Part 2 of this four part Laptop Sessions extravaganza comes to you with a song from the Traveling Wilburys, one of my favorite bands of all time.
I grew up listening to their music and find myself going back to their two albums over and over again.
This song is a great one to do acoustically, and like the last one, is sung by Bob Dylan. Watch for the cameo harmonica appearance by Chris Moore in this video!
I’ll be doing PLENTY more Wilburys songs on these sessions, so stay tuned! Now, onto part 3!
We finally come to one of my absolute favorite bands of all time: Barenaked Ladies. I originally got into the band after hearing their song “Brian Wilson”.
I have every album from BNL, know every word to every song–a real fanatic. I think Steven Page is the best song writer of my generation, even though he is about 15 years older than me.
This song starts off their album “Maroon”, one of my favorites from them that I played about 100 times in a row. This song is much more “electric” on the album, but I think it stands up well as an acoustic because of the lyrical content.
There will be PLENTY more videos from BNL to come, so if you love any of their songs, don’t hesitate to make a request!!
NOTE: This video was remastered in 2020 for enhanced video and sound.
Here’s one plenty of people should know: the classic and beautiful “Warmth of the Sun” by the Beach Boys, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. The story goes that both Brian and Mike were together the night that President John F. Kennedy passed away. It must’ve been quite a night in America- I can only imagine it. But, in songwriters’ darkest hours come some great material. Most of the great songs you hear are a result of heartache- it’s usually due to losing a loved one. But, Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys were creative in their songwriting and made their feellings for the passing of their President known in song. Sure, they tailored it into a love-lost song (“The love of my life, she left me one day…”), but you can tell the sentiment in the song, especially considering the night they wrote it.
“The Warmth of the Sun” is a beautiful song in all ways- the chord changes are just great. Brian Wilson always had a knack at creating chord progressions that were familiar, but had a great twist. The bass line always moves in the opposite direction of where you expect it to go. In addition to great music (and the instrumental track, which I’m pretty sure was played by the Beach Boys band members themselves), this song has AMAZING harmonies. Brian Wilson’s voice simply soars in this song. With the addition of the dead-on background vocals, you’ve got a pretty perfect song. I’m just glad I found a way to put a solo acoustic performance together and record it with just an acoustic guitar for a cover song music video.
This video is fulfilling a request I received in my first week of doing the Laptop Sessions. I waited until now because I knew I had to get this one right. I had to practice the chords (not too easy, and this is my own interpretation- I didn’t even use a book), plus get the intricate tune correct. There’s so many subtleties to this tune and NO ONE was writing pop music like this in 1963. Talk about ahead of their time.
Please visit my website at http://jimfusco.com for more great music–original songs! One of the main ideas behind doing all of these cover songs for the Laptop Sessions is that if you like the style of music that I do live performances of, you’ll also love my original music, too! I really think that’s true- my original songs aren’t just throwbacks or anything like that. They’re unique songs that put a modern twist on my favorite influences, including The Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Beatles, and the Moody Blues. I hope you enjoy tonight’s Beach Boys cover song and I hope you’ll stay tuned for more. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jimfuscomusic so you always know the latest on my songwriting endeavors, too!
Well, my first request fulfilled tonight! Of course, it’s one from a genre we’ve become known for here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog: Beach Boys cover songs. Talk about obscure- here’s a song from the Beach Boys “Wild Honey” album. It’s called “Country Air”. I love the Boys’ harmonies on this song, but this take kinda gives it that down-home “country” feel to it.
I’ve always loved the dark sounding piano they used in this song, but, of course, I’ll take it on guitar. If I had a better sounding keyboard, I’d use that.
For all these videos so far, I’ve used my classical-stringed guitar that I bought in Sicily. I don’t know why, but it’s fun to play. It also kind of replicates that darker sounding piano that’s in the original. You just get to hear this song played a bit differently- and isn’t that what the cover songs music blog is all about?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this song, and maybe next one will be a little more “known”.
But, if you have ANY Beatles, Beach Boys cover songs, Moody Blues, or Byrds songs you’d like me to do, I DEFINITELY will! (Unless it’s Good Vibrations or something that would sound ridiculous with just one person…).
