Walk of Life

It was a serious oversight that I did not include a version of this in my “Walkin” collection.  To make amens for this grievous oversight I give two versions.  Since both versions have killer videos, I have included them in video form.  The first is the Dire Straits original, the second is Waylon (Shooter) Jennings Jr.’s cover version.

Valerie

I suppose a sign of a good song is that it stands up to covers and versions. That is also probably a sign of a good arrangement. This Valerie is a good song for the Zutons, and was made great by Mark Ronson’s arrangement. It seems to stay great no matter who sings it. Here are four versions…three in video. The first is the Zutons’s original form 2006, than the video for Mark Ronson’s version (sung by Amy Winehouse who is not in the video), than a in studio acoustic version by Amy Winehouse. Finally I present Ronson from the BBC electric proms; this version is sung by Kyle Falconer from the British band “The View.”

YOUTUBE will not permit this to be embedded…so here is a link to the Zutons version.

Bruce meet Tom

This is a pretty amazing clip. First, the actual version of the song is great, especially the guitar work. Second, there is a real meeting of the minds flavor to Tom Morello and Bruce on the same stage….kinda like Springsteen is working through the cannon of American protest music. He was dubbed the next Dylan, covers Woody Guthrie, did an album of Pete Seegar songs and now this.

Here is a link to a downloadable version

Walkin

Since I posted a collection of struttin songs, I thought I would follow up with Walkin’ tunes. So here is the “Walking Collection.” This is a large collection of songs featuring some variation of the word “Walk” in the title. It spans country, blues, rock, R&B, Soul, Jazz and Gospel…so basically everything. Included artists are Johnny Cash (obviously), Rufus Thomas, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Sprinsgteen, DIon Warwick, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Grant Green, Lou Reed (with and without the velvets), Jackie Mitoo and plenty more. Enjoy.

THE WALKIN COLLECTION

STRUTTIN’

A few days ago, I was involved in a conversation with a friend. The conversation was originally about the Latin Blues Band; but, eventually the topic became the tune “Soulful Strut”. For those who do not know the song, you probably do. The song has about 5 incarnations including the instrumental version that Young Holt Unlimited (former members of Ramsey Lewis’s trio) recored and released in 1968. About a year later, a version that Barbara Acklin recorded as “Am I the same Girl” was release with lyrics written by her husband, a member of the Chi-Lites. This was than covered by Dusty Springfield. In the late 1990’s Grover Washington recorded a version of “Soulful Strut.” In the early 1990′2 English group Swingout Sister again covered the song in its lyrical form. The song showed up about 20 years later as a sample on the Joss Stone album Mind, Body and Soul.

Phew…that was a lot. BUT, I am not done. The word strut and its concept is a common one in soul/jazz/R&B. The meters have TWO strut songs, Cissy Strut was one of their first hits, and later Chicken Strut with its great plucky guitar. These tunes have themselves also been covered multiple times. The term strut also appears in the classic Stray Cats tune, Stray Cat Strut…I have also included Bob Segar’s ode to the strut and the Cheetah Girls. These latter were included for the theme…and certainly not because they are good.

And the list goes on.

So without further explanation, here is my “STRUTIN’ Collection“