“Congratulations” (The Traveling Wilburys cover)

By Jim Fusco: Well, it’s my day again already, huh? 🙂

Seems we’ve bee doing so much promotion between the friend requests, SEO work, and such that it really is getting harder and harder to keep on the “every third day” schedule. And now, we have a Members-Only section on the blog, which will have exclusive, not-on-YouTube, videos. So, that’s even more to do!

I’m hoping with the long weekend that I can record a bunch of Sessions and then focus on promoting what we already have for awhile.

Now, getting on to today’s Laptop Session:

“Congratulations” is a Traveling Wilburys song that my brother Mike and I would always kinda make fun of when we were younger. I mean, the album came out when I was four and my family loved it, so we always listened to it. Plus, when you’re a little kid, Bob Dylan’s incredibly raspy voice is pretty funny.

But, years later, after my 1000th listen, I began to realize that this really is a good song. I think the whole band contributed and the actual tune of the song (stripped of Dylan’s raspiness or not) is great.

The song is sad and emotional, which is probably why they chose Dylan to sing it in the first place, but I thought I would give it a more “pure” treatment.

This was done in one take, so you know I was dead-on. Jeff, Chris, and I are doing a lot more of that lately- partially because of time constraints, but partially because we’re just getting so good at doing this. My skills have been increasing steadily with my view count and subscriber numbers, which are nearing 200 now!

I will meet my goal of 55,000 views by the end of the month and now the only question is: how many more will I get? The Laptop Sessions site is poised for a BOOM in popularity, so stay tuned, as you may have already stumbled upon the Next Big Thing in music!

More Laptop Sessions covers

“Black” (Pearl Jam Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening! Welcome to your Friday installment of The Laptop Sessions. I hope you are ready to celebrate a three-day weekend, and plan on seeing family, friends, and perhaps enjoy a nice cookout or two in the process.

Meanwhile, I get to bring to you one of my favorite songs. It’s Pearl Jam tonight with a song from their first album Ten. Track #5 is Black from that album and that is the song I bring to you tonight.

It has a great background electric guitar and Eddie Vedder sings a wonderful vocal melody in the entire song. Vedder is known to go in between styles back and forth and this song showcases that talent of his. From the soft verses to the emotional outro of the song, I attempt to emulate what Eddie can do. I think I do a good job, but then again i’m no Eddie Vedder. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Also, this song translates wonderfully to acoustic guitar, and I substitute a minor change in the guitar part at the end of the song instead of the vocal “do do doo doo do do dooo” that the recording has. And as with all songs that fade out, I picked the chord that sounded best to end on and went with that.

I want to thank all of you for visiting, commenting, rating, and subscribing. This is among the sessions I am most proud of.

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!

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!

More Laptop Sessions covers

“For Real” (Indie Music by Songwriter Jim Fusco)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to yet another “Original Wednesday” Session here with me, Jim Fusco!

This one kinda crept up on me today, and for the second time, Chris and I tried to do “The Game” off of my band MoU’s new album, “Homestead’s Revenge”. But, again, my voice wouldn’t hold out—for my own song! It’s been like this for about a month now and I don’t know how to make it better.

So, I reached way back into Jim Fusco lore to get this song off of my album, “Formula” from early 2003. You can listen to the entire album and purchase it here: http://jimfusco.com/albums/formula.html  I tell ya, it sure seems like a lot longer ago than that- a lot has happened in only five years. I expect a whole lot more is coming in the next five years, as well.

I always remember my father pointing out that this was a good song- something about it caught his ear and I took note of his reaction.

I changed one line just for curiosity’s sake. If you’re an official Jim Fusco fan (no, not you Jeff, Chris, or Becky), then you’ll know which one. and if someone other than those three asks me, I will be happy to answer why I changed it for this version.

From an otherwise “okay” album that I don’t think has worn too well over five years, this song has always been a standout track for me, and I hope you agree.

Make sure to stay tuned as the Session a Day rolls on here in 2008!

Related posts

“These Apples” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to another edition of The Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

Of course, The Laptop Sessions started partially because I loved Ed Robertson’s “Bathroom Sessions” so much. He’s so great on the guitar, it makes me feel very inferior.

But, I still love his music and I love to play it! This song, “These Apples”, is infectious and I was so happy I finally got a chance to play it.

Next week, we’ll be doing “Title Track Week”, but this week is anything-goes! Check out the archive for more great Sessions from Chris and check out the Blog at https://guitarbucketlist.com for Jeff’s most recent video, as well!

More Laptop Sessions covers