“Mexican Hat Dance” (Traditional cover)

By Jeremy Hammond:

I was just playing around and worked out a fun little arrangement for this traditional song that everyone will recognize.

** EDITOR’S NOTE: **

I couldn’t resist picking this as our Guest Sessions featured video of the week.  It’s a fun little song, and a fun little performance by one of our favorite contributors to the site.

We may know this popularly as the “Mexican Hat Dance,” but it is more formally known as “Jarabe tapatio.”  It was first compiled in Guadalajaran music professor Jesus Gonzalez Rubio as a medley of Mexican folk music.  It has since been honored by many as the national dance of Mexico.

This is your Guest Session electric cover song instrumental video.  We hope you’ll enjoy it and hurry back next week for another great contribution!

“She Knows Me Too Well” (Beach Boys Cover mp3) by Jim Fusco

By Jim Fusco:

Ladies and gentlemen- I give you a brand-new recording!!

This is a cover of the Beach Boys’ classic song “She Knows Me Too Well” off of the “Today!” album from 1965.

I got some new equipment, so I wanted to try to match the original recording the best I could (with a little more flair on the drums, no disrespect to Dennis Wilson). I used my new Shure SM57 mic, Epiphone Les Paul Special II with P-90 pickups, and my Samson 7-piece drum mic set. I rounded-it out with my Fender Stratocaster, Fender Jazz Bass, electric piano, and ten vocal tracks, recorded with my Shure SM27 condenser mic.

I really hope you enjoy all the hard work I put into this and hope you’ll share it with all of your friends, too!

http://jimfusco.com/audio/sheknowsmetoowell.mp3

And here’s a special “vocals-only” version for you super-fans:

http://jimfusco.com/audio/sheknowsme-vocals.mp3

Stay tuned for even more Beach Boys cover songs coming your way on the Laptop Sessions cover songs music blog!

“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (U2 Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to Friday’s edition of #1 week. Today I bring you a new band to the sessions, and another great #1 hit.

You must live under a rock if you don’t know the band U2. Off of their album “The Joshua Tree” is one of their only 2 U.S. #1 hits, which is competing for longest song title. Again, I had to take out a bunch of the spacing to get the title to fit in Youtube’s field.

The song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is a classic to me, since I have known it since I saw the music video as a kid. I loved the chorus and I think I annoyed my entire family running up and down the halls of the house. I have always enjoyed U2 for reasons such as Edge their guitarist, and Bono has an incredible range.

Speaking of Bono’s range, I originally recorded this session with me singing it an octave lower. However, I wasn’t happy with it. So I decided to sing it in the intended range. You can tell that some notes are hard to hit, but I feel that you will enjoy this performance more, despite the vocal difficulties I may appear to be having.

You will also notice my wife sitting in the background listening on the performance. She also selected the regular range video for you.

Tomorrow Jim will close out #1 week with another great #1 song. Be sure to come back tomorrow for that!

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!

“Royals” (Lorde cover) – The Guest Sessions

Welcome to the first post of the New Year here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!

I, for some reason, inherited the reigns on the Guest Sessions.  It’s a daunting task, as we get many, many, many submissions sent to us.  I think the Guest Sessions submission page is our most popular page here on the music blog!  I’d say the ratio of good videos to bad videos is about 50/50, but even some of those good videos just aren’t right for the Laptop Sessions style of cover song videos.  Once in a while, I come across a video that’s done in our normal music video style, like the one I’m presenting here today.

Of the really great things about The Guest Sessions here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog is that we get submissions for songs that we would never normally cover ourselves.  We also get artists that I’ve never even heard of before, but are popular in today’s music scene.

Today’s video, “Royals”, is a cover of a song I hear constantly on the radio.  I’m sure there are thousands of covers of this song on YouTube, as I see the chords aren’t exactly difficult.  The original artist is Lorde, who is a singer and songwriter from New Zealand.  The song is about the feelings of making the best of what you have because, face it, 99.99999999% of us will never be royalty!

Holly Drummond, a young British woman, sent in this video of her playing guitar and singing “Royals”.  While not necessarily my style of music to begin with, I can definitely appreciate Holly’s talent and ability to cover this song well.  I hope you’ll check it out and let Holly know what you think!

Stay tuned for more Guest Sessions videos as the weeks roll on- I’ve got plenty to choose from, so there will always be something new to read and watch here on the best music blog out there- the Laptop Sessions!