Rhino’s Got You Covered: Julee Cruise, Disturbed, Goldie Hawn, and Kelly Willis
It’s Wednesday, so it must be time to take another dip into the Rhino catalog and trot out a new quartet of cover songs that you may or may not have heard before. Let’s get started, shall we?
• Julee Cruise, “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” (1991): This tune was originally written and recorded for the Elvis Presley film Flaming Star before ultimately being dropped from the soundtrack, but it found its way into release two months after the film’s release, issued on an EP entitled ELVIS BY REQUEST – FLAMING STAR. While it was never a hit for Presley, the song still found a following, one which ultimately led Cruise to record the tune for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ epic flick, Until the End of the World.
• Disturbed, “Land of Confusion” (1996): Recorded for Disturbed’s third album, TEN THOUSAND FISTS, and released as the LP’s fourth single, the band’s lead singer, David Draiman told the website Blabbermouth that their reason for tackling the track was that they were “taking a song that’s absolutely nothing like us and making it our own.” They definitely did that, and they did it with a pretty awesome video, too, one animated by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane.
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• Goldie Hawn, “My Blue Tears” (1972): This Dolly Parton tune kicks off Hawn’s self-titled album from ’72, and it scores a bit of extra street cred by having actually been arranged by Parton and Porter Waggoner. Whatever you think of Hawn as a singer, she picked some great material and she definitely managed to surround herself with the right people: in addition to covering Joni Mitchell (“Carey”) and Van Morrison (“I Wanna Woo You”), she also tackles Bill Monroe’s “Uncle Pen” and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” backed by the Buckaroos.
• Kelly Willis, “They’re Blind” (1999): Willis has a solid history when it comes to picking top-notch tunes to cover, including John Hiatt’s “Drive South” and Joe Ely’s “Settle for Love,” but to tackle a song from the Replacements’ DON’T TELL A SOUL? That’s straight-up bad-ass.
