Welcome to a special Tuesday edition of The Laptop Sessions. This song is so popular among FMP, we’re giving you THREE editions of it! We’re calling it “So You Say You Lost Your Tuesday”.
Ok, that’s not fully true. Turns out Jim & I had recorded this song on video, and rather than one of us getting to post it, we decided to ask Chris if he’d join in and all of us post.
This is a short and great song from the awesome Gene Clark. While the recorded version sounds somewhat different, this version is based off of his acoustic sessions’ recordings.
I wanted to cover this song because I always liked the version Jim did on his album “That’s all…”, which was released in 2003. Gene Clark has been one of my favorites since Jim introduced me to him and Byrds’ music.
We hope you enjoy the hat trick!
Look for our next edition of “Original Wednesday” as Jim plays a song from my album Greenlight!
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!
Happy Friday and happy 4th to everyone! I hope today finds you ready to celebrate and watch some fireworks, eat some hamburgers and hot dogs, and just relax and enjoy the long weekend. I’m happy to see that you have selected guitarbucketlist.com as a place to visit today, and we thank you for that.
And no, I don’t have a cheesy patriotic song to bring you today, but I do have a cool cover song video to show you today. For the second time, I am covering a song by The Byrds called “All The Things” from their untitled album. I kid you not, that’s the name that is known by – (Untitled). It is a collection of live and studio tracks, and this is one of the studio tracks.
I first heard this song on a WCJM radio show called “Song for the New Millenium” which was a countdown style show that this song won. It really is a good tune and I think it has a good message for the holiday today.
Again, enjoy your holiday and come back tomorrow for another session by Jim Fusco. By the way, if you haven’t watched his original song from Wednesday, do so. It really is something else!
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!
Welcome to your Monday, Monday edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!
If you take a look at the last few posts, you’ll notice all the work I’ve been doing over the past 24 hours. I’ve managed to mix, master, and put online three concerts worth of material. The last one has 35 songs! Then, I finally posted my photos from our TNA Wrestling show back in May. Finally, I went through and backed-up literally 100 gb of data that was clogging up my laptop’s harddrive. I put all of it on DVDs, which meant that I needed to complete everything before I backed it up and deleted it from my hard drive.
This is the first time in about nine months that the coffee table is clear of five spindles of DVDs.
Today, I bring you a song that Chris, Becky, and I have been playing since the beginning. Back in late high school, I fell in love with the music of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman. I mean, I was already a fan of the Byrds, but we had recentely gotten this album called “McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman”. It was recorded in the mid-seventies, long after the original Byrds broke up and reformed.
A few tracks on this album, including the first track (which Jeff did as a Laptop Session- Click HERE to view it!) meant a lot to me at the time. I was with my first girlfriend (and so proud that I had a CD player in the car- my 1990 Camaro) and the way we got together was a little weird. We kinda had a thing going a year or so earlier, but then something happened to make us not talk for a long time. I’m being vague not because I want to be, but because I honestly don’t remember. That’s why I wrote in a journal every single day, I guess. I’ll have to go back and read up on it. Anyway, when we finally made it happen, I just thought the song “Long Long Time” was perfect for it. I hope you’ll listen closely to the words in Jeff’s version and you’ll see what I mean.
“Surrender To Me” is a great song for a couple of reasons- mostly because of McGuinn’s incredible guitar work. I actually based our live version half on the album version and half on the acoustic demo with Hillman and McGuinn. Having Chris there to play the rhythm guitar (back when we first started playing live, he had a ton of trouble doing harmony parts while playing), Becky singing with me, and me playing a guitar solo I could actually handle, this was a prime choice. I just wish more people had heard of it. But, that’s okay- most people probably think it’s an original, which is major points for me!
Actually, this song is a cover itself. Neither McGuinn, Clark, or Hillman wrote this tune. But I still think it’s a great one and a standout track on the album. Coming up on my next Session starts my suite of videos recorded in the great outdoors. These videos are part of what the Laptop Sessions is all about, coupled with those Jeff did while on vacation- they’re LAPTOP Sessions! We can record them anywhere and bring them to you from whereever you may be. Enjoy today’s Session and make sure to come back tomorrow for Chris’ video, Wednesday for Jeff’s Original Wednesday (which I hope he comes through and plays us his new song), and to download all the new concerts!
Hello and welcome to yet another all-new edition of everyone’s favorite acoustic cover song music blog! Today, I’m bringing you a song taken from Jim’s list of songs to record. He’s noticed that I’ve been having a hard time recently finding songs from new artists to cover — most of the songs I want (and I have quite the list) are either from artists I’ve recently covered or have difficult singing parts that I need more practice with. So, he suggested I do Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” I have always loved this song, and my passion for it was renewed when I picked up a copy of Gene Clark’s album Firebyrd. The album includes a cover song version of this song that I love every bit as much as the original. So, in a way, this is the perfect track to choose for a Laptop Session — a song by a new artist that was once covered by an artist whose material we have often covered on this video blog. If that made sense to you, then you deserve extra points!…
Regular fans of the Sessions may notice that I’m standing up tonight instead of sitting, as I have been for many of my recent video blog entries. Well, the reason is simple — even though this is not an upbeat song, I felt that I just wasn’t doing well with it while sitting. I’m kind of like Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in that way. In the film, Sundance (played by Redford) is asked to shoot a target in order to prove how good a shot he is. The man insists that he not draw from his holster; rather, he should simply take aim and shoot. He does so and misses. The man grins disappointedly and starts to walk away. Then, Sundance puts the gun back in his holster, draws, and rapidly shoots the rather small target repeatedly.
When the man looks at him, awe-struck, Sundance’s response is something like, “I’m better when I’m moving.”
While recording acoustic cover songs is obviously not anything like firing a weapon, I do often think about this comparison when I’m playing. When I’m on my feet, I tend to take what I’m playing more seriously and I truly feel more comfortable than if I were to sit and play.
Well, now that you have more information about my style of playing acoustic guitar music than you could ever have hoped for or desired to know, I’ll leave you with the actual session. I kind of wore myself down on this one, playing so many takes that, although it is technically solid, I feel that it lost some of the urgency of the earlier takes. Of course, it didn’t help that my computer lost battery power and shut down in the middle of my most perfect take. If only it had held out for two more minutes, I would have been done a half hour earlier than I was!
Okay, without further ado, here’s my version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” Don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for an all-new and excellent session from Jeff!
