Harald Sohlberg: Autumn Landscape (1910)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend! I was unusually organized (maybe because I’m retired now and I don’t have to cram every single thing into a few “days off”), so now I have a ton of food made from Thanksgiving leftovers, including a giant pot of soup made from holiday-bones chicken stock, and I will not have to do anything but reheat for a while.
You probably saw that reggae legend Jimmy Cliff had passed away last week at 81; there was at least one diary at the time with lots of his songs, and of course the gold standard, Black Music Sunday, covered his life and work this weekend (including embedding the entire film The Harder They Come along with, separately, the soundtrack album). If you’re a Jimmy Cliff fan and you didn’t see all that music go past, by all means circle back to this link.
So, I’d like to recognize Jimmy Cliff, but without just posting the same videos yet another time. Luckily, it turns out that more people than I had realized have covered the numerous songs he wrote and co-wrote. So this is a diary of Jimmy Cliff covers by other artists. I was assisted by a site called SecondHandSongs, that lists all a songwriter’s songs with who has covered them.
But!!! Since we can’t neglect Jimmy Cliff himself, here he is covering Johnny Nash’s 1972 I Can See Clearly Now. (David Letterman’s Late Show, December 1993) [4:42]
So, on to Cliff covers! Most of these aren’t live performances.
Sam & Dave: Come Into My Life (recorded 1974) [3:16]
Jerry Garcia Band: Struggling Man (Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, March 1991) [7:05]
Buckwheat Zydeco: Let Your Yeah Be Yeah (recorded 2009) [3:37]
Annie Lennox: Many Rivers to Cross (Idol Gives Back 2008, a charitable concert event presented as an American Idol episode) [3:21]
Al Kooper: Please Tell Me Why (recorded 1972) [4:40]
Patti Page: Wonderful World Beautiful People (recorded 1970) [2:52]
Willie Nelson and Ryan Adams: The Harder They Come (Ryman Auditorium, Nashville TN, May 2002, performance for live album Willie Nelson & Friends – Stars & Guitars) [3:49]
Paul Simon and Jimmy Cliff: Vietnam (Hard Rock Calling Festival in Hyde Park, London, 2012) [3:31]
Johnny Rivers: You Can Get It if You Really Want (recorded 1975) [2:53]
Eventually, I came to a song for which I couldn’t pick just one cover, so I made it the last song and picked two.
The Neville Brothers: Sitting in Limbo (Municipal Auditorium New Orleans, Halloween 1991) [4:14]
Jerry Garcia & David Grisman: Sitting in Limbo (The Warfield, San Francisco, December 1991) [6:55]
A couple of separate items to close:
PBS NewsHour speaks with two former USAID employees who run a rather heartbreaking organized effort to find other funding for the most crucial of the many crucial programs that have been shut down. [6:49]
Aaaand, there’s a new Randy Rainbow today. Cabaret is the vehicle to skewer RFK Jr. [5:54]
