Professor Eddy

A soulful and chilled out tribute to yacht rock is the 10th part of Covered . In my view yacht rock was some kind of West Coast rock variant of soul music (or a soulful variant of West Coast rock), which was played by blue-eyed-soul artists like The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Hall & Oates. Because of its soulfulness quite a few R&B artists covered yacht rock songs in an even more soulful way, like Maxine Nightingale did with the Ned Doheny song. And the biggest heroes of Thundercat are Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald! His song ‘Show you the way’ came out last week. Aretha Franklin’s version of ‘What a fool believes’ is nice and danceable, but for some reason it is not as intense and soulful as the one from Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers, even though Aretha is often called ‘the Queen of Soul’. It was recorded in 1980 when Aretha did not know where to go to with her career, but her voice was still great at that time. Enjoy the funky chill side of yacht...

George Michael A jazzy Latin and, most of all, a soulful and chilled out look on classics from the 1980s. Do you know the originals of them? One of the tracks is “Skin Trade”, originally by Duran Duran. The music for the song was written long before Simon LeBon finally finished the lyrics. The title for the song was derived from the Dylan Thomas book Adventures in the Skin Trade, which Duran Duran’s John Taylor had read. It was shortened to "Skin Trade" and LeBon eventually wrote the melody and lyrics for the track while spending an evening in Taylor's Upper West Side Manhattan apartment. The lyrics reflect on how everyone is selling themselves, and "there's a little hooker in each of us". In a retrospective review of the single, Allmusic journalist Donald A. Guarisco praised the song. He wrote: "The music lends contrast to the angry tone of the lyrics by creating a sultry, mellow melody that juxtaposes verses with a soft, hypnotic ebb and flow w...

The beautiful cover of John Legend's 'All of me' by Nikki Oosterwijk on my latest cloudcast inspired me to create this eighth part of ' It's soul covered up '. Having just released her 'Lullabies for lost girls' EP, up-and-coming Montreal-based pop singer/songwriter and performance artist Callia Bara is already gearing up to release her new EP, 'Sex bomb'. Ahead of its release, Callia has just unveiled the EP's second single entitled 'BTS' (Behind The Scenes), which once again sees her collaborating with Brazilian producer Ftureable . He also produced the EP's first single 'Summa That' (source: Wonky Sensitive ). Mr President (picture) brings the soul and disco sound from the mid-seventies (MFSB, Roy Ayers, Love Unlimited Orchestra) into 2014 with his new album 'Hips shaking', just like Dr Who did with his Tardis! The track from Mongo Santamaria can be found on ' World’s funkiest covers ' that ca...

For this 7th part of ' (It's) Soul Covered (Up) ' I again selected cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals! Artists like Prince, the Stylistics and Bryan Ferry made some very nice covers themselves, but their self-penned songs were reinterpreted as well, as shown in this seventh edition. 'Is you love strong enough' from Bryan Ferry for instance was originally written for the movie 'Legend' (starring Tom Cruise) and the cover version that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made was used for 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' (starring Daniel Craig) that came out last year. Mayer Hawthorne (picture) visited my home town a couple of weeks ago. The track from Sugardaddy is taken from the new compilation album ‘ LateNightTales: Music for pleasure ', which is mixed by Tom Findlay (Groove Armada). More on covers and originals on Second Hand Songs and Originals . Enjoy! Tracklist (in parentheses the originals): Susa...

This sixth part of ' It's soul covered up ' is most of all a tribute to Donna Summer (picture). The one and only Queen of Disco died of cancer yesterday. I felt really sad when I heard the news. I have a weak spot for her from the moment I saw her on Dutch television in 1974. I bought all her singles from then on, like the masterpiece 'MacArthur park' that I selected for this episode of ' It's soul covered up '. The original was sung by Richard Harris in 1968. The most remarkable cover version of this sixth edition is probably the one from Ladders. It's in fact a solo project from Andy Scott, bass player of glam rock band The Sweet. He turns the Motown classic 'Gotta see Jane' from Canadian singer-songwriter R. Dean Taylor into an interesting combination of rock, disco and new wave (by the way, the keyboards sound almost exactly the same as in 'Laugh and walk away' from the Shirts). Scott makes the song even more threatening than...

Enjoy this 5th part of ' It's soul covered up '! For the 5th time I chose cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals. The album 'Soul 2' from Seal, from which I selected 'Love TKO', isn't that good, to be honest. He reinterprets soul classics in quite a boring, non-creative way, but I like his version of the Teddy Pendergrass classic. He probably had his marital problems with Heidi Klum in mind, when he was recording it, don't you think? He sounds very inspired, anyway. The song was first recorded by David Oliver on his album 'Here's to you' that came out in 1980. He sadly passed away two years later. One of the best blue eyed soul singers of the moment is Joss Stone (picture right). I don't particularly like her latest album and her performances on SuperHeavy with Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, but her first two albums still sound great. The song from Incognito is from their latest album 'Su...

My Easter surprise is yet another part of ' It's soul covered up '! For the 4th time I selected cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals! The track from Tempest Trio is written and produced by the legendary Dennis Coffey. His name is not known to many, but he played guitar on quite a few Motown and soul classics, like 'Cloud nine' from the Temptations, 'War' from Edwin Starr and 'Band of gold' from Freda Payne. He also worked with Del Shannon, wrote the soundtrack to 'Black Belt Jones' and was one of the creators of classy disco act CJ & Co ('Devil's gun'), which I played last week. Coffey made a nice self-titled album on Strut Records last year. Check out the great mix of House Shoes that is inspired by the work of Dennis Coffey. I selected a Philly mix that is produced by Vincent Montana Jr. (Salsoul Orchestra) and sung by Ron Tyson . Some of the original Philly classics are recently ...

For this 3rd part of ' It's soul covered up ' I again selected cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals! The covered songs are like taxis with new passengers, to quote Bryan Ferry. A good cover is making it seem a composition of your own. For instance, Bryan Ferry gives the Doris Troy (a.k.a. Doris Payne) composition a complete Ferry make-over. By the way, Andy & the Marglows recorded the song two weeks before Doris Troy did, so they are actually the originals. The version I selected from 'My cherie amour' is very poorly sung, but I like it, because it makes me feel a singer as well. I can't resist singing along! ;-) Some of the artists that are covered in this mix, sing cover versions as well, like Chaka Khan (picture) and Candi Staton, who does her version of the Elvis Presley classic 'In the ghetto'. The song was initially refused by Bill Medley from the Righteous Brothers. Look out for great new cover albums fr...

For this 2nd part of ' It's soul covered up ' I again selected cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals! The soulful version of 'We can work it out' is from a brand new Roberta Flack album: 'Let it be Roberta'. She interprets Beatles classics on a very smooth Roberta Flack tip. Her brilliant cover of 'The first time I ever saw your face' from her album 'First take' became a Billboard #1 in 1972, which is three years after its original release! It only became successful after Clint Eastwood had used it in a love scene for his movie 'Play Misty For Me'. Marvin Gaye (picture) takes some other Beatle classic to another level. The song from Lulu is the opening track of a nice new compilation album that celebrates 20 years of soul label Dome Records. More on covers and originals on Originals.be and Whosampledwho . Enjoy! Tracklist: Roberta Flack – We Can Work It Out (The Beatles) (2011) Gretch...

This time I chose for 'It's soul covered up', to be pronounced as 'it's all covered up'. I selected cover versions that sound at least as good or even better than the originals! For instance, the Jacksons borrowed 'Blame it on the boogie' from British singer Mick Jackson (not related to the Jackson family). The original reached a #61 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1978. In 2003 Mick Jackson himself said of the Jacksons' version of 'Blame it on the boogie': [the original] version had 100% of our heart and soul in it but the Jacksons' version had the magic extra 2% that made it incredible. But yes, sometimes it's a difficult choice. I have to quote Baron Von Luxxury on this matter. This is what he writes on his blog about 'You are in my system', originally from The System: Probably the most Sophie’s Choice-iest ever version of the age old question: “which is better, the original or the cover”? I must confess th...