Tag Archives: cover song

“Let It Ride” (Bachman-Turner Overdrive BTO Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to yet another edition of The Laptop Sessions with, you guessed it, another new band to music video series!  Jeff, Chris, and I have really been turning up the heat on the new bands lately- I’ll be featuring another new one later in the week.  And I’ll give you a hint- let’s just say that today’s song is the first in my week of songs that start with “Let It”.  Now, remember, I already did “Let It Be” by the Beatles- that was one of my first ever Laptop Sessions cover songs.  So, we’ll have to wait and see what I pull out of my bag of tricks!

Today’s cover song is another one of those, “I was obsessed with it in high school”, tracks alongside last week’s “Temptation Eyes”.   I hope to do more songs from BTO in the future, but I have to be careful to transpose them from heavy electric to acoustic.  This one, I thought, was less about the great electric guitar and more about the great vocals.  I decided to up the passion on the vocals to account for using only an acoustic guitar.

We’re really moving along here on the music video blog- I’ve had a bit more (unexpected) time to work on this stuff, and with the efforts of Jeff and (especially) Chris, we’ll be getting hundreds of new viewers every day.  I can feel it- we’re right on the cusp.  I hope the extra work I did today will push us over the edge.  Either way, you can bet that we’ll keep doing great acoustic rock cover songs and continue to surprise you with new bands all the time!

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Jim Fusco’s 100th Laptop Session: “A Simple Game” (Moody Blues Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to my 100th Laptop Session! I cant believe I’ve actually done 100 already, but the thing I’m happiest about is that the blog is finally starting to pull the visitors we’ve always thought we deserved from all this hard work over the past few months. So, I hope you’ll click on the “Share This” button under the title of all of our music video blog posts and share our videos on Facebook, MySpace, and Digg. We keep coming out with the content- free acoustic covers and original songs every day of the year- and now we need your help to make this spread. Because, I’ll admit- after doing 100 videos, it was almost a necessity to get more visitors to keep the spirits high here at the Laptop Sessions. And, I can honestly say, these spirits have never been higher. So, expect higher and higher video and sound quality every single day!

Tonight, I bring you a song I find fitting for my 100th Laptop Sessions song. Out of all the cover songs I’ve done, “A Simple Game” by the Moody Blues (and made a big hit by the Four Tops) stands as one of my original “favorite” songs. Back on the “Best Song EVER” show on WCJM free internet radio, I chose this as one of my top three favorite songs of all time, along with “The Little Girl I Once Knew” by the Beach Boys and “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. Of course, this show was recorded in 2000 when I was only 15 or 16 and my favorite songs list has changed a little bit. I’d have to say “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” by the Byrds and “You Just May Be The One” by the Monkees are my top two right now. But, “A Simple Game” is still up there for me, especially because it WON the “Best Song EVER” contest on WCJM!

A few years later, we did another “Best of” show called the “Song for the New Millennium Show”, and another one of my picks won: “All The Things” by the Byrds, which Jeff stole as a Laptop Session from me a few days ago. But, he did the cover song justice (as he does with all of his acoustic cover songs), so you should really check it out here on the Laptop Sessions Music Video Blog.

This song, “A Simple Game”, was never on a Moody Blues album- only a single. Mike Pinder wrote the song and the Four Tops took it and made it a huge hit, especially in England. But, I’ve always known the Moody Blues version, being such a big fan, so that’s the version I’ve stayed true to here.

I hope you enjoy my 100th Laptop Session- an expansive collection of acoustic cover songs and my own original music. Please stay tuned every single day here on the music video blog and we’ll continue to hit milestones, break records, and record great music!

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“Come and Get It” (Badfinger Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to another video in the Laptop Sessions music video blog series!

Tonight, I bring you my 99th video- yes, my 99th video! It’s from yet another band we haven’t done yet: Badfinger!

This song was one of their first singles, written by Paul McCartney while he was still with the Beatles. A version exists of McCartney playing and singing this song himself on the Beatles Anthology Volume 3. Honestly, it sounds exactly the same. That, for me, lets me know why there were so many rumors that Badfinger was just the Beatles in disguise. Of course, that’s not the case. Badfinger’s members actually have a very sad biography- if you ever get a chance to read about it, I think it would be worth your while.

There are many songs from Badfinger that I’d love to do in the future, including “Day After Day”, “Baby Blue”, and “No Matter What”. Those are all great songs and really showed that this group wasn’t just a Beatles spin-off bunch, but a real musical force and a darn-good band.

Come back for more Laptop Sessions videos!

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“Counting Blue Cars” (Dishwalla Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and welcome to your Sunday Sunday Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions (the preceding quote stolen from Jim Fusco – i’m sure he’s ecstatic I took it away from him). Today I continue a little binge of mine and bring you another song from my teenage years, and I go back to a band and album I have covered before.

However, this time it’s probably a song you’ve heard.

While this song is considered by many to be a “One hit wonder”, I think the album itself is one of my personal favorites, and is quite strong. Now, that could be a bit biased because of nostalgia, but it’s how I feel at least. The band is Dishwalla, and today I bring you their song “Counting Blue Cars” from their album “Pet Your Friends”. I have always enjoyed this song and it is always the song I refer to when i’m trying to explain to someone who Dishwalla is. “Hey, remember that song with the line ‘tell me all your thoughts on God’?”. Invariably, they’d remember.

On this performance I did alter the way I sing a little bit. Please let me know if you like this a little better. I’m experimenting with some singing styles other than my own “standard” voice. This song is a good one to try since I can emulate the lead singers voice quite well. Also, the chorus is the tough area in this song. I played around with singing the first line an octave down, but it sounds way out of place for me. Therefore, this is certainly a WYSIWYG video. I think the only shaky time for me was the very first chorus – the other four times I had to sing the line in question I think I did just fine.

Thank you for checking us out this evening!

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 origianal 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!

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