About The Covers Project

The cover version is one of the great wonders of the musical world. It gives musicians a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes for three minutes or so, while giving listeners the chance to revisit an old friend...sometimes with an extreme makeover. They are basically an invention from the rock ‘n’ roll era, when bands took control from the professional songwriters and began writing their own songs, and paying tribute to their favorite songs and songwriters by performing their own versions of these tunes. (Before they would merely be performing “standards.”)

Some covers have become legendary in their own right. Jimi Hendrix’s take on “All Along the Watchtower” overpowers Bob Dylan’s original so much so that many people assume Hendrix wrote it. Others are merely ludicrous (Pat Boone's version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” anyone?).

The beauty of covers is the wide range of directions one can go with it. You can do a version that is impeccably faithful to the original, or you can play a song in an entirely different style or genre, while keeping the core of the song intact.

– Eric J. Lawrence, KCRW music librarian