Tag Archives: cover

“Teenager In Love” (Dion & The Belmonts cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Oh yeah, another Jim Fusco night and ANOTHER “new” band to the Laptop Sessions!  Incredible.  It’s almost hard to believe we haven’t done a song from a band starting with every letter in the alphabet.  I think we haven’t done Q yet…

I tell you, I have to do more songs from Dion.  He had some amazing hits and he was pretty prolific with them, too.  This song is a classic 4-chord doo-wop style number.  Even though the song was that “easy” to play, I still found myself doing take after take to get the inflection of the words right.  Plus, I play an “F” chord so much like a “C” chord, I was actually switching between the two accidentally!

But, practice made perfect and I got through the video without too much more trouble.  This is another one of my fading-out songs, as the single version of the original song is just a perfect recording and I wanted my video to reflect the same.  The way Dion sings with such youthfulness and the way the Belmonts give those great supporting vocals makes for a timeless single.

And hasn’t EVERYONE felt this way in the past?  Chris and I have had countless conversations on this topic, asking why we would even do this to ourselves in the first place.  The answer?  Because it made life interesting, which is a theme through many of my early songs.

Even though I’m not a teenager now (and incredibly surprised that it’s been five years SINCE I’ve been one!), I could still channel the sentiment in this song.  I don’t think Dion had that in mind when he recorded this number, but I think every time someone who was a teenager back when the song was released hears it again, it takes them right back.  That could be a scary thing, but any three minute song that can do that is more than just a four-chord song- it’s a classic.

Enjoy tonight’s video and I’ll be back with you on Sunday!

“You Showed Me” (The Turtles cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Tuesday…what a day.  Not enough to be mid-week, and not far enough away from the past weekend to let you forget about it.  At least Chris got the day off today, so he texted me updates on his (nothing) day every half hour.  If only I didn’t only have 200 texts a month…and if only Chris were home every day.

Onto tonight’s video- actually posted before midnight for once!

I told you that you’d get a twin-spin with The Turtles, and here it is.  “You Showed Me” is a song I’ve known for most of my 24 years, hearing it on the oldies radio station 102.9 “Big D 103” here in Connecticut.  But I got to revisit the song after my family and I got into the Byrds.  We listened to every single released (and unreleased, for that matter) Byrds song and loved every minute…except for David Crosby’s “Mind Garden”, my vote for the ABSOLUTE worst song of all time.  Go ahead- go search for it and tell me it isn’t.  I dare you.

So, how do the Byrds fit in here?  Well, we came across this song again on the Byrds “Preflyte” sessions box set, which is awesome, by the way.  It’s a collection of all of their songs before they ever recorded their first album with Columbia Records.  It’s a great collection, especially because the band wrote most of the songs.  The lead singer and songwriter at that time was Gene Clark.  He wrote some of the world’s best songs and it’s been a pleasure to cover his songs on multiple occasions here on the best music video blog on the internet!

Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn (Jim at the time) of the Byrds wrote “You Showed Me”.  They recorded mutliple versions of this song with the Byrds during the “Preflyte” sessions, but the song never showed up on an official Byrds album.  Instead, they gave it (or maybe Columbia gave it- I’ll have to check that out) to The Turtles to turn into a HUGE hit.  Well, I’m glad it became a hit either way and it’s just another example of Gene Clark’s amazing songwriting abilities.  It makes it all the more sad that he barely ever got recognition for it.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s video, as I gear up for yet another “new” band to the Laptop Sessions on Friday.  Which one?  Well, let me give you a hint.  This man was (and I think may actually be getting back) with one of the most famous “stoner” bands of all time.  You know, ridiculously long concerts, etc.  Which band?  Which man?  You’ll just have to wait until Friday to find out!  Thankfully we have Chris and Jeff posting their great videos in between to tide us over!  See you then.

“Happy Together” (The Turtles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to another edition of “You Bet Your Life”…oh wait, that’s Groucho Marx.  This here is another edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

I don’t care what anyone says- I’m actually a big fan of my newest song, “Winning You Over”.  I know the subject matter is up for debate, but if you just listen to it as a song: the tune and the way the lyrics are written, even the chord progression- I think you’ll find that it’s pretty awesome.  Not to toot my own horn- I just can’t get the stinkin’ song out of my head!

I’d love to hear Jeff’s thoughts on the song- both in subject matter and how he likes the real tune.  This is a great chance to make sure Jeff is still paying attention to these posts! 🙂

Anyway, tonight I bring you a great and classic song by The Turtles, whom we haven’t covered yet here on the Laptop Sessions.  That’s the way it goes: another night, another “new” band to the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog from me, Jim Fusco!

Of course, I put “new” in quotations because the band was popular back in the sixties, so even though we haven’t done a cover song from them before, it’s still technically not a “new” band by any stretch of the imagination!

I couldn’t believe how well the opening guitar part came out- doesn’t it sound exactly like the original?

Well, I actually have a little game for you.  On my solo radio show (So-low that you can’t hear me?  That’s for Stuffy D. Bear) Jammin’ with Jim on WCJM Free Internet Radio, I’m “famous” for my twin-spins, which are two songs played by the same artist.  I even did an entire show of twin-spins…twice!

Well, Tuesday, I’ll be doing a second song from the Turtles.  To tell you the truth, I didn’t even realize that I was doing two songs by them until after I recorded the music videos!  I recorded both songs and went, “Huh- they’re both from the Turtles!”  So, I have a nice twin-spin setup for you.  Can you guess which song it’ll be?  BIG points to the winner of this competition.  Again, this will be a good litmus test to tell if Jeff is still reading these posts!

Okay- it’s been a long day and I can’t wait to kick back and relax to yet another Chris Moore acoustic cover song music video tomorrow.  I’m sure he’ll do Sunday proud.

“Just Once In My Life” (Righteous Brothers & Beach Boys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Sunday, Sunday, Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions here with me, Jim Fusco!

Onto tonight’s video.  Tonight, I bring you yet ANOTHER “new” band to the Laptop Sessions.  I know this song mostly because of the Beach Boys’ superb version on their popular album, “15 Big Ones”.  That album isn’t great and I really hate those synthesizers in this song, but the vocal power of Carl Wilson (along with the wonderfully strained sound of Brian’s voice on the bridge) make this a standout track.  Plus, it’s a great ending song to the album.  I LOVE the harmonies on the middle 8, too.  It seems like they channelled vocals from the early 60s on that section of the song- something you really don’t get on the rest of the album.  By that time, the Beach Boys’ voices had “manned-up” quite a bit.  But in that section of the song, you’d think they were all 20 again.

It’s funny that the Righteous Brothers aren’t even brothers.  But how many people really do have the last name “Righteous”?

You might notice that this video both looks and sounds a bit different than my others.  The audio sync is off and the quality isn’t great.  Just do me a favor: DO NOT upgrade to iMovie 2008.  It cripples the program and truly ruined this video for me.  It took me an hour just to figure out the technical aspect.  But, the sound is great and the audio is nice and loud.  That’s the one thing the new version of the program did right.  So, I hope you can suffer through the video quality and just LISTEN for this video, as I think it’s one of my better performances.

Enjoy and I’ll see you on Original Wednesday for the first post-election song here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!