Tag Archives: cover songs

“Live Let Live” (Brian Wilson Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

This post will be a shorter one, as Ace Ventura 2 is on in the background.  Any time Jim Carrey’s on screen, my attention is pulled towards the television.  Today was a fun day, as the original seven cast members of WCJM Radio got together to do our first Moore Hits in the Morning show that was actually in the morning!  The 10th Anniversary Show went off without a hitch, except for the producing mistakes I made.  Those will be edited out LONG before you hear it online!  I’ll be working on the show soon and I hope everyone will go online and listen to it!

Tonight, I bring you a great song off of Brian Wilson’s new album “That Lucky Old Sun”.  I love this album and it proves how great this guy still is.  His singing voice just seems to get better and better.  It has such a full sound now that it didn’t have back in the late 80s.

This song I chose not for its lyrics, which are a bit on the unexpected side, but for its incredible tune.  I just love when the music kicks in after the first vocals-only part.  The chords are great and Brian’s voice is even better.  The lyrics provided by Van Dyke Parks are still very witty.  That man says things in song a way no one else ever has before.  It’s funny to me that probably my favorite song on the album was written by the classic duo of Wilson/Parks and not the new duo of Wilson/Bennett.

This is a short song, but I think it captures the essence of Brian’s efforts to speak out against pollution, etc.  When you think of California, you think of sunshine, beautiful views, and wildlife.  Brian sang about the other two things throughout the rest of the album, so this song covers the last topic and brings the album full-circle.

Enjoy this song tonight as I go off for a LONG winter’s nap and finish off my big weekend!

“San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)” (Scott McKenzie Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

And the winner, yet again, is Jim Fusco!!!  (AHHH, Jiiiiimmmm Fuscooooo, AHHHH, undefeated champion of the world, AHHHH)

What am I the winner of?  Well, the song with the LONGEST title ever on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!

“San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)” is a great tune that symbolized the Summer of Love in 1967.  The song was written by Scott McKenzie’s friend John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.  McKenzie was slated to form the band with Phillips earlier, but then decided to be a solo artist.  Well, McKenzie is the true definition of a “One Hit Wonder”, as this song reached the Top 10 and that was his only big hit.

Chris said to me, “I konw the song, but I’ve never even heard of Scott McKenzie!”  Well, he doesn’t realize it, but he has.

The classic Number 1 hit for the Beach Boys in 1987, “Kokomo”, was actually written by the following: Mike Love, Terry Melcher, John Phillips, and…Scott McKenzie!  I don’t know what hand he actually had in it, but it’s funny to learn of the connection.  That song became a hit a solid 20 years after he hit it big with his only well-known song…and it was a song he didn’t even write!  I’m sure McKenzie is still seeing royalties from “Kokomo”.

I came up with a big project that I call “The Cover Songs Initiative” today that outlines the progress I’d like to see this site make, along with the steps to get there.  I’ll be rolling it out tomorrow night, so I’m excited to see some great progress!  See you on Thursday night!

“Shine” (Trey Anastasio Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hey HEY!  Welcome to your Friday night Laptop Sessions fix here with me, Jim Fusco!  I simply can’t believe it’s my night again…  Now, I’m going to be going away this weekend for another overnight trip.  The last time I did that, the entire Laptop Sessions site (not to mention all my other ones) went down for three days!  We lost all of our Google rankings- it was a mess.  So, I’ve invested time and money to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, and I pray for 36 hours without my computer and a site that still works when I get back.  Cross your fingers!

Tonight is another new night, and I’m bringing you yet ANOTHER new band!  Do I ever run out of these things?

I challenge the other three guys on here to do a song from Trey Anastasio’s band “Phish”, as I’ve taken a song from his solo career after the band originally broke up.  I got into this band via a friend of mine who was a big Phish phan…I mean, fan.  The album (also called “Shine”) was new at the time and was Trey’s second solo studio album.  I instanly fell in love with it.  The songs are very accessible and they trim out the minutes upon minutes of jam-band soloing that was so popular in Phish’s work.

I’m more of the three minute song kinda guy, and the album “Shine” delivers just that: three minute pop gems from a guy with amazing guitar skills, a great hand at songwriting, and the classic too-much-drugs-over-my-career wobbly voice.  The album isn’t perfect by any means, but there are just some great songs up and down the boards that I truly enjoyed for an extended play in my car’s rotation.

My band, “Masters of the Universe” covered this song in concert and we used to kick some rear.  We had five part harmonies going on the chorus and the song really rocked.  I believe it’s on our first DVD.

I’m looking forward to my trip tomorrow.  Maybe I can do some mobile blogging on my iPhone!  Then you can experience scenic Lenox, MA, too.  Until (dreaded) Monday, have a great weekend and enjoy tonight’s acoustic cover song music video!

Jim Fusco Hits 130,000 YouTube Video Views, Plus New Domain Launched

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Big news here at Fusco-Moore Productions, as we’ve acquired the domain name cover-songs.com!  That’s right: now your source for cover songs has a great name to go along with it!  Over the next few days, we’ll be working hard to get photos of ALL the bands we’ve covered here on the Laptop Sessions and organizing them on the frontpage of the site.  The site really is just a section (or portal) to the familiar Laptop Sessions site.  I may decide to come up with a new design for it.  The goal of this site is to get people to find our cover songs, then to have them make the connection to the blog community over here at the Laptop Sessions.

Ideas are (as always) frantically running through my head, but I feel awfully tired, so they’ll have to wait a bit more to come to fruition.

Also, probably last night, I hit 130,000 views on YouTube!  I’m still holding out hope that I can get to 150,000 by the end of 2008, which I think would be a nice accomplishment.  Hopefully there will come a time where I can only announce in 50,000 view counts, but for now, it’s still a nice event at each 10,000.  This time it took me 21 days, which is right on schedule, as of late.  Of course, I’d like that number to decrease as time goes on, so we’ll have to see if the new domain name helps us at all.

Just another step towards greatness here at Fusco-Moore Productions!