Tag Archives: cover song

“Suspicious Minds” (Elvis Presley cover)

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By Jim Fusco

Welcome everyone to the first new Jim Fusco Laptop Sessions cover song video for over a year and a half!  I can’t believe it- doesn’t feel like that long ago AT ALL.  The last cover video I did was “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round” by the Monkees on February 7th of 2013.  Yikes.

As all fans of the music blog know, I’m releasing a new album called “The Easy Ways” in September!  It’s been the spark I needed to get back into recording more Laptop Sessions cover song videos.  I’ve compiled an incredible list of songs over the past 18 months and I can’t wait to get back into the full swing of it.  I’ll even be re-recording some of my older videos.  Yes, even I messed-up now and again, so I’m going to finally fix those mistakes and make the videos the best they can be.  I went back and listened to over 220 cover song videos I’ve done in the past and only found 14 that need to be redone.  That’s not so bad!  I may do a few others that were poorly lit (or when I didn’t shave, was in my pajamas, etc.), as well.

Speaking of lighting, I’m still trying to perfect it, but I’ve got a new lighting kit to go along with my new video recording process.  I’m now recording on my new iPad (should we change it to the “Tablet Sessions”?) with my trusty ZOOM H2 microphone.  I”m also doing the video editing on the iPad.  It’s so much faster and easier, but I’ve noticed a lot of features are lost on the watered-down mobile version.  Thankfully I’ve found workarounds for the issues I’ve found so far.  I hope there are updates to the app in the future that will allow me to enhance the colors in the video and normalize the audio better.

But these first few videos I’m doing came out pretty good and they took less than a quarter of the time it used to take me to record.  And that’s the biggest part- I’ll do many more videos if they’re easy to create.  That’s what was great about the Laptop Sessions in the first place: I could just open the laptop and hit record.  But now, I’ve got to light it properly, have a nice background, and even comb my hair!  I’ve noticed that people really like seeing a nicely lit frame with my electric guitars in the background and I think some of my older videos don’t get viewed much anymore because of their poor video quality.

So now, onto today’s video:

“Suspicious Minds” is a song by Elvis Presley that he debuted around the time of his big comeback special in 1968.  I really need to see that video- I heard he really knocked it out of the park.  Isn’t it so sad that the man was only in his early thirties and he already had to make a “comeback”?  That’s show-business, I guess.  Anyway, the song was a big hit for Elvis and it’s been a song I’ve known and loved for just about my whole life.  It’s a fun one to sing, too, as it has some real passion in that slower middle section.  I hope I did the song justice!

Stay tuned for an original song to come at you next Wednesday for my first Original Wednesday post for quite some time.  I’ll be alternating original songs and cover songs until my new album comes out.  In the meantime, you should be checking out http://jimfusco.com for previews of some of my new songs, plus the album cover artwork that will blow you away!  See you all again next week and enjoy, “Suspicious Minds”, originally done by Elvis Presley!

“Fake Plastic Trees” (Radiohead Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your thumpin’ thursday edition of the Laptop Sessions (been waiting 3 weeks to use that again). Today I bring you another Radiohead song from their album “The Bends”, and another song i’ve known how to play for quite some time.

The song is “Fake Plastic Trees”, and is one of the singles from the album. I love the dynamic change in this song, and the vocal changes throughout the song.

Naturally, like most Radiohead songs, I don’t know what it’s about either. Apparently, however, one site says it’s about Canary Wharf, a large shopping area in London.

This video goes down as a “I recorded it despite being sick” video. We can’t skip a day here at guitarbucketlist.com! Can’t use sickness as an excuse. Gotta keep the streak alive! I missed a note near the last verse, and the last line of the last verse my voice didn’t quite hit the falsetto I had been hitting in the previous verse lines. This is by no means my top vocal performance for sure. I’d have been better off recording this while my voice was 100%.

I’m hoping to hit 5k views by next Wednesday’s edition! I’m really racking up the views as of late. Hopefully I can start racking up the ratings and comments as well!

Until then, enjoy “Fake Plastic Trees”, another Radiohead hit!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Mama, You Been On My Mind” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Welcome to another Thursday edition of the Laptop Sessions! (or, as Jeff would say, “Thumpin’ Thursday”…)

I haven’t done a Dylan song for a while and I’ve really had the itch, especially after playing harmonica for “Bell Bottom Blues.” So, I pulled out my 32-pound Bob Dylan chord book, and I made a list of all the Dylan songs I love playing. “Mama, You Been On My Mind” is merely one of the twenty or so I wrote down.

Probably my favorite version of this song is the live version from the 1975: Rolling Thunder Review Live CD. While I’m not a big Joan Baez fan, she really helps make this version the stellar performance that it is. And so, without further ado, here’s my guitarbucketlist.com nod to “Mama, You Been On My Mind”!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for an all-new session from Jeff…


“Society” (Eddie Vedder Cover – Song by Jerry Hannan)

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For Eddie Vedder chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to the first installment in a fresh new week of brand new material at the Laptop Sessions, the best cover song music video website in the universe!

I was FINALLY able to find the Into Thin Air soundtrack on sale — thank you, Best Buy — so I’ve been listening to it all week.  Although I have discovered several other songs that I like very much, Eddie Vedder’s cover version of Jerry Hannan’s “Society” is still my favorite track on the album.  It was very disappointing for me to discover that it is a cover, but it’s such a great track that I have to stifle my desire for original material, at least temporarily.

I first heard this track from my friends and colleagues Dan and Larry over the summer as we played some music of our own.  At the time, I had not yet immersed myself in Pearl Jam, but I was immediately drawn to Vedder’s simple but powerful vocals on this track.  Apparently, as they told me, Vedder had contributed eleven songs (9 originals and 2 covers) to the soundtrack of the film Into Thin Air, based on Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name.  Although some of the songs are very short and there are two tracks without lyrics, the Into Thin Air soundtrack is essentially an Eddie Vedder solo album — his first full length solo project since he began singing with the other members of Pearl Jam.

Whether you’re a Pearl Jam fan or not, I think everyone here at the Laptop Sessions will be able to appreciate this great acoustic tune.  It was a pleasure to record, from beginning to end.  In fact, I ended up with several early takes that I could have settled for, but kept playing and playing until I arrived at this version, which I felt was most loyal to the original version.  (Well, maybe not the original version — rather, the Eddie Vedder version of the Jerry Hannan original.  Although, Hannan provided background vocals and guitars for this track, so it’s closer to an original than your average cover.)  When I finished recording, I had the sort of sadness I always get when I’ve figured out a song and yet, the recording being finished, don’t have any real reason to keep playing it.

The bright side here is that I’ll get to play it a little bit today during school, as I’m bringing my guitar in to practice for our big Writing Club / Creative Writing open mic night.  This is the first time (at least since I’ve been at the school) that the Writing Club has teamed with the Creative Writing classes to put on the open mic.  The result?  To begin with, we’re in the theater instead of the cafeteria and it promises to draw a more significant crowd.  The only downside — and it’s a significant downside, if only for me — is that the show runs from 6 to 10pm…  This Thursday.  And Thursdays mean baseball, fast food, and wrestling with my friends.  We had originally scheduled the show for a Friday — which I was excited about — but there was a scheduling conflict and the best available day for everyone else was Thursday.

Either way, it’s only one week and it’s for a good cause.  With some luck, I’ll be able to catch the second half of wrestling.  If not, there’s always the iTunes download if I hear I’ve missed a great episode (as last week’s was!).  Until next Monday, I hope you have a great week.  Don’t forget that you’ve got at least two things to look forward to: Jim Fusco Tuesday and Jeff Copperthite’s “Thumpin’ Thursday.”

See you next session!