While a few songs from this tribute resonate more like the sound of Sinatra rolling in his grave, there are a handful that are exceptionally delightful. Disappointment arrives in the cases of Maroon 5 and The Fashion’s covers. Maroon 5’s “The Way You Look Tonight” finds a way to match tritely Sinatra-imitating vocals to a song whose lyrics already spell out, “Desperate.” It comes to no surprise that the bands responsible for successfully remastering these hits are some of the arguably better bands from the collection anyway.

In plain terms, The Kooks and The Morning Benders killed it. The Kooks covered “Stormy Weather” in a guitar strum and harmonica-filled fashion complete with lead singer, Luke Pritchard’s, signature British croon. There’s no mistaking the song’s Sinatra origins, nor its Kooks revival. It’s a sweet and simple tune that welcomes replaying and each time seems to end all to soon.

The Morning Bender’s rendition of “Strangers in the Night” is equally successful. While the deliberate guitar strums in synch with clean drum snares are similar to the instrumentals from The Kooks’ cover, lead singer Chris Chu’s smooth and warm vocals are a uniquely perfect Sinatra adaptation. The legend lives on.

CLICK HERE to give the Morning Bender’s cover a listen…

–Charlotte Japp, “Sunday Night Cram Jam,” Sundays 11 pm – 1 am on WGTB

by Caroline Klibanoff

Tom Waits, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” (James Brown)

If you don’t know Sister Rosetta Tharpe and think that Jimi Hendrix or even Chuck Berry or even Little Richard originated rock ‘n’ roll guitar playing, you better get acquainted quick, because the lightyears-ahead-of-her-time Tharpe, a gospel singer in the 1940s, is the reigning queen of the instrument and entire generations of musicians owe her a debt.

A Philadelphia gospel singer raised in the Pentecostal church, Tharpe’s self-taught guitar playing was at the forefront of her whole performance at a time when the electric guitar was considered controversial in the church. In addition to her powerful, throaty voice, Tharpe manipulated the instrument like it was an extension of her own body, playing blues solos and rhythm with an ease and confidence that a whole lot of modern artists can’t hold a candle to. She invented the windmill arm swing (Pete Townshend, you’re welcome) and played perfect bluesy solos with flying fingers, all while lifting that big, big voice to the Lord.

Oh, and the Tallest Man on Earth recently did a really lovely cover of her song “My Journey To The Sky” at the Pitchfork Music Festival, a gentle acoustic version that is quite moving in its sincerity and simplicity. His voice sounds better than ever here; I just wish the song was longer.

Now watch two killer performances by Tharpe herself:

– Caroline Klibanoff

Check out Sad Kermit’s whole discography here. (Radiohead’s “Creep” is notable.)

Aside from the obvious great things about this cover– like the fact that all these ukelele fiends found each other to begin with, and that they can all sing so well in harmony, and that they picked this song of all songs, and of course the sound itself, which is really nicely done and well orchestrated and better than MGMT’s second album, actually– aside from all these cool things, the best part about this cover is by far the realization I’ve just reached, that this band lineup looks exactly like a game of Guess Who. Is your person wearing a hat? Does your person have facial hair? What about sunglasses? Regular eyeglasses? Is your person a girl? Does your person have a lengthy solo? Do they have a beard? Does your person keep time with their feet? Are they wearing shoes? Are they wearing a plaid shirt? Can they play the ukelele? (Duh.)

PS: Ben Lee also has an adorably sweet version of this, and The Kooks do a nice job too. Also, if you haven’t seen the awesome Court 13 music video for “Kids,” it’s well worth seeing – everybody feels like that baby from time to time.

– Caroline Klibanoff

by Caroline Klibanoff

Jonsi – “Time To Pretend” (MGMT)

It’s not like MGMT is immensely cover-able. It’s a weird fluke that this has come up twice in such a short time span. But this is impressively clean for a live recording, and the Sigur Ros frontman delicately changes the arrangement of the song. I’ll let the recording speak for itself:

Andre 3000 is genre-defying, another thing just makes him cooler than you, along with his super style and well-established hip-hop empire. His songs are expansive and experimental, he chooses great samples and he’s a hometown hero for Atlanta. All of which makes him qualified to cover the Beatles – a significant feat given how easy it would be to potentially ruin a great pop song. But Andre knows pop, and he makes “All Together Now” raucous, wild, and plucky. Take a listen below:

01 All Together Now by a1589758

– Caroline Klibanoff

This one time, I played a Hank Williams III song on my radio show, and forty-five seconds in, had lost all 12 of my dedicated listeners. Every. Single. One. It wasn’t pretty, to say the least. Not that 12 is a whole lot of listeners, but things went from bad to worse in the short span of a few countrified, twangy guitar licks. The WGTB listenership doesn’t have too much respect for honky-tonk country, it seems, but maybe there’s more tolerance for the work of grandaddy the O.G. Hank Williams– an intriguing, legendary character in American lore and the patriarch of a talented country dynasty.

Williams, aka Hank Senior, aka Luke the Drifter, died rather famously in the back of a Cadillac at age 29, inspiring decades of references in literature and music (see the full list of tribute songs here) and securing his spot as a mythical, looming figure in the trajectory of American music (this year’s award of a Pulitzer Prize didn’t hurt, either).

Here’s two appropriate singer-songwriter covers of Williams; I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. The first is a gorgeously sung cover from his Alabama-born brother, A.A. Bondy. Bondy has the range and timbre in his voice to attempt this classic mournful tune, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” The second features hard-living, hard-playing, too-young-to-look-so-old Deer Tick frontman John McCauley in a crunchy, ragged rendition of the bittersweet “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive,” which he manages with admirable effort.