Tag Archives: Roy Orbison Songs

“You Got It” (Roy Orbison Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, who doesn’t know this song? 🙂

This is one of my favorite songs, and has been since it came out when I was just a little boy- slowly becoming a very “long” time ago. Also, “You Got It” stands as one of the great “comeback” songs of all time. Roy Orbison’s career really was over for many, many years due to some sad circumstances, and this song (which, by the way, I’m happy to say he wrote- with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne) brought him back into the limelight. Of course, he’s stay in that light with the success of the Traveling Wilburys right up until his unfortunate passing.

I wasn’t really planning on doing this song for one of my Laptop Sessions cover music videos, but I thought of it one night before a video recording session and decided to give it a whirl. My voice, for some reason, still hasn’t come back completely. I mean, it sounds exactly the same all the time, but at certain times when changing notes, I get a little Justin Hayward-esque “squeak”. I like it in Hayward’s voice, but I don’t like it in my voice, which I’ve always thought of as kinda pure and simple. So, it took a bit of adjusting to make sure my voice didn’t do that squeaky thing. It stinks because I don’t know why it started or how to make it go away. Any home remedies, anyone? I’d be glad to read them.

So, while you sit back and listen to this acoustic cover song from me, Jim Fusco, of this great late-eighties tune from Roy Orbison, I hope you’ll remember Roy’s legacy and that his voice never faltered, right up to the end.

I’ve been very excited about the Laptop Sessions as a whole these past couple of days and the cover video Session-a-day rolls on to the halfway-point in just a couple weeks!

“Congratulations” (The Traveling Wilburys cover)

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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!

“Handle With Care” (Traveling Wilburys Cover)

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! We’re back again with a cover song video from the Traveling Wilburys- their most famous song,  “Handle With Care”. When I was four years old, this song came out and it’s one of my first musical memories. Plus, it’s been one of my favorite songs for 20 years.

We’ve been playing this song live for years. It’s usually the full electric set, but we’ve done it live and acoustically here for the Laptop Sessions music blog.  As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, the goal of the Laptop Sessions cover songs blog is twofold.  First, we want to put an end to bad YouTube cover song videos forever.  And second?  We want to give a different take on our favorite songs.  This track, though mostly acoustically based in the original recording, is still not the same without George Harrison’s amazing lead guitar part.  But, we figured it would make the song sound different to only break out the acoustic guitars and the bongos for this cover song video.

One thing I love about this performance is the energy our band, Masters of the Universe (or MoU), puts into “Handle With Care”.  From the video, you can tell that we’re all having a good time singing one of our favorite Traveling Wilburys songs.  The harmonies, though not perfect (or complete, without band member Becky), are still pretty good.  And sure, the bongos are a bit louder than we would’ve liked.  But again, this was a fun acoustic live performance.  I think that having more energy in a video recording is even better than getting it note-perfect.  That’s one of the reasons why Masters of the Universe earned a nomination for Best Album of the Year by the New Haven Advocate in 2006.  We made an album that consisted mostly of our live set of original songs.  The songs sound great, but if we recorded everything separately, it probably would’ve come out much cleaner.  But, the thing that made MoU’s album stand out from the rest was the energy we had.  The songs would start out slowly and gradually get faster as it went on.  You can tell that the band is having a good time when something like that happens.  Plenty of people can play music in a technically correct manner.  But, it’s something special when you’ve got a band firing on all cylinders, playing music together in a circle.  You can really feel the energy in that album.

I know this has been requested before, so I hope you enjoy tonight’s Traveling Wilburys cover song! It’s my tribute to both George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and you know I’ll be doing more songs from George, Roy, and the Wilburys in the weeks to come!

To hear MoU’s original music, visit http://jimfusco.com/albums.html. To hear my original music, visit http://jimfusco.com.

“If You Belonged To Me” (Traveling Wilburys Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Part 2 of this four part Laptop Sessions extravaganza comes to you with a song from the Traveling Wilburys, one of my favorite bands of all time.

I grew up listening to their music and find myself going back to their two albums over and over again.

This song is a great one to do acoustically, and like the last one, is sung by Bob Dylan. Watch for the cameo harmonica appearance by Chris Moore in this video!

I’ll be doing PLENTY more Wilburys songs on these sessions, so stay tuned! Now, onto part 3!