace’ is an album I pretty much remember from being a kid, and for all intents and purposes it is really a Grateful Dead record. Many of their concert staples come from this record (most notably ‘Playing In The Band’, but my faves are ‘Greatest Story Ever Told’ and ‘Cassidy’). And like most Grateful Dead studio albums, the studio versions don’t stand up as well as live performances. Not that the album is bad, just that if I want to hear just about any of the songs on it, I’d rather dig up a live show from ’77 then put on ‘Ace’.

While I was familiar with Eddie Hazel and his playing with Parliament, it was during a drive around Tacoma one night with KUPS on (the best thing about UPS is its radio station). They played Eddie’s cover of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and I think the car slammed to a halt because my jaw dropped onto the brake pedal. SUCH a funky version… and so soulful. I found the recording the next day and was more then pleased to discover the genius of the rest of the disc, including an even more amazing cover of ‘California Dreamin’. These covers are everything that covers should be. The artist makes them their own, and the songs grow because of that ownership. While testing sound this morning I put ‘California Dreamin’ on and was floored again. What an amazing guitarist, and the arrangements (horns and vocals) are great.

‘Soul on Top’ is another great example of what an artist can do with cover songs. The twist here is that in many ways it is James Brown covering some greats (Kurt Weill and Hank Williams) it is also James Brown covering James Brown. The group consists of a big band along with a couple of the standard James Brown contingent, and the results are mixed. The size of the group sometimes makes some of the songs lumber a little, but on ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ and ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’ the re-arrangement works very well. Not ‘better then the original’ but for these tracks it feels like James Brown re-thinking his music with the new performance forces. And the version of ‘You’re Cheating Heart’ is simply one of the best covers ever done.