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The moving cat sheds, and, having shed, moves on.

Monday, February 27, 2006

She ain't dumb or blonde, either. 

Hey, here's another entry in the irregular series of things about covers albums. Well, it's the second such post, I suppose that makes it a series.

Kathryn Williams and her album Relations: it's good! I don't really know much of her other work, but going by this record of mostly well-known songs, she's probably good at what she does.

Rod Stewart did a song once, totally unlike the rest of his material, that was neither crap nor barely tolerable: it's actually good - In A Broken Dream. There may be some irony in the fact that he credited it to Python Lee Jackson, who doesn't actually exist. Anyway, Ms Williams did the unthinkable and covered it sans bluesy guitars and Rod's distinctive (and male) vocals - and her version is damn good, too. I think that may be evidence that this really is A Good Song and not just an uncharacteristic performance on Mr Stewart's part.

Also to be found on this record are a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah: good, but not as good as Jeff Buckley's pants-wettingly good version; a version of Nirvana's All Apologies: better than you'd think; a version of one of my favourites Byrds songs, The Ballad of Easy Rider; and the obligatory Velvet Underground song, this time, Candy Says.

All in all, it's a good album, continuing my love of the whole concept of covers albums. It works as an album, too, rather than as a collection of songs, which may be where Dolly Parton's earlier-mentioned effort fails (although that's only a small stumbling block).

Must get round to finding more stuff by Kathryn Williams. What's to be next in this series of wotsits about cover albums? Stay tuned to find out! Ooh, exciting, innit?
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