Some covers are simple imitations. These add new ideas while capturing the fire and spirit of the originals. Here are two spectacular young bands keeping the music alive.
Asterism: “Scuttle Buttin’” (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
The first time I ever heard SRV, I was hooked after one
bar. I was helping a friend with some
refinishing on his house, and he had music blasting as we
worked. At one point, a guitar chord
rang out, with a tone unlike anything I had ever heard--reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix, but fatter and more
resonant. A few bars into the song, I
asked who the hell this was, and my friend told me it was a guy named Stevie
Ray Vaughan. I immediately went and bought his
albums, and made sure to see him the next two times he came anywhere within
driving distance.
SRV played blues, but was also a great songwriter and a blindingly fast, technical guitar virtuoso. He broke into the mainstream, a rarity for blues musicians, and used his drawing power to bring long overdue exposure to many of the old musicians who had been neglected and mistreated by the commercial music industry. Soon after the second time I saw him, as he was departing a music festival where he had just played, SRV was killed in a helicopter crash, leaving gigantic hole in the world of blues and rock. Like his hero, Hendrix, he had an outsized influence on musicians to follow, despite a career cut tragically short.
Asterism are a young power trio who may just be the most talented threesome since Cream. Here they are, covering SRV’s iconic instrumental, “Scuttle Buttin.’” They keep the core structure of the piece, but add in some crazy hammer runs on the guitar and big bass and drum solos. This is from their only tour of the US to date (they were still too young to drink in the establishments where they played). They played four dates in Texas, SRV’s home state, and did this piece at each stop, as a tribute to him. It is encouraging to know young musicians still know and love the work of the greats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtB_VrYLRaM
Liliac: “Piece of my Heart” (Janis Joplin) Written by Ragovoy and Berns, and first recorded in 1967 by Erma Franklin (Aretha’s older sister). The version that blew up is Joplin’s 1968 recording with Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Janis Joplin. No filters. No security. No post-production polishing. No bullshit. What you saw was just what you got. She broke a lot of barriers--a woman, making it as a headliner in an overwhelmingly sexist business; a white person who did the blues without stealing anything, because she lived the blues, as much as any Black artist. A singer without a singer’s voice, whose raw, broken sound remains iconic.
Liliac are, in my opinion, the only young, up and coming American
rock and roll band that really bring it.
They are five siblings (three brothers, two sisters), children of a Romanian immigrant who works in the L.A. music
industry mixing hip-hop records (you cannot make this stuff up). He gave them instruments to keep them busy as kids, and things just took off.
They started gaining nationwide attention while the youngest was eight and needed help to reach his keyboards. Their taste runs not to hip-hop, but to blues, hard rock and heavy metal. Call them a modern day metal Partridge family. Their breakout came when Melody (yes, her real name), the third sibling, developed into a vocal monster with a voice that has been compared to Ronnie James Dio and, yes, Janis Joplin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-EuUMD338
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