Tag: country covers

“Waiting for a Train” Between a Rock and a Country Place

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“Waiting for a Train” was written and recorded by The Father of Country Music, Jimmie Rodgers in 1928. There are 126 versions of this song and it’s been covered by Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash with The Carter Family and David Allen Coe.

Today I have the Rock duo and twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid known as The Proclaimers. Their cover version was recorded in 1994. You can also find versions by Boz Scaggs and John Sebastian.

Listening to this version just deepens my appreciation for the songs of Jimmy Rodgers. While some of his lyrics reflect a man of his day others are truly timeless. Had he lived longer there would no doubt be hundreds of his songs being recorded, as it is there are covers of 88 songs that he wrote or co-wrote in his short 36 year life. “Waiting for a Train” is his second most recorded, at #1 is *”Mule Skinner Blues” with 114 versions and at #3 is “T For Texas” covered by 66 artists. His frequent collaborator and sister-in-law Elsie McWilliams has been discovered as uncredited on a number of his songs, my favorite is “My Rough and Rowdy Ways” where she did receive a proper co-credit.

*”Mule Skinner” is not what you might think, it is slang for a muleteer or mule driver.

“To Love Somebody” Between a Rock and a Country Place

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This is a classic pop rock/soul song written by Barry Gibb with his brother Robin. Recorded by the Bee Gees in 1967. It was released as a single and reached #17 on the Hot 100. It is a very well covered song with 222 versions by names such as Lulu, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin and a well known rendition by Michael Bolton.

An unlikely Country Artist for this song as he very rarely covered songs outside of the genre, this is Hank Williams Jr. He released this in 1979 on the Family Tradition album. Some slight liberty with the lyrics, but hey the man can do whatever he likes! Afterall he is No. 50 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.

It’s hard to find a better combination of Country and Rock than Blue Rodeo. This song only appeared on their Greatest Hits Vol. 1 Album released in 2001. I was lucky enough to catch them touring it and heard it live with the brass section on stage, what a pleasant surprise this was, as it’s one of my favorite Bee Gees songs.

“Mama Tried” Between a Rock and a Country Place

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I am beginning with one of the greatest Country Singer Songwriters ever, Merle Haggard. There will be a song each day for the rest of the month.

I was surprised that there are very few Rock acts that have covered Haggard Songs. Now Merle is a Country Singers Singer and as rooted in the Genre as anyone, so covering his songs as a Rock band is a tall order. I had to really scour the list of his most popularly covered songs to find a Rock version, but hey it’s Merle Haggard so it was worth the effort. Having said that, someone will no doubt find a more obvious choice, but hey I’m not perfect. Merle has had an amazing 179 of his original songs covered, more titles by far than most Country artists (for example Johnny Cash has the most at 195 titles). Merle wrote or co-wrote 138 of those songs himself and there are close to 1,400 versions.

This is his forth most covered song with 77 versions. In 1968 it was his fifth of 38 yes, thirty eight #1 songs. Remarkably that is only third place behind George Strait’s 44 and Conway Twitty with 40.

Here we have what is described as a ‘Punk Rock’ cover by This Saturday.

The Grateful Dead are well known for original songs but they loved to do covers at their live (or is that dead) shows. Perhaps it was a good way to keep the Deadheads from tripping on their toe tags. This was a regular song for the Dead to perform at their concerts and a little more true to the original.

For more on Merle Haggard click here

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The Top 10 Most Recorded Country Songwriters

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When compared to sorting out the Rock songwriters, I will say this list was much more Strait forward by George! As I mentioned in my intro post, some of the writers here are more known for their songwriting than performing. As I worked down the list of the most covered song authors of all time, the first stop for the Country genre was at #50. This list will include songs that were co-written as well.

Not all of the names on this list will have always been songwriter of an original song that they recorded and subsequently covered. For example, Willie Nelson’s first charted hit in 1962 was “Willingly” and was written by Hank Cochran, it has been covered by three artists, so not on this list. Where as the song “Crazy”, and even if it had not been covered by Willie himself, he wrote it and therefore it is on the list.

Likewise we have to take a close look at Hank Williams songs, genius as he was, he did not write all of the songs he was the first to record. Not to mention that he covered (110) almost as many songs as he had originals (113). He also wrote songs that were first released by other artists, Bill Monroe with “Alabama Waltz” and “I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome” that was co-written by the two of them.

Ok, maybe I do spend too much time thinking about this stuff!

Why the top 10 when I did the top 20 for Rock Music? It just comes down to numbers. If you look at the Rock list we are talking 22K plus songs at the top and the #20 spot has over 2,200 versions. For Country the #2 position has 1,800 plus versions, and my brilliant math skills tell me that is less than the #20 spot for Rock writers. Apart from the obvious that Rock is much more popular, and even with most of the leg work done by Secondhandsongs.com, it takes a lot of work to sort these names and track the numbers. Getting the next ten Country writers is an exercise I’ll pursue in a later post.

Having said that I found that there are more Rock Artists covering Country Songs than there are Country Artists covering Rock Songs. My guess is that it’s because the Country genre traditionally is a bit more of an exclusive rather than inclusive club. I don’t have any empirical data to back that up but I’m more convinced that it is true after going through the research for the upcoming series.

Ranked by the total number of documented versions of their songs, regardless of how many titles.

The Top 10 Most Covered Country Songwriters

  1. Hank Williams with 106 songs covered still holds the record for the most versions of Country songs. With over 3,500 recordings Hank is the most covered Country Singer Songwriter and the 50th most covered author of all time (MCAT).
  2. Fred Rose with 87 covered and 1842 versions. I won’t mention this position for the rest of them but he’s at #134 on MCAT list. Again, just giving you some relative perspective.
  3. Kris Kristofferson with 1772 versions of 103 songs.
  4. Johnny Cash with 1521 versions of 125 songs
  5. Harlan Howard with 1380 versions of 143 songs
  6. Bill Monroe with 1364 versions of 125 songs
  7. Merle Haggard with 1359 versions of 138 songs
  8. Willie Nelson with 1355 of 109 songs
  9. A.P. Carter with 1236 versions of 87 songs
  10. Jimmie Rodgers with 1123 versions of 88 songs

The next on the list and the first woman is Dolly Parton with 1093 versions of 137 songs.

Based on statistics from August 2023 from Secondhandsongs.com.

Source: Secondhandsongs.com