AA>> The original by Evie Sands seems lacking.

RM> Which is unusual, often the first to do a song does it best and
RM> later copies don't do as well. There's a minor advantage in that
RM> the original was 'The Original', so nothing else will be fairly
RM> compared to it unless it is noticable better.

AA>There are a LOT of songs that are ho-hum as originals.  But, along comes
  >another artist with a cover and it becomes a hit.

AA>Lauper - Girls..Fun,
  >Soft Cell - Tainted Love.
  >Joan Jett - I Love Rock and Roll.

AA>But some first-songs don't have to be hits to be great.

I suppose also many of us might never hear the original version
if it didn't get super popular.. I have my music collection,
mostly old stuff, but I'm not a big music follower. I play my
collection but rarely listen to the radio at home, plus the
station I have on in my car plays mostly 'oldies'..

But, a good example of most people never hearing the original..
'What about Love', a big hit for the American group 'Heart',
was originally recorded by the Canadian group 'Toronto' in 1982.

AA>Another raspy-voice singer that I have confused with Tyler..
  >is Kim Carnes (Bette Davis Eyes).

Absolutely.. I always liked that one. She makes it work, but she
had very few others that ever made it onto the radio.

RM> One singer that did a lot of remakes of songs and was probably
RM> better than she got credit for was LeAnn Rimes. I have about
RM> a dozen of her songs in my collection and most are pretty good.

RM> I sort of think she didn't get taken seriously because she
RM> started off as a Child star best known for doing 'How Do I Live'..

AA>She was only 14-15yrs old when she recorded it, right?
  >Amazing performance, delivery and control at that age.

Yes, I think her very first song recorded was 'Blue', which she
did at age 13. But she has (had?) a very good voice and she
didn't seem to try to make cover songs 'her own' by changing them.
She just sang it the way it was originally performed and usually
produced a very good version of them.

She has recently played a character in the series, 911 Nashville,
where she plays a failing singer who was losing her voice, the
mother of one of the young Emergency Workers, and is generally
not a very nice person..

Some of that comes from real life as she's had a number of health
issues through much of her life, including vocal cord problems,
but she is still out there trying I guess..

---
 � SLMR Rob  � An evil mind is a constant solace - Unknown �

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