“It Ain’t Me Babe” (Turtles & Bob Dylan Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Hey hey, everyone!  Time for another Laptop Session acoustic cover song music video from yours truly, Jim Fusco!

Tonight, I bring you a song that I’ve known for a very long time- “It Ain’t Me Babe” by the Turtles.  Of course, it took until Chris became interested in Bob Dylan (sometime around 2000) for me to realize that he actually wrote this song.  So, why did I come back to it tonight?

Well, I love the Turtles version- it’s a great rock song that has slow parts on the verses and faster rockin’ parts on the choruses.  Plus, it’s short and just has so much energy packed into it’s two minutes.

But, I also thought of covering it because I was just listening to “The Bob Dylan Show”, which is a radio show on our own WCJM Radio.  This really isn’t a great show in terms of execution- Chris and I did it on a whim and Chris just wasn’t on his “A-game” when it came to on-air chatter.  For the most part, the show seems forced and that’s probably why I kept it offline and in the archives since the summer of 2001 when it was recorded.

Actually, an interesting note- Chris talks about looking forward to when Dylan’s new album at the time, “Love and Theft”, would be released- he says he can’t wait for September 11th to get here.  Little did we all know…

But, I digress.

The show actually redeems itself because of the music (which is surprising when talking about a show with all Bob Dylan music).  The covers of his songs from Manfred Mann (“The Mighty Quinn”) and George Harrison (“I’d Have You Anytime” and the co-written “If Not For You”) are great additions.  I actually listened to the show twice this week (putting up with the really poor dialogue- I’ve had better conversations with myself!) because I wanted to hear those great cover versions of Dylan’s songs again from the likes of Eric Clapton (“Born In Time”), Jimi Hendrix (“All Along the Watchtower”) and, of course, the Byrds.

So, after you’re done watching my acoustic cover song music video here today, you should head on over to WCJM Internet Radio and listen to “The Bob Dylan Show” (or any other show there) absolutely free!  There’s nothing to sign up for or anything like that.  Just click “Play” and start listening.  Click HERE to visit the “Jammin’ With Jim Show” page and click on “The Bob Dylan Show”.

I hope you enjoy both forms of entertainment this Tuesday.  I’m very excited for the next few days, as they’re starting to frame our new home and all employees at work were given a surprise free “Appreciation Day” off, so I get to choose any day in the next two weeks and just not go to work!  I love my job. 🙂

Have a great one, and to echo Chris’ sentiment yesterday- please make sure to come back for another great acoustic rock cover song music video from our very own Jeff Copperthite on his “Thumpin’ Thursday” post!  See you next week.

Thumpin’ Thursday will turn into Super Saturday this week only!

By Jeff:

Thank you for visiting the site today!  Just wanted to let you know that, despite my best efforts, I do not have a new video to debut today.

I’ll tell you what the plan was.  I had a couple of videos that I recorded a while ago that I just wasn’t happy about posting, so I thought today would be a great day to post one of those as sort of a “here’s what I held back, and perhaps you can see why I did” videos.

However, it did not dawn on me that those 3 videos are stored on my old laptop.

The same one that hasn’t worked in 4 months.

Oops.

So despite this hiccup, I will be posting a new video on Saturday!  Please do come back for the latest in our series!

What Love Has Joined Together: A Playlist in Honor of Jim’s Wedding

By Chris Moore:

As a special treat for all you Fusco-Moore music blog faithfuls, this post is in honor of Laptop Sessions founder Jim Fusco’s wedding to Becky Daly over the weekend.  That’s right; as of July 25th, 2009, Jim is no longer a single man.

Sorry, ladies…

As part of my wedding gift to them, I sifted through the 10,000 plus songs on my iTunes and created a playlist to commemorate their marriage.  As you skim through the bands and titles below, you’ll find that the theme is pretty obvious — two people getting together in a relationship (1, 2), getting married (5, 7, 11), and the new life that follows (8, 10, 12, 14).  Of course, there’s some mention of Saturday night (4) and the bonus tracks are all about the honeymoon — can you guess where that’s going to be taking place?

I hope you enjoy the playlist rundown, and I encourage you to leave comments for the newlyweds here on this post!

TRACK LISTING:

1 )  “Got to Get You Into My Life” – The Beatles
2 )  “Better Together” – Jack Johnson
3 )  “Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do” – Huey Lewis & The News
4 )  “Almost Saturday Night” – Gene Clark & Carla Olson
5 )  “Chapel of Love” – The Beach Boys
6 )  “I’ll Always Love You (Day After Day)” – Dean Martin
7 )  “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck” – Elvis Presley
8 )  “What Love Has Joined Together” – The Temptations
9 )  “Really Love You” – Paul McCartney
10) “Ideal Woman” – William Shatner
11) “Wedding Song” – Bob Dylan
12) “A New Life For Us” – The Now People
13) “Satisfied” – Ringo Starr
14) “Believe In Life” – Eric Clapton
15) “This is Love” – George Harrison
16) “One True Vine” – Wilco

BONUS TRACKS:

17) “The Honeymoon Song” – The Beatles
18) “The Hula Hula Boys” – Warren Zevon
19) “Rocking Chair in Hawaii” – George Harrison
20) “Rock-A-Hula Baby” – Elvis Presley
21) “Hawaii” – The Beach Boys

“Dancing in the Moonlight” (King’s Harvest Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Well, well, he’s back, folks!

Sorry about last week, everyone- I had an incredibly painful medical experience that put me on the shelf for a couple of days.  Thankfully, it’s “passed” now (ha, ha) and I can get on with my life.

Tonight is a weird night for me.  It’s the first night of about only ten or so nights of my life that I plan on spending alone.  Obviously, there’s always the unexpected, but tonight really is a rare night in my life.  You see, I share my condo with no one right now and it’s still a couple weeks before I get married to the person I’ve wanted to marry for about a third of my young life now.  Things just kind of worked out this way, I guess (the whole living situation), as the original idea was to have my roommates move out early so Becky could move in her stuff at a slower pace.

However, turns out that we bought a new house (that’s just a piece of land at this point) and didn’t end up needing that extra time.  So, I find myself alone on this Tuesday night.  Actually, I couldn’t be happier- my brother Mike came over for a nice shrimp fra diavolo dinner and I’ve been doing odds and ends on the computer all night.  I’m going to cherish this time alone- no need to worry about how loud the TV is at night, when I go to bed, or whether or not I have to alert anyone that I won’t be home for dinner.  It’s a freedom that only comes when you don’t live with your significant other before getting married.

It also makes me realize how much I love my condo and how big it is!  I’m not moving out of the condo because anything’s wrong with it- quite the contrary.  I love this place and in two short years, I’ve really made it my own.  But, it’s that feeling I have that I want a place that’s truly mine, and a condo just doesn’t fit that bill for me right now.  It’ll be a sad day when I leave this place, but it’ll close a chapter that truly needed to be closed, as I clearly had some bad vibes with my prior arrangement and I’m glad that’s over with.  Time to be movin’ on.

Speaking of moving on, let’s get to tonight’s post!

Tonight, I bring you another one hit wonder band in King’s Harvest, the group that performed “Dancing in the Moonlight”, a song everybody knows, but no one knows who did it.  Actually, listening to the studio version, I noticed how good the vocal harmony parts were on the chorus.  It was then slightly less of a surprise to me that this group consisted of Beach Boys touring band mainstays Ron Altbach and Billy Hinsche.  Turns out that the Beach Boys actually got King’s Harvest signed to a record deal.  They made one record that didn’t go anywhere and broke up after that.  Members of this group even played with Dennis Wilson on the “Pacific Ocean Blue” album and were part of Mike Love’s short-lived band, Celebration.

This is one of those tunes I heard on the radio in the store one time and thought, “Yes, another Laptop Session awaits!”  It’s pretty easy to play- first fret capo and play Em, A, D, and Bm.  That’s it.  The whole song.  Verse.  Chorus.  Everything.

Of course, tonight, I’d be pretty stupid to dance in the moonlight, as it’s pouring outside.  We’re in the middle of yet another thunderstorm.  And after the heat I’ve suffered through at work the past couple of days, I’ll be glad for a break in the weather.

Have a great night tonight, wherever you are.  Hopefully there’s some moonlight for you!  I’ll be back tomorrow with an Original Wednesday song to make up for my lack of post last week.  See you very soon!