Orignial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNMiRbtx6-Y Cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnWf-2RZrX0 C/S, Rev J
About 500 miles: That's the thing about covers. The Journeymen's cover didn't really add anything to the song. Let me be polite and just say that they made the song accessible to a mass audience. The Hooters, on the other hand, changed the song into their style, added a bit of a reggae feel to some sections. They transformed the song. I still prefer the Hedy West's original with its spare styling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwnNdqpCF8Q
she may have wrote it but the journeymen were first to record it so i still consider their version as the original
The music scene was different back in the day. (More sharing? Less ego?) By "original recording" Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire is a cover. But it is the standard against which all others are compared. More interesting to me is If I Had A Hammer. Written by Lee Hayes and Pete Seeger and preformed by the Weavers it was a collectors item. "Nobody except collectors listened to it" Peter, Paul and Mary later had a hit with it, but with slightly changed melody (the two versions harmonize with each other.) More interesting to me is that the original lyric "I'd hammer out love between all of my brothers" was changed to "I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters". But that lyric had been adopted by Pete Seeger and the other Weavers well before Peter Paul and Mary recorded it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl-yszPdRTk
