“Tonight I’ll Be Stayin’ Here With You” (Bob Dylan Covers – Triple Threat Tuesday!!)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to not only another Laptop Session music video, but also a special treat from the three songwriters who bring you an acoustic cover a day EVERY day in 2008…

This is a little something we like to call Triple Threat Tuesday. What this means is today you will receive not one, not two, not four, but THREE video blog entries. Each video will be a cover version of Bob Dylan’s 1969 song “Tonight I’ll Be Stayin’ Here With You.” It’s such a great track that we couldn’t agree on just one person to record an acoustic cover of it… so all three of us will take a stab at it! This song originally appeared on the first fully country-rock Dylan album, appropriately titled Nashville Skyline. This album is filled with very simple, upbeat, and brief (under 3 minutes each) songs, not to mention they’re all sung in his “Lay, Lady, Lay” voice and Johnny Cash himself makes a special guest appearance on the opening track. I’ve heard better duets, but there are few things better than hearing two giants like Cash and Dylan harmonize (however loosely) on such a great song as “Girl from the North Country.” Dylan actually originally released that song on his 1962 acoustic album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Personally, my favorite version of this song is Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue version, recorded in 1975 and released in the Bootleg series. He changes the words around and, although they’re a bit more blunt than the original, I love them and think they work well for this acoustic cover rendition. But that’s the beauty of cover songs — they give songwriters like us endless opportunities to perfect our own skills and to end some of our own style to the track. For instance, I can bet that Jim’s version will be faithful to the original, as he loves that album. He could have bet money that I would go for the obscure live lyrics, since I love Bob Dylan and have probably heard more live versions of this song than the average person should.

As Jim explained yesterday, I must follow up — it’s great to be back online. This music blog has been a lot of work for us and I can’t imagine losing the session – a – day promise this far into the game! We’re building more and more each day, and now that I’m on summer break from teaching, I’ll be able to devote all my attention toward my creative pursuits.

See you next session!


Jeff’s version is no longer on YouTube, but here’s…

Jim’s version: Recorded the night of, using my new video filters and amazing USB microphone- just listen to the audio quality of this acoustic cover song!



More Laptop Sessions covers

“Fallen Horses” (Smash Mouth Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

All right! We’re back! After an absence that seemed longer than it actually was, guitarbucketlist.com is back up and running. In the time the site was down, I was scheduled to post a video this past Sunday, and I did. The only way you’d have already seen it is if you were on Youtube and decided to search for Smash Mouth.

Well, I uploaded another cover from that band. From the same album “Astro Lounge” that I drew from earlier, I bring you “Fallen Horses”, a great song you may have never heard of. The original song has a really cool groove to it, and a great melody line that the guitar plays. I play it in the opening of the song, and then play the regular guitar part the rest of the way.

I already had received one positive comment on Youtube for this song, so I’ll let that speak for itself. I hope you enjoy this upload. I’m sure you’ll enjoy Chris’ sessions three times as much as you normally would…

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

“Long Black Veil” (The Band / Johnny Cash Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Welcome to another video blog in the Laptop Sessions music video series! Today, I bring you a cover song that was written in the 1950s and was covered on two separate occasions by two of my favorite artists — Johnny Cash and the Band. Cash recorded it most famously on his Folsom Prison concert and the Band included it on their 1968 album Music from Big Pink. Both are great albums, and this is a fun song. I hope you like it…

See you next session!



More Laptop Sessions covers

“Worlds Apart” (Original Wednesday Song by Co-Songwriter Jim Fusco)

By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to Original Wednesday here at the Laptop Sessions! It only comes but once every three weeks for me, so you know I’m going to make it a good one.

Tonight, I bring you an original song I wrote with the help of my fellow MoU (at http://jimfusco.com/albums.html ) bandmates for our latest album, “Homestead’s Revenge”. The album is GREAT, and you can listen to the whole thing for free on our website.

This song is track two off the album and follows a very interesting pattern. You might notice that the verse never comes back after the first round. It just has the chorus and middle instrumental parts play again and again. You almost don’t even notice it only has that one full verse until you stop and think about it.

I recorded this video last night. That is, I recorded this video BEFORE I made my huge discoveries pertaining to my original and cover songs videos.

First, I found a great program called iGlasses that allows me to manually control the iSight camera in my Macbook. It’s about time- I can’t stand when the camera just decides, “You know what, why don’t I just make it a lot darker for no reason?” Now, I’ll be able to control the exposure and brightness (plus white balance and color controls) BEFORE I record the video. This will save me time and, as we video professionals know, will make the end-result a lot nicer looking. It’s much more difficult to fix something in post-production than it is to do it right the first time around.

Second, I finally got my ZOOM H2 to record at the same time my iSight camera does!! You see, iMovie HD doesn’t give you the option to record using a different audio source. It just says “Record with iSight”.

Well, I went out to the main Apple preferences, switched the input in there, and presto- crystal clear sound without that incessantly loud fan noise that comes from the laptop.

But again, this was all learned AFTER I recorded the videos you’ll see from me for about the next month. BUT, at least we know great looking AND sounding video for me is on the horizon.

And the best part? I don’t have to do any extra work! 🙂

Thanks for watching and keep spreading the word about our great acoustic cover songs and original music!

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