Tune du Jour: “Walk Away” – Tom Waits
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes: Smokestack Lightnin’ vs. Southside Johnny with La Bamba’s Big Band vs. Holly Cole
VOTE, COMMENT, then SELF-ACTUALIZE
CoverMeImpressed.blog CoverMeImpressed.blog CoverMeImpressed.blog
The Original
Tom Waits:
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes
Smokstack Lightnin’ vs. Southside Johnny with La Bamba’s Big Band vs. Holly Cole
Smokestack Lightnin’:
Southside Johnny with La Bamba’s Big Band:
Holly Cole:
SPACE
Oh the disharmony! Much like Harlan County there are no neutrals here. It is your solemn responsibility to decide which cover song prevails. In other words …
Disclaimer: Votes cast from Florida may or may not be counted.
cover me impressed 
Really tough call. All three covers are similar and impressive. But in the end I have to give it to Southside and the boys for most elaborate performance.
Okay… I’ll admit it. I can’t stand Tom Waits’s music. (I know, I know. Too friggin’ bad.) And I hated this song. And I hated all of the covers. The least repellent cover was Holly Cole’s, because it wasn’t an annoying gravelly raspy growl.
Get off my blog! Only kidding, sort of …
cvjwncwc
I’m not exactly a Tom Waits scholar, as some of you know. It always seemed to me that his style conjures up images of a late-night bar or club, the kind of place that would have smelled of tobacco smoke back in the twentieth century. Kind of a subdued, world-weary vibe. Maybe he’d had a few drinks. Perhaps you had, too. Heck, even his piano might have been drinking.
I voted Smokestack Lightnin’ because I felt they remained truer to the Waits vibe and tone.
Southside Johnny and Co. are good at what they do, but most of what I’ve heard by them is up-tempo. toe-tappin’ stuff with a large band and an extensive horn section. I’ve never bought anything by them, and I’m okay with that. But I always thought they’d be good live, with plenty to look at while we feed off the enthusiasm of a rabid crowd.
Holly Cole’s version is also good. Her offering kinda reminded me of something that wouldn’t be out of place fifty or more years ago. And I mean that in a good way.
Southside Johnney’s interpretation of Tom Waits’ Walk Away is a smoky, soulful reinvention that trades Waits’ gravel-throated resignation for something more quietly devastating. Where Waits grumbles through the original like a man already halfway out the door, Johnney lingers, letting each lyric hang in the air like the last puff of a dying cigarette.
Johnny finds his own path through the song, one lined with cracked emotion and unexpected tenderness. It’s less barroom confessional and more back-alley elegy. And it works.
I like Holly Cole’s swanky jazz arrangement and seductive vocals but my vote goes to Smokestack Lightnin’. The plain toned vocal and arrangement has a “Sixteen Tons” feel to it. The guitar punctuation was perfect. Keith Richards meets Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Even the ghost of Louis Armstrong couldn’t prevent Southside from coming in third.
So glad to see you back, Pete!
Testing, testing