“(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” (Otis Redding Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Welcome to my second installment for Number One’s Week here at https://guitarbucketlist.com ! I’m proud to bring you an artist that I haven’t covered before — Otis Redding. This is truly a classic song that deserved to be a true #1 — “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” It’s such a simple song with really basic chords and fairly basic lyrics, but there’s just so much emotion in them. I could never duplicate the sound that Redding put into his studio recording (especially considering that he used a piano instead of an acoustic guitar…), but I really enjoyed recording this session. It was probably the most fun I’ve had recording in weeks; I spent about ten minutes playing along to the real version, and then I hit record and finished in a couple takes.

Once again, I hope you enjoy it. There’s a special “first” for me at the end of the video; regular viewers of the Laptop Sessions will pick up on it…

On a side note, speaking of simple but great music, I’ve been listening to the new Mudcrutch album non-stop since Tuesday, and I’m enjoying it a little more each time. It’s so cool to see not only Tom Petty, but also Benmont Tench and Tom Leadon with lead vocals on a few tracks. As a big Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers fan, it’s also cool to have a Campbell/Petty collaboration — it only takes one listen to “Bootleg Flyer” to figure out who wrote that one! My review will be coming soon, but I just wanted to spread the good news — there is good new music out there! (You just need to wait patiently and watch closely for it…)

Once again, thanks for watching — I hope you’ll comment and/or rate this video. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for an all-new session from Jeff!

See you next session!


“If You Leave Me Now” (Chicago Cover)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to the start of “#1 Week”, where Chris Moore, Jeff Copperthite, and I are playing only songs that topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts, except for Original Wednesday, of course. But, I hope that the song I play on Original Wednesday will be a contender for a #1 week in the future! 🙂

Tonight, I bring you a song that I just can’t get enough of. It’s Chicago’s first #1 hit and was written by the great Peter Cetera.

It’s a slow song, but has a great tune and some great chords. The only problem with the song is that it marked the beginning of Chicago’s “power ballad” phase. It was fruitful for them, yes, but it was also the end of their highly creative rock-n-roll style.

This is one of my favorite performances and I hope it ends up being even more popular than my first Chicago video, “Wishing You Were Here” ( Wishing You Were Here cover ).

NOTE: In 2020, I remastered the original video (which was very dark- almost couldn’t see anything at all!) and re-uploaded it to YouTube, as you’ll see below.  I hope it breathes new life into the video!