Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions!
Tonight, I give you one of the Beach Boys’ greatest and most famous songs, “Surfer Girl”!
Of course, the Boys’ version has those great harmonies, but imagine this version as if Brian Wilson was the only one singing. Plus, it’s fun to sing the harmony parts while listening back to it.
I love the chords- those old-fashioned chords that rock music just doesn’t have anymore. It was fun to learn and Chris and I have been playing this for months.
Actually, I love playing this on Chris’ Fender electric, but I think it translates well on the nylon strings.
Hopefully I do this song justice because playing a huge hit like this always means there’s pretty big expectations. Enjoy and stay tuned as the “Laptop Session a day” in 2008 rolls on!
Here on the Laptop Sessions, I give you my favorite song of all time: “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” by the Byrds. Gene Clark, the writer of this song, wrote MANY great songs over his career, and you’ll be hearing a lot of them on the Laptop Sessions in the months to come. But, this song is just PERFECT to me, and here’s why:
It’s got everything I love in a song. It’s got a great guitar sound (courtesy of Roger (Jim) McGuinn), a cool riff, great words, chorus harmonies, and a killer jangly guitar solo. I love everything about this tune and hopefully I’ve done this song justice.
Of course, in order for me to give the song the respect it deserves, I recruited Chris Moore ( http://www.youtube.com/user/chrismooremusic ) to help me with harmonies and rhythm guitar.
So, I hope everyone enjoys this version. I’ll be playing one of my other favorite songs in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned!
Hello everyone- tonight’s session is a Moody Blues song that’s always been a favorite of mine. I’ll be the first to admit that most of the Moodies songs aren’t exactly “rockers”, but when they do come out with one, it’s AWESOME. “Story In Your Eyes”, “Ride My Seesaw”, and “I’m Just A Singer in a Rock’n’Roll Band” come to mind as great songs with a rock sound and some amazing lead guitar playing by Justin Hayward. I honestly believe that Justin Hayward is one of the most underrated rock guitarists out there. The man can absolutely shred on the guitar and he plays it perfectly every time- even in concert. Have you heard the beginning to “Question” on 12-string acoustic guitar? Even playing that half-speed on acoustic guitar is difficult. Hayward is the man, and that’s all there is to it.
The Moody Blues song I’ve chosen for tonight’s cover song music video, “It’s Up To You”, has a great guitar riff, classic Justin Hayward introspective lyrics, and just a great melody. “It’s Up To You” my favorite song off of the “Question of Balance” album. That album, to me, is a bit faster paced than any of the other “first seven” albums they did. But, I think the songs aren’t nearly as good (as a whole) as the songs on albums like “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” and “To Our Children’s Children’s Children”.
One thing about Justin Hayward’s lead guitar playing I love is his double or even triple-tracking of the lead guitar. It’s so unique. George Harrison used to do it with his famous slide guitar solos. But, Justin Hayward is a fan of more distortion on his guitar solos and riffs. So, it’s a different sound. Hayward triple-tracks the lead guitar for two reasons, in my opinion. First, he wants to make the part sound more powerful. You have to imagine that little thin high E string on a guitar. Now, strum it with a piece of plastic. It’s going to need a lot of power to cut through drums, bass, and a synthesizer. So, triple-tracking the lead guitar (that’s recording it three times) is a great way to make it stand out from the rest of the sounds in the band. Another reason why Hayward did it is the reason why I think it’s so cool: harmony! He would take the lead guitar part and then play it three times. Except, each time he’d play a different note of a chord. Played all together, you get a great sound that’s full and unique. I did that on some of my songs, too. For instance, on “Give and Take” from my album “What About Today?”, I did a three-part lead solo. Listen to that song online on my website at http://jimfusco.com.
I hoe you enjoy tonight’s Moody Blues cover song! Keep checking back for more music videos because we are determined not to miss a day in 2008! We’ll see how long it lasts, but let’s just say I’ve already got enough cover song videos for the next couple weeks!
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! We’re back again with a cover song video from the Traveling Wilburys- their most famous song, “Handle With Care”. When I was four years old, this song came out and it’s one of my first musical memories. Plus, it’s been one of my favorite songs for 20 years.
We’ve been playing this song live for years. It’s usually the full electric set, but we’ve done it live and acoustically here for the Laptop Sessions music blog. As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, the goal of the Laptop Sessions cover songs blog is twofold. First, we want to put an end to bad YouTube cover song videos forever. And second? We want to give a different take on our favorite songs. This track, though mostly acoustically based in the original recording, is still not the same without George Harrison’s amazing lead guitar part. But, we figured it would make the song sound different to only break out the acoustic guitars and the bongos for this cover song video.
One thing I love about this performance is the energy our band, Masters of the Universe (or MoU), puts into “Handle With Care”. From the video, you can tell that we’re all having a good time singing one of our favorite Traveling Wilburys songs. The harmonies, though not perfect (or complete, without band member Becky), are still pretty good. And sure, the bongos are a bit louder than we would’ve liked. But again, this was a fun acoustic live performance. I think that having more energy in a video recording is even better than getting it note-perfect. That’s one of the reasons why Masters of the Universe earned a nomination for Best Album of the Year by the New Haven Advocate in 2006. We made an album that consisted mostly of our live set of original songs. The songs sound great, but if we recorded everything separately, it probably would’ve come out much cleaner. But, the thing that made MoU’s album stand out from the rest was the energy we had. The songs would start out slowly and gradually get faster as it went on. You can tell that the band is having a good time when something like that happens. Plenty of people can play music in a technically correct manner. But, it’s something special when you’ve got a band firing on all cylinders, playing music together in a circle. You can really feel the energy in that album.
I know this has been requested before, so I hope you enjoy tonight’s Traveling Wilburys cover song! It’s my tribute to both George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and you know I’ll be doing more songs from George, Roy, and the Wilburys in the weeks to come!
