“Drive” (The Cars) Cover

Welcome to your Monday, Monday edition of The Laptop Sessions at https://guitarbucketlist.com !

Tonight, I give you a song from another band we haven’t done yet, “The Cars”.

Now, I always thought that “Just What I Needed” was their biggest hit, but this song, “Drive”, was actually a #3 hit on Billboard pop charts, their highest charting song.

I love this song- it’s the quintessential 80s ballad. The chord progression is great and it’s sung from such a youthful point of view. I mean, the chivalry of driving someone home just doesn’t exist now. And, it’s only been about 20 years!

Another interesting point about this tune is that it was written by the keyboardist for the band, Greg Hawkes. And, the song is originally sung by the bassist, Benjamin Orr. You would expect their biggest hit to go to Ric Ocasek, but that’s the way things go. I always thought that it wasn’t fair that the Doobie Brothers main original guy, Tom Johnston, never got a #1 hit. But, another member, Pat Simmons, did with “Black Water”. And, years later, Michael McDonald did with “What A Fool Believes”.

Well, I hope you enjoy tonight’s Session and make sure to come back tomorrow for Chris’ Session!

“A Hard Day’s Night” (The Beatles Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to my last contribution to “Title Track Week” here at The Laptop Sessions on https://guitarbucketlist.com !

Tonight, I bring you a CLASSIC Beatles cover song tune that everyone should be played as they’re coming out of the womb! 🙂 “A Hard Day’s Night” was reportedly a phrase coined by Ringo Starr. He kinda has that Yogi Berra thing going on where he says some great unique phrases and doesn’t even realize it.

This was a great Session for me because, again, I did it in one take. Actually, I recorded NINE videos last night, so I can finally focus on all the promotion we’ve been doing.

If you’re in the CT area, check out the Record-Journal newspaper on Sunday, June 1st for a feature article on The Laptop Sessions! It’s been rumored that we might even have a prestigious spot in the Sunday paper, but time will tell, I guess.

Come on back tomorrow for Chris’ final entry into “Title Track Week” and, as always, come to https://guitarbucketlist.com every single day in 2008 for a new video!

“All Things Must Pass” (George Harrison Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Hello everyone and welcome to my first installment of “Title Track Week” here at The Laptop Sessions! Chris and Jeff have already put forth two strong efforts, so I had to follow suit. I have such a list of songs to add to the Sessions, but I can’t seem to sit myself down to do a few lately. Don’t have much choice come Friday!

Tonight, I bring you the title track of the most successful post-Beatles solo album from one of the group’s members: “All Things Must Pass”. This is a great album, of course, and expect to hear many songs from this one in the future.

This is a great song that has a very insightful message, especially considering that George is now passed. We actually played this song in tribute to him on one of our radio shows over at WCJM.com Free Internet Radio.

This video was done a bit differently- I used my new ZOOM H2 microphone, which is really awesome, to record the audio. It came out great, but unfortunately became kind of a big project because the H2 wouldn’t properly connect to my Macbook. I hoped to do all of my Sessions with this microphone from now on, but the Mac doesn’t give the option to use the internal camera’s video and the ZOOM’s audio. Of course, you know I’ll keep trying to find a solution…

I hope you enjoy today’s Session and come back to https://guitarbucketlist.com tomorrow for another great “Original Wednesday” video from Chris Moore!

“Congratulations” (The Traveling Wilburys cover)

By Jim Fusco: Well, it’s my day again already, huh? 🙂

Seems we’ve bee doing so much promotion between the friend requests, SEO work, and such that it really is getting harder and harder to keep on the “every third day” schedule. And now, we have a Members-Only section on the blog, which will have exclusive, not-on-YouTube, videos. So, that’s even more to do!

I’m hoping with the long weekend that I can record a bunch of Sessions and then focus on promoting what we already have for awhile.

Now, getting on to today’s Laptop Session:

“Congratulations” is a Traveling Wilburys song that my brother Mike and I would always kinda make fun of when we were younger. I mean, the album came out when I was four and my family loved it, so we always listened to it. Plus, when you’re a little kid, Bob Dylan’s incredibly raspy voice is pretty funny.

But, years later, after my 1000th listen, I began to realize that this really is a good song. I think the whole band contributed and the actual tune of the song (stripped of Dylan’s raspiness or not) is great.

The song is sad and emotional, which is probably why they chose Dylan to sing it in the first place, but I thought I would give it a more “pure” treatment.

This was done in one take, so you know I was dead-on. Jeff, Chris, and I are doing a lot more of that lately- partially because of time constraints, but partially because we’re just getting so good at doing this. My skills have been increasing steadily with my view count and subscriber numbers, which are nearing 200 now!

I will meet my goal of 55,000 views by the end of the month and now the only question is: how many more will I get? The Laptop Sessions site is poised for a BOOM in popularity, so stay tuned, as you may have already stumbled upon the Next Big Thing in music!