By Chris Moore:
Well, I have finally posted one of my own! In the wake of Jim’s revival of lesser-known (and lesser-appreciated) tunes, I decided to try Bob Dylan’s early-70’s “Living the Blues.” It is certainly not the best (nor even among the best) of his catalog, but I’ve always loved it. And I hope you do too!
By Chris Moore:
Welcome to my second installment for Number One’s Week here at https://guitarbucketlist.com ! I’m proud to bring you an artist that I haven’t covered before — Otis Redding. This is truly a classic song that deserved to be a true #1 — “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” It’s such a simple song with really basic chords and fairly basic lyrics, but there’s just so much emotion in them. I could never duplicate the sound that Redding put into his studio recording (especially considering that he used a piano instead of an acoustic guitar…), but I really enjoyed recording this session. It was probably the most fun I’ve had recording in weeks; I spent about ten minutes playing along to the real version, and then I hit record and finished in a couple takes.
Once again, I hope you enjoy it. There’s a special “first” for me at the end of the video; regular viewers of the Laptop Sessions will pick up on it…
On a side note, speaking of simple but great music, I’ve been listening to the new Mudcrutch album non-stop since Tuesday, and I’m enjoying it a little more each time. It’s so cool to see not only Tom Petty, but also Benmont Tench and Tom Leadon with lead vocals on a few tracks. As a big Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers fan, it’s also cool to have a Campbell/Petty collaboration — it only takes one listen to “Bootleg Flyer” to figure out who wrote that one! My review will be coming soon, but I just wanted to spread the good news — there is good new music out there! (You just need to wait patiently and watch closely for it…)
Once again, thanks for watching — I hope you’ll comment and/or rate this video. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for an all-new session from Jeff!
See you next session!
By Jeff Copperthite:
I love doing covers this day of the week. Why?
Because it’s Thumpin’ Thursday™! (Jim needs to learn how to insert special characters in the editor by the way)
And I always keep the solid beat songs in reserve for this day. Make you want to tap your feet if I can.
Well, I decided today to break out a really cool (and relatively recent) Bob Dylan song called “Things Have Changed”. The song itself is from a Soundtrack from the movie Wonder Boys. Originally, I thought it was released on a different album (Love & Theft, if you were wondering), but alas it was not to be.
I heard this song thanks to the Bob Dylan master Chris Moore. He also helped figure out that the song I had stuck in my head a few days back was this song. So if it weren’t for him, i’d have something else up here today.
I love the beat of this song, but as with all Dylan songs, he sometimes fits a lot of words into the same measure, or a few words. It can be tough to stay on top of that, and in this video you’ll notice me forgetting to change the chord for a beat. It happens to the best of us I guess.
And I managed to sing similarly to Dylan as well. The video works very nicely.
As with all Thumpin’ Thursday™ entries, I know you’ll enjoy this one. I’ll see you in 3 days for my next video!
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!
By Chris Moore:
Welcome back to another edition of the Laptop Sessions!
One of my favorite Tom Petty albums is the little-known 1999 album Echo. I found it used in an FYE about a year ago, and although it may not be his best album ever, it immediately grew on me. There are some really great tracks on it (out of 15 tracks, you’d hope so!), including the title track that I’m playing here. It took me a bit of practice to be comfortable playing this song without a cheat sheet in front of me — certainly not for the chords, but for the words, which change every chorus. In the end, it was a lot of fun, and I’ve been playing it pretty much every day since I recorded it.
Some day, I might get up the “balls” (as Tom Petty might sing) to play “Rhino Skin,” one of the best tracks on the album. Take a listen to it some time, and maybe you’ll see why I’m not quite there yet… 🙂
Don’t forget to look for another great Laptop Session with Jeff tomorrow, Jim the next day, and then [insert: Arnold Schwarzenegger voice] I’ll be back!