Around Christmas Day, Jim Fusco (a musician, singer, and songwriter who’s recorded over 220 cover song music videos on YouTube) reached 800,000 total views on his videos! Jim began posting videos in late 2007 and is now 80% towards his goal of a million total views. Jim has recorded these cover song music videos in his home studio and prides himself on doing songs in the original key. But, his solo acoustic renditions give songs new life and a fresh perspective. Since the start of the Laptop Sessions, Jim Fusco’s goal has been to put an end to bad YouTube cover videos forever!
Jim’s cover song music videos have been featured in many Top 10 Cover Songs lists and at this point, he pretty much holds the title of most cover song music videos ever recorded by one artist! Join Jim Fusco on his quest to rule the world of cover songs both on https://guitarbucketlist.com and http://youtube.com on a weekly basis!
Hello all! Here’s another song for the Laptop Sessions! This one is by request for an early Beach Boys tune called “Farmer’s Daughter”. It’s a pretty cute little song (only four chords!) made exponentially harder because of the fact that it’s ALL sung in falsetto! But, as Brian Wilson was about when he recorded this, I’m in my early 20s, so I think I hit the notes! I, for one, love the songs from the very early Beach Boys albums. It was definitely a different time. It was before the Beatles made it big in America and there was an innocence to the music. Of course, that’s why I love the music I love- I try not to listen to too many depressing songs. For instance, I was starting to get in to Elliot Smith’s music. But, as anyone who has heard of Elliot Smith knows, his songs are almost always dark and with an overtone of suicidal thoughts. Elliot was a great musician and songwriter. But, I could never become a huge fan because of the songs’ subject matter. Listing to music has always been a source of joy for me, so I’ve decided to stay in my happy pre-Vietnam music world, smiling all the way. 🙂
Although, I will admit, “Farmer’s Daughter” is a bit too “vanilla”, even for me. But, Brian Wilson sings it so sweetly and it works. In fact, many of the songs from their early albums are a bit embarrassing to listen to now. Remember “Chug a Lug”? Probably not- it’s not that memorable. But, basically, it’s about drinking beer…root beer! I’ve played that song for people over the years and it’s embarrassing every time I do. But for some reason, I really like that song. It’s just a song a bunch of teenage friends, brothers, and cousins wrote and sang together for fun. And their voices are so “cute” that you can’t help but smile while singing.
Speaking of SMiLE, I wonder if these early songs gave Brian Wilson some influence over his most notable work. He wanted SMiLE to be something fun- something that was brilliant, but also made you not take the music so seriously. He always seemed stuck in a child-like state. I wonder if he looked back on these early songs and thought, “Yeah, I’d like to get back to that fun again. How do I do that while still sounding cool, complex, and relevant?”
One other album I love so much (which you’ll see plenty of videos from here on the music blog) is the Beach Boys Christmas Album from 1964. It’s one of my absolute favorite albums of all time. Why? Well, it fits all the criteria I listed above! It’s great music with the wonderful innocence and happiness of Christmas built right in. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face (musically) than their Christmas songs.
I hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for many more updates to the Laptop Sessions Acoustic Cover Songs Music Video Blog in the coming days.
Welcome to your wonderful Monday edition of The Laptop Sessions!
Wait, did I use the words “wonderful” and “Monday” in the same sentence? Why, yes I did!
I woke up this morning to the awesome news of there being a 90 minute delay to the start of my school day. Always good news to wake up too. Then, all I had to do today was finish one lesson I started Thursday, and give a quiz to two classes (one of which was very adamant in not taking the quiz today, despite the multiple times I mentioned to them Thursday that the quiz would take place on the next school day).
Well, despite that, I close out today with a great new band to add to our session library. It’s a band that has been around for almost 20 years now. The band is Oasis, and today’s song is possibly their most popular song called “Wonderwall”.
Here’s a song that i’ve known how to play for some time. One thing that always bugged me is a person I used to know (was a boyfriend of a family member) who also played a cover of this song, but repeated the verse chords throughout the whole song, and couldn’t realize the fact he was doing it wrong! Ugh, it was hard sitting through that.
So i’m glad I can provide you with a solid version of the song tonight. It’s one of my better videos, despite my forgetting the 4th and 5th words of the final chorus. Oops.
But regardless, it’s here for you and I hope you enjoy it. I’ll be back for your holiday edition of The Laptop Sessions (my first one of the year ironically) on Thursday. Each of us has 3 videos to go for the year!
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!
Hello everyone and welcome to another new edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco! I’m excited to bring you this new acoustic cover song music video tonight from a band I absolutely loved growing up.
You see, in my early years, CDs were just becoming popular. My father, being the music fan he is, was constantly buying music on CDs so he could have a pristine digital copy. Fortunately for me, I got to hear many “Best Of” albums when he got them. So, even though he probably had a couple Guess Who vinyl LPs, listening to these old hits on CD was like hearing them again for the first time. So, as a kid, I was really into bands like the Monkees, the Moody Blues, and The Guess Who- and my love for them lives on today!
I’ve wanted to play the Guess Who song “Laughing” for quite a while now. But, I could never really figure out the intricate opening section. The “chords” are actually just augmented versions of one chord (based around an “A” chord). So even though they all sound like different chords, it’s just a matter of moving one finger up or down one fret! That’s pretty easy to play, but not so easy to figure out. Songs like this, to me, raise a flag. Songs that have these funny, intricate chord progressions (like making interesting variations on one chord) are almost always done like this: the guitar part came first and the rest of the song came later. That is, Burton Cummings of the Guess Who was probably sitting down with his guitar, playing that opening section. From there, he added those variations and all of a sudden, a song came to him! That’s in contrast to the other form of songwriting (which I’ve been doing, but takes much longer to compile a full list of songs) where a tune pops into your head. Then, you head on over to your guitar or piano to figure out the chords that go to it.
Either way of writing a song is fine by me (though my brother Mike is very much a purist for the “pop into your head” method), and I think songs like “Laughing” prove that fooling around with a couple of chords on the guitar can result in a big hit song.
The vocals are also great on “Laughing”. That goes for both the soulful lead and the good backing vocals. This song is pretty dynamic, too- it has three distinct tempos. Plus, I think it’s the only song I’ve ever heard with in-tune laughing!
So, Christmastime is upon us. Personally, I had an incredibly busy Thanksgiving weekend. Between our two Thanksgiving get-togethers, the Jets game/TNA Wrestling night, midnight shopping at the outlets and other stores, another family get-together and sleepover Friday, a party and bar-hopping for my brother in law’s birthday on Saturday, I was POOPED by Sunday! We finally got to put all the Christmas stuff up in the house and I must say, it looks pretty great. I’m so excited for this Christmas- it promises to be (gift-wise, at least) one of the best yet. I’m holding out hope for getting a couple of different gifts. I’ll be posting on December 16th and the 30th, so I’ll be able to share the rundown of all my Christmas presents then!
I hope you enjoy tonight’s music video post of “Laughing” by the Guess Who. If you know it, then you know it’s a classic tune. If you don’t know it yet, then I think you’ll really dig it! Have fun shopping and I’d love to hear from everyone how their Christmas season is going so far! See you in a couple weeks for an all-new acoustic cover song music video!
