Tag Archives: country

“God’s Gonna Cut You Down” (Johnny Cash acoustic folk song)

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For Johnny Cash chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

As the Mamas and the Papas would say: “Monday, Monday!”

Welcome to the first acoustic cover song music video of a brand new week here at the Laptop Sessions.  Tonight, I’m bringing you my second cover from Johnny Cash’s first posthumous release, American Recordings V: A Hundred Highways.  Yes, that’s right…  I specified “first” posthumous release, because I just read that American VI is scheduled for release later this year.  Apparently, Cash was working on V up until he passed away.  I was under the impression that V was a collection of material that was still unreleased, but that’s more along the lines of what VI will be.  Even so, I am very excited to hear this final collection when it is released.

What brought on this sudden return to Johnny Cash’s recent work, you might ask?  Well, I found the first American Recordings CD on sale at Newbury’s last week and decided to pick it up.  Truly good new albums have been far and few between this summer, with the exception of the Fruit Bats’ The Ruminant Band earlier this month — a very pleasant surprise to say the least!

I’ve been enjoying American Recordings thus far; it clearly displayed a lot of potential, which was explored on the four — and soon to be five — subsequent editions of the series.  The only one I have yet to hear is American Recordings II, which includes the classic “I’ve Been Everywhere,” which Jim worked into my version of “Folsom Prison Blues” way back when for my second Laptop Session cover song video ever.

The song I chose for tonight is “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” one of my favorites from American Recordings V.  It is a traditional song that Cash truly made his own, a song that has the ability to be simultaneously catchy/rockin’, and yet haunting/foreboding.  I had a fun time playing and practicing it the past few days, and I hope you’ll enjoy watching it.  As I mentioned earlier, this is the second song I’ve covered from this album, if you count Johnny Cash’s cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind,” one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

In other music news, I spent some time tonight reading about R.E.M.’s forthcoming double-CD live album that will include 39 tracks culled from their 2007 shows at the Olympia.  To be more specific, they played five shows in a row as they tried out new material for their 2008 album Accelerate.  In addition, they also played their hits and deep tracks.  I’ve wanted to hear these performances since I heard their new album, and I’m truly thrilled to hear this concert when it comes out in a couple months.  If you’re an R.E.M. fan, too, you should check out the videos for the two songs — the excellent “Living Well is the Best Revenge,” for which I recorded a Laptop Session, and Automatic for the People opening track “Drive — that have debuted on RollingStone.com.

And if you’re someone who has lost interest in Michael Stipe and company since they went through what can only be called a boring streak recently, then you need to give Accelerate a shot.  You won’t be disappointed.

I’ll leave you with one final, music-related note.  I added to Paste Magazine‘s trending topic on Twitter.com about the best albums of the 00’s, and shortly thereafter learned that I am the only person in the universe to have ever tweeted about the Wallflowers’ Red Letter Days, much less mention the album as one of the best during the decade.

I know; it’s quite the distinction…

See you next session!

“The Last Ride” (The Pretenders Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your Saturday session of the best acoustic rock cover song blog on the web today!  This is actually a combination of my favorite type of post (a brand-new song) and Jim’s favorite type of post (a new artist to the music blog)…  The Pretenders’ “The Last Ride.”  This is a brand-new song from their 2008 album Break Up The Concrete.

I’m not really a big Pretenders fan, but I’m on this big new albums kick for 2008, so I figured I would try out their new album this year.  It’s called Break Up The Concrete and it’s actually pretty good — I especially liked the “First Edition” packaging, which included a piece of paper with the title of the album and name of the band on it.  But it wasn’t just a piece of paper to highlight the specifics; it has instructions on it to dampen it with water, plant it in the ground, and wait for it to grow a plant.  I like this as a piece of the theme of the album — to break up the concrete could include planting new and natural things that, when they grow, break through the man-made pavement. In fact, the back of the album is a picture of a flower.  Most artists include bonus tracks or music videos, but a seed patch… that’s original!

I’ve only heard this song about three or four times, but I decided that this was the one for me to record from this new Pretenders album.  To be honest, I don’t really know any Pretenders songs, but I’ve definitely heard of them.  I think I have a song of theirs on one of my “80s greatest hits” albums.  Let me go check…

And I’m back — I knew I’d heard of them.  The Pretenders had a hit with “Back on the Chain Gang” in the early 1980s.  I first heard this song when I was a senior in high school, trying to learn all the big periods of American pop music.  There was always something about Chrissie Hynde’s voice that I really liked.

Now, is Break Up The Concrete the best album of the year?  No.  But I’ve found it really interesting adding them to my collection this year.  They’ve got an upbeat sound and, if that wasn’t enough, they’ve got my favorite drummer of all time… also known as the fifth Traveling Wilbury… Jim Keltner!  I’m on my way now to do some research on the Pretenders, but their drummer on the new album is indeed Keltner, a drummer who’s not only played with the Wilburys, but has also been a session drummer for such rock acts as Bob Dylan.

As you’re watching the video, you might notice that there’s a blue flash every so often.  That’s the menu of “Mission Impossible III,” which I rented tonight, thanks to the Jimmy Fund promotion at Burger King.  I donated money to the fund and got a scratch off ticket that ended up being a free rental at Blockbuster video.  So a special thanks goes out to Blockbuster — whose ever-increasing rental fees have discouraged me from renting recently — for participating in this worthy cause.  I absolutely loved the first “Mission Impossible” and found the second to be pedestrian at best.  Now, I’m half way through the third installment and loving it.  I had to stop it at 1:03:51, as it’s good enough to be very distracting to me as I type this most recent post on the best acoustic cover song music blog in the universe… the Laptop Sessions!  It was a really cool feeling, coming home tonight and knowing I had to record a session.  I translated and posted the chords to “The Last Ride” earlier this afternoon, and I was really excited to be one of the first people in the world to record a cover of a song from the new album.

What a cool project this session-a-day is…  I realize it’s really annoying and tedious at times.  But, at the end of 2008, Jim, Jeff, and I will have posted 366 (leap year!) videos this year.  What other musicians are as ambitious?  If you haven’t already, you need to check out Jeff’s album at the Fusco-Moore Store (one of the best of the year — and, trust me, I can judge this, as I’ve bought something like 20 new albums this year) and stay tuned for Jim’s best album yet, to be released some time soon; probably early 2009…

Well, that’s it for now.  The last thing I want to mention is how much I’ve been into Wilco and the Counting Crows recently.  They’re both great 90s bands, and I’ll certainly be posting acoustic cover songs from them soon.  But, for now, the focus is on new additions to the blog — I hope you enjoy the first Pretenders song on this music blog — come back tomorrow and the next day for Jeff and Jim.  I’ll see you again on Tuesday…

See you next session!

“I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” (Wilco Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

It’s no secret that I’ve been going through a Wilco phase recently.  And, by phase, I mean that I wasn’t really familiar with the band until a couple months ago.  I had read about the band a bit in music magazines, and I had read quotes by band frontman Jeff Tweedy, which I generally found interesting.  So, I finally found a copy of their critically acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album and decided to give it a spin.

And instantly loved it.

Ever since, I’ve been listening to alot of other music, but I’ve gone back to Wilco every time.  In the past two months, I’ve gone on an odyssey to discover as much about them as possible.  This has involved reading Wikipedia posts, skimming music magazines, and browsing through numerous CD store racks and used album bins.  In the process, I’ve found affordable copies of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s predecessor, Summerteeth (which is the origin of the song I just added to the members-only section, which you should definitely check out soon!), and their first album, A.M.

Now, it’s not that Wilco is my new favorite band of all-time, by any means.  But there is a certain excitement that accompanies fresh territory, striking out into a land that is unusual and can present unexpected ideas, sounds, etc.  For instance, I learned all about Uncle Tupelo — a band I had heard OF but had never actually HEARD — because Uncle Tupelo, minus one member, became the first incarnation of Wilco.

But, I guess that’s a story for another time.

Suffice it to say that Uncle Tupelo is credited with founding the “alt-country” genre that I didn’t even know existed until recently.  As Tweedy progressed, he became more and more experimental with his music, particularly after the first couple Wilco albums.  He seems like an interesting musical figure to me, as he embodies that rock songwriter ideal; he has made some great music, and from many reports, he can be a bit of a jerk.  For instance, members of Wilco have been essentially summarily dismissed to make way for new musicians with new sounds to bring to the process.  While this may not make for pleasant interpersonal relationships, it has certainly made for some interesting musical variations and evolution in the band.

When I think of this song and this album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, in particular, I am reminded, to a degree, of some of the classic albums that have initially been criticized or even rejected by record company executives.  In this case, the hype surrounding the making of the album seems to have only aided and increased its eventual popularity.  Essentially, as Wilco recorded this album, but the powers-that-be needed to make some cuts at the label, so they released the band.  There are several conflicting stories, but the end result is that Wilco got to keep the recordings and rights to the then-new material, going on to another division of Warner Bros. to officially produce and release the album.  This caused a bit of a stir in the record industry at the time — particularly the public perception of the label’s treatment of this fairly longstanding act — and even though I wasn’t nearly as interested in music industry news as I am now, I remember something about this at the time.

The track I chose for tonight is the opening song, “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”  For better or worse, my version does not do justice to the studio version, which you should definitely listen to; for that matter, you should definitely listen to the album!  But, when I discovered that Jeff Tweedy does an acoustic version of this song in his acoustic sets, I couldn’t resist.  It’s a great song that sets the tone remarkably well for the album to follow.

I hope you enjoy my version and that you hurry back in the next couple days for Jeff and Jim.

See you next session!



“High Water” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Trivia: Yes, the title is actually “High Water (For Charley Patton)” — but, that’s just too long for YouTube’s liking. Isn’t that just like Bob Dylan? Always breaking the rules…

Hello and welcome to Monday’s installment of the Laptop Sessions! Today, I bring you a song off of Dylan’s 2001 Love and Theft album. At first, it was one of my least favorite on the album, but the more I listened to it, the more I really got into its dark sound and interesting lyrics. I actually decided to record this one today because my voice is almost entirely shot (and I figured, hey, what better time to play a contemporary Dylan tune?). I recorded about five takes of this song, and four of the outtakes were due to coughing. Because I couldn’t really sing all that loud, I dropped the pick and moved closer to the microphone — I’m glad I did, since it seems to work for this song.

I’d like to say again how much fun it was to play some of MoU’s new songs live at the SCSU Talent Show at the Lyman Center last Wednesday. I really encourage you to do one of the following:

1 ) Watch the live videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/jimfusco.com/albums.html ,

2) Hear the recorded versions in full off the brand-new Homestead’s Revenge album at http://jimfusco.com/albums.html ,
or, if you like the songs,

3) Buy the album!

Okay, that’s enough shameless plugging for today… 🙂 Thanks again to all who have been watching my videos — it’s really exciting to keep seeing my total view count rising. It makes this project all the more fun!

See you next session!