I do like the Band's song The Weight, which is much better than The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. As Hungry101 mentioned the Band's version sounds out of tune and Levon Helm's vocals do not work like Joan Baez's. You are right about a female singing a song narrated by a male character, it is strange, but her vocals are great and Levon Helm's are not. The Weight somehow worked better for the Band, in my mind. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is a great song and I am very surprised that some other artists have not covered it since Baez did. In 2020 it may be a bit controversial to do so, but back in the 1970s I can think of lot of singers who could have done better with the song.
Your favorite musical covers
- Thread starter sene5hos
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Roy Buchanan - this version is much better than his studio recording
Damn this is weird. I went to McDs today and they were playing some 70s countdown show with Kasey Casem and that Baez song came on. I enjoyed it cuz I remembered hearing that song on the radio as a kid in the 70s and thinking it was really cool. Had no idea it was a cover back then. When I finally heard the Band's version I thought it sounded slow and lame. Baez's Dixie may have been a poppier version but it has an intensity and dynamics lacking in the original. So I agree with you and Hungry here.
Up on Cripple Creek is a much better Band song.
Speaking of covers and Baez...one of my fave covers is Judas Priest doing Baez's Diamonds and Rust (the live version from Unleashed in the East).
Bbw - Hungry -EB I think you guys are great and having different opinions is also great. But this kind of makes me smile. It reminds me of "The Producers" movie and the song "Springtime for Hitler". Why does World War II have to be such a downer? Can't we make it happy and light? The song is a dirge and a lament about the suffering of this Southern man in the last days of the Civil War. Baez's version is a happy (and yes poppier) sing along life affirming song . It was written as a sad song. I guess I am in the minority here but I like the version that more reflects the lyrics.
Oh well , excuse me while I go and listen to the definitive versions of "American Pie" by Madonna and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Miley Cyrus.
The original American Pie is the best...and Springtime For Hitler is actually a pretty catchy song.
...Its Spring time for Hitler and Winter for England and France...
it is so funny because I was at a bonfire and we were playing old country music and I requested The DayThey Drove Old Dixie Down by the Band. One of the woman sitting around the campfire commented that that sounds out of tune and the others agreed (none were born the time the Band recorded that). So I searched for the version recorded by a woman and learned to my surprise that it was Joan Baez. I always thought that her version was haunting and I never even minded the fact that Joan is a woman singing about a man. I sort of imagined that the woman was a granddaughter of the author/writer of that song. It almost makes me want to cry.
incidentally, I think that that song marks the end of an era. I used to travel down south and the general populace used to be proud of their Southern heritage and how their ancestors - undermanned, outgunned, mostly shoeless etc. - fought the Federal Goverment to a standstill. Now they’re tearing down statues. A song like that would never be written today in this PC revisionist world. I mean look at Lady Antebellum? She changed her name to Lady A for fear of the cancel culture.
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Speaking of the lyrics...I listened to Joan Baez version more closely. She sings “...when so many cavalry...” when it is supposed to be “Stonemen’s cavalry.”
I recently listened to both during a long car trip and I’d like a mulligan on what I said earlier. I do like both but the Band’s is a better version. There is still a place for Baez’s version. Her voice is just so pretty.
Yes there is a place for both versions. A good song can be sung many different ways and enjoyed. It is kind of like asking who makes the best bagel - St-Viateur Bagel/Fairmount Bagel from Montreal or the New York Bagel. They are both good, but different. You probably most enjoy the one you grew up on. "[It]'s all good, man"
Most cover versions change the lyrics to be more PC friendly because the singer is afraid of appearing to glorify the South. But this song is not about the rich plantation owners, but the poor boys who are forced to fight. Rich men start wars, and the poor suffer. Clint Eastwood made two movies about Iwo Jima - one from the American side and one from the Japanese side, that showed how those who fought suffered on both sides. Canadian Robbie Robertson shows us how the Southern poor, not the rich , suffered in the Civil War. And in Robbie's own words: “I was trying to find a song that Levon could sing better than anyone in the world.”
And I think this is the best version from the very last concert given by The Band on Thanksgiving Day November 25, 1976
Most cover versions change the lyrics to be more PC friendly because the singer is afraid of appearing to glorify the South. But this song is not about the rich plantation owners, but the poor boys who are forced to fight. Rich men start wars, and the poor suffer. Clint Eastwood made two movies about Iwo Jima - one from the American side and one from the Japanese side, that showed how those who fought suffered on both sides. Canadian Robbie Robertson shows us how the Southern poor, not the rich , suffered in the Civil War. And in Robbie's own words: “I was trying to find a song that Levon could sing better than anyone in the world.”
And I think this is the best version from the very last concert given by The Band on Thanksgiving Day November 25, 1976
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Nazareth, This flight tonight
This song is a cover from Joni Mitchell, I didn't know.
This song is a cover from Joni Mitchell, I didn't know.
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