Tag Archives: studio

The Best of the Bob Dylan Covers – Playlists on Parade

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By Chris Moore:

With some sources placing Bob Dylan as the #2 most covered artist (behind the Beatles, of course), there are some excellent performances of his songs.

Predominantly, though, there are hundreds and hundreds of inferior versions of his work, ranging from mediocre all the way down to openly offensive.

As a Dylan fan now for over a decade, I have accumulated quite a number of covers.  Folk?  I have it.  Bluesgrass?  Regrettably, yes.  Gospel?  You betcha!  Reggae?  For reals.

Suffice it to say, there’s some utter crap.

I’ve been thinking for weeks now about putting together a playlist of my favorite Dylan covers.  Finally, after coming across a Jimi Hendrix recording of “Tears of Rage” on iTunes today, I sorted through the archives and pieced together eighteen of my favorite recordings.  For those who don’t know me, you should understand that I’m often the guy who will remind you that, “This song was actually written by…” or ask you, “Have you ever heard the original?”  So, for me to say I love these songs means that they’ve truly made the cut for me.

And I hope you’ll enjoy them as well!

The artists are as wide ranging as George Harrison and Beck.  They go back as far as the sixties, with a sampling of classics by the original masters of the Dylan cover the Byrds, and are as recent as the Dead Weather, that super-ish-group co-fronted by Jack White.  In the case of the former, I love the Dylan versions about as much as Roger McGuinn and company’s, but in the case of the latter, a forgettable Street Legal track was revived and successfully reimagined.

There are some that you absolutely must listen to the originals – “Simple Twist of Fate” for one, and “Born in Time” for another (that is, if you find the Bootleg Series version).  There are some that are, frankly, better as covers – I’m thinking of “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” here.

So, go explore.  Visit Amazon and iTunes.  Expand your Dylan horizons.  And, most of all, remember why Bob Dylan was, is, and forever shall be the freakin’ man.

1)  “Mr. Tambourine Man” – The Byrds

2)  “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” – Beck

3)  “All Along the Watchtower” – Jimi Hendrix

4)  “If Not for You” – George Harrison

5)  “Mama You’ve Been on My Mind / A Fraction of Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” – Jack Johnson

6)  “Masters of War” – Pearl Jam

7)  “New Pony” – The Dead Weather

8)  “Simple Twist of Fate” – Jeff Tweedy

9)  “My Back Pages” – The Byrds

10)  “Absolutely Sweet Marie” – George Harrison

11)  “Tears of Rage” – Jimi Hendrix

12)  “I Shall Be Released” – The Band

13)  “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” – Eric Clapton

14)  “Mississippi” – Sheryl Crow

15)  “John Wesley Harding” – Wilco

16)  “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – The Byrds

17)  “Born in Time” – Eric Clapton

18)  “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Warren Zevon

“Hallelujah” (Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley cover) [Ep 4, Fall 2011]

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By Maurice Davis:

Maurice Davis singing Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah,” a song originally composed by Leonard Cohen.

[Editors Note: Recorded with a professional studio, Maurice’s sound quality on this acoustic cover song music video is top notch.  His voice and finger-picking skills clearly make this song a perfect fit for him, and we hope you enjoy these six minutes of peaceful, if somber, music.]

Video Blog: How Songwriter Jim Fusco Records A Song in His Home Studio

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By Jim Fusco:

Originally done in four parts, this remastered video (originally recorded in 2007 and remastered in 2020) is about the triumphs and pitfalls of recording a song in my home studio. You’ll see techniques, advice, and most of all, a bunch of bad luck. The song I’m recording is called “Go Back To Him,” written by Jim Fusco and Alberto Distefano.  The song was featured on my album “Halfway There”, available at http://jimfusco.com and on iTunes!  Make sure to stick around for the end of the video and check out the music video for “Go Back To Him”, complete with remastered stereo audio for the first time!  For those who saw the original video, you’ll recall how dark the video looked, as the overhead lighting in my home studio at the time was not conducive to great video quality.  Thankfully, through the magic of Final Cut Pro X, I’m able to breathe new life into this documentary, which captures what it was like to record a song at 4am (which was easily done at 23 years of age…).

FMP Studios has its own domain name!

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Just a quick announcement:

I finally pulled the trigger and purchased a new domain name for FMP Studios, the premier music, video, graphics, marketing, and photo restoration studio: FMP-Studios.com!

We’ll be updating links to this site soon and I hope you’ll check it out. We offer a ton of great services, all of which you can read about right here on the Fusco-Moore Productions cover songs music video blog by searching “FMP Studios” in the search box on the top of the page. You’ll be blown away by our unique combination of: fast turnaround times, professional custom results, and lowest prices anywhere!

Let me just say, as well, that running this website (and the other six we have) isn’t easy. Working full time, doing a video every three days, and planning a wedding all contribute to the difficulty.

But, over the past few days, Chris Moore has really stepped-up and has done some great things for the site. You see, my job here on the video blog is to come up with ideas for new features and more ways to get us noticed. And then, I have to figure out how to make those ideas come to life. We’ve seen many examples of this over the past two months or so. We now have a full sitemap, an incredibly extensive directory, links to every category, and so much more. Plus, we post at least once a day.

Chris isn’t a coding kinda guy like me. But, he really wanted to help. So, I gave him some large tasks to do. With some help from Jeff, Chris wrote literally 50 pages worth of unique and informative content to put on ALL of our category pages! It was an incredible amount of work and I want him to know that it was appreciated and will be very helpful to our cause very soon. He also made great descriptions for the site and is making great posts for WCJM Radio and FMP Studios. I’ve had so much of the burden taken off of me. I usually have to come up with the ideas, DO ALL THE WORK, and THEN implement it all.

With Chris’ help, I’ve been able to do so many more unique things to the site because I don’t have to spend my time actually making the content, like I’ve always had to do in the past. Now, I can focus on making the site work properly and getting these enhancements to really make the site better in the end.

I also appreciate Jeff’s consistency here- I never have to bug him to do his Session. I never have to tell him to do a better job. He just does it. And now, since Chris should probably get a break from some of this stuff, I might have to start bugging Jeff soon! 🙂

What a team…