Beech Tree News Network

I love watching music documentaries and informative shows on AXS TV and Vice Network, as you’ve noticed from many of my columns I’ve written this year.  My first music tidbit of the week comes from one of those: AXS TV’s Top Ten Revealed.  I believe the topic on this episode was classic guitar riffs.  The riff in question is the opening guitar riff to “Just What I Needed” from The Cars’ 1978 self-titled debut album.  The riff is borrowed from The Ohio Express song “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” a decade earlier.  Being a person who needs to hear things for himself, I listened to both songs back-to-back.  Sure enough, they use the same riff.  

I’m sure you’ve seen the Dodge Ram commercial with Chris Stapleton singing in the background.  It’s been around a bit.  The song is called “I’m A Ram” (perfect for a Dodge Ram commercial).  It wasn’t until weeks later, listening to Underground Garage on Sirius XM, that I learned the song is a cover.  The original is from the late Al Green from his 1971 album Gets Next To You.  Green also wrote the song.

‘90’s country fans might remember his 1996 hit “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”.  Did you know that song was a cover? “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” is a song written by John D. Loudermilk.  It was first released in 1962 by Don Cherry as a country song and again as a doo-wop song in 1967 by the group The Casinos on its album of the same name.  The Casino’s version reached #6 on the U.S Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1967.  It was the group’s only Top 40 hit.  Casinos’ frontman Gene Hughes would recall that he’d heard the 1964 Johnny Nash (of “I Can See Clearly Now”) recording of the song on the John R. Show broadcast on WLAC out of Nashville.  The Casino’s had been performing it in their club act for several years.  Eddy Arnold recorded it in 1968 on his Walkin’ In Loveland album, where it was #1 in the U.S.  Neal McCoy’s 1996 version on his self-titled album reached #4 in the U.S.

“Poor Poor Pitiful Me” is probably most known as a country song.  However, it didn’t start out that way.  “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” is a rock song written and first recorded by the late Warren Zevon in 1976 for his self-titled album.  It was a top 40 hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1978 and Terri Clark in 1996 for her second album called Just The Same.  In 2004, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt covered it for the Warren Zevon tribute album.  Terri Clark and Lainey Wilson most recently re-recorded the song.  Talk about a well-travelled song! 

For the final song fact of the week, we get into the Christmas spirit a few weeks early.  The background music of Run DMC’s song “Christmas In Hollis” off their 1988 album Tougher Than Leather is taken from “Backdoor Santa”, a song from Clarence Carter’s 1969 album Testifyin’.  This brings an end to my cover’s column this week.  Below is the link to my Blendertainment vlog for this week https://youtu.be/w3XIS630J8Q?si=FA7bEl6Wde919P8i