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No, that's not Xavier Cugat on the album cover above. All those easy-listening bachelor pad albums back then had cheesecake covers. On this LP we find a cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday", one of the most covered songs in history.Xavier Cugat, a.k.a. the Rhumba King, was an accomplished musician largely responsible for popularizing Latin music in the U.S. - you can thank Cugat for the conga, mamba and cha-cha becoming popular here.
Xavier discovered Desi Arnaz, performed at the opening of the Waldorf Astoria, sold millions of records, and had some knockout beautiful wives. He was married to Charo (cuchi-cuchi!) and Abbe Lane (that's her on the album cover below).
Lane was called "the swingingest sexpot in show business" and was famous for quotes like "Jayne Mansfield may turn boys into men, but I take them from there". Wow!Well, that's it for the first of, hopefully, many Beatles cover posts, but I should mention one last thing: Ever wander aimlessly around the internet only to stumble upon a goldmine? That's precisely what happened to me upon finding The Franklin Mint Blog. There I found an incredible list Beatles covers I'd never even heard of, and just had to give the blog a shout out and a big thanks.
Some of the most notorious Beatles covers can be found on the Golden Throats 4: Celebrities Butcher the Beatles LP.
ReplyDeleteGems such as: "Day Tripper" - Mae West, "Something" - Telly Savalas
& my personal favorite:
"Got To Get You In My Life" - Little Joe (Pesci)
So much awfulness on one LP. What more can one ask for?
Yes, indeed. Although, the worst (or the best, depending on your appreciation for kitsch)has to be Bill Shatner's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
ReplyDeleteBing Crosby's take on Hey Jude is probably one of the most worst covers.Most of the versions of Beatles songs from the dreadful Sgt.Pepper movie are notoriously terrible.All this and World War 2 had it's share of some bad Beatles interpretations.
ReplyDeletebread, love and cha cha cha? LOL, funny stuff!
ReplyDeleteHasn't everyone covered a Beatles song? I like Cugat, but this particular song sound very elevatorish.
ReplyDeleteI had a hippie prof in grad school who said something about improving on originals and he said "...like Joe Cocker doing a Beatles song."
retrohound- Is "elevatorish" a bad thing? :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, pretty much everybody's covered a Beatles song. I'm looking to explore some of the lesser known ones in these posts.
Thanks for the plug.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like everybody has covered at least one Beatles tune.
ReplyDeleteAbbe Lane was on the Brady Bunch as well !!
ReplyDelete