As Heard Here First: Original Versions of Hit Songs

Saddened to learn that David Thomas died this week.  His music was featured here recently as one of Richard Thompson's collaborators, as well as his recent work with Pere Ubu and Rocket From The Tombs.  A final Pere Ubu album will be completed by the rest of the band, and David Thomas' autobiography will also be released.

Last year I shared First Versions Of Well-Known Songs, a collection of tunes that were later remade by the original artists.  Today we have a series of songs that became hits for other artists.  

This type of collection has been done many times.  Any Major Dude has done an amazing job over the years of telling the histories of the original songs and artists that didn't make the charts. It would be easy to think of them as cover versions (since they sound less familiar than the hits), but many of these are performed by the artists who composed them.  In some cases, the hit version was released within weeks of the original.  It's interesting to listen and wonder what might have been missing from the original that made the hit version more appealing.  Or what might make an artist or producer think, "If we make a few changes, this song could top the charts." To my ears, some of the originals sound better than the hits, and maybe they just weren't properly promoted.  

The series starts in 1960. In the 50’s, it wasn’t unusual for multiple artists to record the same song, especially in the early years of rock & roll, when a “race record” couldn’t get airplay on white radio stations.  It was also an era when fewer songwriters recorded their own compositions.  There were exceptions, but the “singer/songwriter” was not yet an accepted business model.  Songwriters shopped their songs to publishers or labels.  Label owners, record producers and DJ’s sometimes received (or took) a songwriting credit.   Black songwriters were most often the victims of this practice, which became less widespread after the payola scandal, and after people like Chuck Berry achieved enough success (and learned enough about the music business) to be able to refuse it.

Today there are four CD-length sets, with over a hundred songs released between 1960 and 1971.