Getting The Led Out
Here’s some band that, oddly enough, I only bothered getting into a whopping 5 years ago, Led Zeppelin. After years of being blinded by a long standing anti-classic rock/shitty dorm room poster stance (damn my punk roots!) I finally saw the light to how truly funky and downright amazing they were, and that was even in spite of all their plundered beats littered throughout my favorite 80s hip hop tunes.
So today we got a whole lotta hand-picked covers of Whole Lotta Love. One wouldn’t think 4 pasty British white guys wearing their mothers blouses would be able to make much of an impression on the funk and soul royalty of America, but apparently they did with the the likes of Ike & Tina Turner (my favorite cut of the lot), Aretha Franklin (or more accurately, her band) and Dennis Coffey (Beat miners head’s up: some great breaks in there) as well as other soul-jazz funkateers James Taylor Quartet, Blue Mink, C.C.S, Dieter Zimmermann and The Band No Name. As for the rest it’s a veritable shotgun effect of genres; Bossa-Nova (Bebo Best & Super Lounge Orchestra), Acapella (The Bobs), Downtempo (Coldfinger), Reggae (The Dynamics and a surprisingly amazing Dread Zeppelin), Coasters-style R&B (Godfrey Daniel), Bluegrass (Iron Horse), Classical (London Symphony Orchestra/Royal Choral Society), Italo-Space-Disco (Massimo Barsotti), classic Disco (The Wonder Band), Moog (Moog Cookbook), Hip Hop (Vicious Rumor Club, M.E.D. Productions NYC), Drum & Bass (Perry Farrell, yes THAT Perry Farrell), 90s ‘Dance’ (Sly & Robbie, Love Child Orchestra, Jo Squillo, Goldbug, Motor Industries), Experimental-Alt (Tragic Mulatto) And lastly, should you ever need to clear a party or dance floor in 20 seconds flat, there is the self-explanatory Temple City Kazoo Orchestra. Easily the most annoying cover version ever made. Approach with caution.
Ike And Tina Turner – Whole Lotta Love
Aretha Franklin – Whole Lotta Love
Dennis Coffey – Whole Lotta Love
James Taylor Quartet – Whole Lotta Love
James Taylor Quartet – Whole Lotta Love (Live at Manchester Academy)
Blue Mink – Whole Lotta Love
C.C.S. – Whole Lotta Love
Dieter Zimmermann – Whole Lotta Love
The Band No Name – Whole Lotta Love
Bebo Best & Super Lounge Orchestra – Whole Lotta Love
The Bobs – Whole Lotta Love
Coldfinger – Whole Lotta Love
The Dynamics – Whole Lotta Love
Dread Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
Godfrey Daniel – Whole Lotta Love
Iron Horse – Whole Lotta Love
London Symphony Orchestra & Royal Choral Society – Whole Lotta Love
Massimo Barsotti – Whole Lotta Love
Massimo Barsotti – Whole Lotta Love (Another Version)
The Wonder Band – Whole Lotta Love
Moog Cookbook – Whole Lotta Love
Vicious Rumor Club – Whole Lotta Love
M.E.D. Productions NYC – Whole Lotta Love
Perry Farrell – Whole Lotta Love
Sly & Robbie – Whole Lotta Love
Love Child Orchestra – Whole Lotta Love
Jo Squillo – Whole Lotta Love
Goldbug – Whole Lotta Love
Motor Industries – Whole Lotta Love
Tragic Mulatto – Whole Lotta Love
Temple City Kazoo Orchestra – Whole Lotta Love
Enjoy!
LS
PS Versions Galore Facebook Fanclub bonus Love edits on the wall for ya …
PPS Big tip of the sombrero to the folks over at The Lost Turntable for helping me track down elusive ex-Colourbox act Love Child Orchestra.
Tags: Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love, Young Me In The First Grade Used To Draw 'Led Zeppelin' On My Binder In Blue Bic (Despite Never Listening to Them) And Of Course Dotting The 'i' With An Even More Tragically Drawn Blimp.
July 17th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Hello,
thanks a lot for this cool collection. BTW the “Blue Mink” link shows to the CCS version.
Greetings, Tom
July 17th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Hey Tom
Yer mighty welcome.
But the Blue Mink link should work (at least it does for me and quite a few others who’ve dl’ed so far).
That said if you’re still havin’ issues send me an email and we can figure something out…
July 17th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Well, I was finally able to find the correct file through browsing your shared files folder @ MediaFire. Thank you!
Cheers, Tom
July 17th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Greeting from Cologne!
Links works fine for me.
Thank You for these. Great site!
DxRx
July 20th, 2010 at 4:10 am
Please check the M.E.D. Productions NYC link cause it’s the same withe the Love child orchestra…
As for the site, congatulations for the work you put thru !!!
July 20th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Whoops… my bad. M.E.D. fixed. Thanks for catching that!
August 4th, 2010 at 2:08 am
man, the kazoo thinggy is sure something ! Thank for your site tho
September 20th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Came upon this page hunting this WLL cover :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-NkCWsqJ2c&feature=related (song start is about 0:13)
Despite the impressive list available here, I didn’t find tis one in the lot.
Cr@p… Any idea who’s playing it ? Love the style and the Rhodes sound in it…
Thanks for this collection anyway.
Kazoo cover is a killer !
O_o
September 21st, 2011 at 9:35 am
cavadour
Wow man, you got me. After I saw your comment I went on a crazy mission to find out who. After literally hours of research (I can get kind of OCD) unfortunately I came up with nada. My best guess is that it was custom piece made for the video. If any other info turns up I’ll let you know. On the plus side all my researching turned up about 2 or 3 more amazing covers. Fodder for a Flashback Friday one of these days…
September 21st, 2011 at 10:38 am
Leopold wrote: My best guess is that it was custom piece made for the video
Yeah, I had the same idea at some point. Not sure. Sounds pretty well produced for a custom made track… Spent hours on research too. The closer I came is a remix of The Dynamics version. Similar elements leads to think this way but, otoh there’s no dub or reggae flavour in it. This sounds more like electro/jazz/downtempo… I’ll sure come back to post the answer if any!
Btw, in case you didn’t know, interesting enough are these lines in WLL Wikipedia page:
“In 1962 Muddy Waters recorded “You Need Love”, written for him by peer Willie Dixon. [...] Some of the lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s version were copied from the Willie Dixon song,”
You can get Muddy Water’s version here (volume 1, track 18) http://avaxhome.ws/music/You_Heard_It_Here_First_Two_Volumes.html
These two albums are a great collection of ‘undercover originals”.
‘Entomomusicology’ at its best ! (An unavoidable side effect of being a pack rat, I suppose…)