Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great Sounds from the Rock and Soul Archive and a few of the stories behind the songs. Each week I select tracks with a specific theme, and this week the theme is COVERS. Coming up, more than 20 fabulous cover versions of songs first recorded by someone else, from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beyonce, Scissor Sisters, Robert Palmer, Florence & The Machine and many more. But first, Talking Heads with Al Green's Take Me To The River. 

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Talking Heads with their version of Take Me To The River, first recorded by Al Green only three years earlier for his album Al Green Explores Your Mind. It is in fact the only cover Talking Heads ever recorded in their entire career, and they did so only with considerable reluctance on the part of David Byrne. The song was already part of Talking Heads' live set, and in their early days, the Heads also used to play another Green song Love & Happiness. Audiences loved the song, and having seen that reaction in the live shows, it was producer Brian Eno who pushed the band to include it on their second album, More Songs About Buildings & Food. But David Byrne was very reluctant to do so, fearing that it would over-shadow his own compositions.

"I'd seen it happen before, Byrne told writer Ray Padgett. where radio DJs who pick what they're going to play will often pick a cover song. Something that's already familiar to their audience is less risky. So then a band gets known for covering somebody else's song as opposed to writing their own material. They have to go through a struggle for years to get identified with their own songs."

But Talking Heads needed a hit. Under pressure from the other three members of the band, as well as producer Eno, and especially the record label Sire, Byrne finally gave in. But play it as slow as you can, said Eno, not like Al Green's more uptempo original. Once it was recorded, Eno then went to work with his electronic box of tricks, adding delays and effects, giving it a sound quite unlikely any of the other cover versions of the song also available in the late 70s, from the likes of Foghat, Bryan Ferry and Levon Helm. Talking Heads version was the first single released from the More Song album, and finally gave them their breakthrough hit.

Ironically, Al Green himself had already stopped performing the song live. The same month that his album Explores Your Mind was released, his girlfriend threw a pot of boiling grits over him, prompting his decision to abandon the secular life and become a preacher for the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church. Despite the references to baptism, the lyrics of Take Me To The River -- "Hold me, love me, please me, tease me 'Til I can't, 'til I can't, can't take no more" -- were still just a bit too sexy for the new Pastor Green. But it has long remained his most celebrated song. 

Also his most lucrative by far, not because of Talking Heads, or Bryan Ferry or any of the other versions, but because of the animatronic singing novelty toy Big Mouth Billy Mass. Remember that? Launched in 1999, this was a plastic stuffed fish mounted on a board. When you pressed the button it would start moving while singing one of two songs: Don't Worry Be Happy, and yes Take Me To The River. Green and co-writer Mabon 'Teenie' Hodges earned more royalties from Big Mouth Billy Bass's version of the song than any other.

More musical culture clashes now with two more tracks that blur the boundaries between rock and rap and soul. In a few minutes, rapper RUN-DMC take on Aerosmith's Walk This Way, with a little help from Aerosmith themselves. But first the Red Hot Chili Peppers with a blistering version of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground.

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Just as had been the case with Talking Heads and Take Me To The River, it was these two unlikely cover versions that provided the commercial breakthrough for both the Chili Peppers and Run-DMC respectively. 

Higher Ground had been written and recorded by Stevie Wonder in 1973 for the album Innervisions, and it's a funk masterpiece. It might have seemed an unlikely choice in 1989 for Red Hot Chili Peppers, then still a comparatively little-known LA funk metal band, renowned for wild live shows and also their mind-boggling consumption of hard drugs. But bebop jazz had always been bassplayer Flea's first love when he was growing up -- his stepdad was a jazz musician and the household was always hosting impromptu jam sessions -- so that funky edge was always present in the band's first three chaotic albums. 

The death of guitarist Hilly Slovak from a drug overdose in 1988, just before they were about to start recording their 4th album Mothers Milk hit the band hard, emotionally as well as musically and Flea has said that it was Higher Ground's lyrics -- which deal with reincarnation and spiritual redemption -- just as much as its melody that spoke to the band. And it's his superb slap-bass, replacing Stevie's original wah wah clavinet that really lifts the track into a class of its own.

Interesting thing about Walk This Way is that many people, especially here in the UK, may not even realise that RUN-DMC's version from 1986 is a cover. I played the original a few months ago on the show, and a couple of people actually said to me afterwards that they never knew that Aerosmith had done it first. So, it was originally recorded by American hard rock band Aerosmith in 1975, for their album Toys In The Attic, and was their first big success in the US. However, Aerosmith weren't really very well-known outside North America then. After a couple more blistering albums in the 70s, they too had rather lost their way -- hard drugs again I'm afraid -- and both their albums released in the early 80s were commercial failures. 

But around the same time, Run DMC's DJ Jam Master Jay was looking for heavy metal breakbeats to incorporate into their set and stumbled across the opening chords of Walk This Way. Def Jam label boss Rick Rubin, also Run DMC's producer, was a big heavy metal fan and suggested to Jay that they cover the song and even ask Aerosmith to make a guest appearance. However rappers Run and DMC wanted nothing whatsoever to do with a collaboration, hated the song and initially refused to record it. 

By that time though, Jay and Rick Rubin had already invited Aerosmith's guitarist Joe Perry and singer Steven Tyler into the studio, and told Run and DMC they were going to do the song with or without them. DMC said later "If it had been up to us, our version would have just been the beat, a couple of the guitars, and me and Run bragging about how great we are." It was Jam Master Jay who suggested swapping lines of the song between the two camps, and he and Rubin were proved right when the song -- the first single to be released off their new album Raising Hell was a mammoth success, introducing Run DMC to a white rock audience who'd never previously been interested in rap, and resurrecting Aerosmith's career. Isn't it great when things just come together...

Next up, two Queens of soul from the 1960s and the 2000s. In a few minutes, Beyoncé makes her debut on Sounds with her 2024 revision of Dolly Parton's classic Jolene. But first up, Aretha Franklin with a song originally written and recorded by Otis Redding in 1965. Two years later Aretha changed the lyrics and the arrangement and made the song her own. R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Respect.

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So with the help of her sister and backing vocalist Carolyn, Aretha reinvented Otis's Respect to make it an anthem for womanhood. No disrespect to Otis -- times were different back then of course -- but you might argue that his version is borderline sexist, certainly not very romantic. Man's been working hard all day, the least he can expect when he gets home is a little respect from his woman in return for a share of his paycheck, dinner on the table and sexy times in the bedroom is implied. 

Aretha turned that right around, crafting one of the first definitive feminist declarations in pop culture. "I've got everything you want, baby," she tells her man, "but if you want it *you* have to show *me* a little respect when you come home", and that includes in the bedroom. She also added all those little vocal tricks that make the song such an instant classic, like spelling out R E S P E C T, the line Sock It To Me, Sock It To Me and also the refrain Ree Ree Ree -- which was Aretha's own nickname. Respect she demanded, and respect she got, not least from Otis Redding himself. "This girl has taken that song from me," he told producer Jerry Wexler, "Ain't no longer my song. From now on, it belongs to her."

Beyoncé did something similar for Jolene, recorded for her Country Carter album. Dolly Parton's original version was a plea to a predatory rival: I'm begging of you, please don't take my man. Beyoncé's version -- almost certainly a reference to her notoriously tumultuous marriage to Jay-Z -- is a threat plain and simple. "I'm warning you, don't come for my man -- shoot your shot with someone else -- find you your own man."

Just goes to show that recording a cover doesn't have to be just an act of tribute; it can also be reinvention and reinterpretation. Here are two more. In a minute, a wonderfully infectious reinvention of Wham's Careless Whisper by Scott Bradlee's Post Modern Jukebox collective. But first, Annie Lennox takes on Screaming Jay Hawkins' classic blues shouter I Put A Spell On you.

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Fabulous. That was vocalist Robyn Adele Anderson with Scott Bradlee's Post Modern Jukebox, covering a song George Michael wrote when he was just 17, and recorded with Wham partner Andrew Ridgeley for their second album Make It Big. Released a single it was a  mammoth success, selling well over 11m copies worldwide, and becoming one of the best-selling songs of all time. It was really George Michael's song but in an act of generosity that was typical of the man he gave Ridgeley half of the songwriting credit. 

If you like Scott Bradlee's 30s-style jazz version there are hundreds more tracks to be experienced on the group's YouTube channel, which has accumulated well over 1 billion views to-date, and the Postmodern Jukebox are touring the UK in May this year with dates across the country including in Bristol. See you there...

I Put A Spell On You has been recorded many times since Screaming Jay Hawkins first penned it in 1956. Oddly enough, the largest number of covers have been by male singers, though Nina Simone's version is among the best-known. Annie Lennox's version comes from her 2014 album of classic covers, Nostalgia.

Time is rushing on. In a few minutes, Florence & The Machine with a cover of You Got The Love, originally recorded by Candi Station -- best-known for her 70s disco hit Young Hearts Run Free. But first, a gorgeous jazz-tinged version of James Taylor's Fire & Rain from Al Jarreau.

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You'd hardly guess from Al Jarreau's beautifully sunny scat-sung version of James Taylor's Fire & Rain that the song deals with suicide, and drug addiction and the perils of fame. Taylor recorded it in 1970 for his second album Sweet Baby James. Most of the songs on that album are brighter and breezy but this one is darkly autobiographical. The first verse records his reaction to the death of his friend Suzanne Schner. He had signed to The Beatles' Apple Records and was in London recording his first album. His friends didn't tell him because they thought it distract him from his burgeoning career, so he didn't find out that she'd taken her own life until six months later, by which time he was struggling with drug addiction. The following verses are about his experience in rehab and then the crushing depression which followed. Fire & Rain indeed but not the way Al Jarreau delivers the song, from his second album Glow.

You've Got The Love has an even stranger story. It was originally recorded by Candi Staton in 1986 as You Got The Love, a sort of Chic style funk-lite workout song. Staton music career was more or less over, and she accepted a commission from her friend the comedian Dick Gregory to perform a song for a weight-loss video he was making. Bizarre, right? In the end the video was never made and the song got only a limited release as a 12" single. However the B-side contained just an a cappella vocal version, and towards the end of the 80s, this started being sampled by a new generation of house music DJs, combined with different instrumental backings -- in much the same way that Suzanne Vega's a cappella album track Tom's Diner was set to music by British DJ duo DNA. Candi Staton's song had a similar explosive growth curve, especially in the UK, sampled repeatedly by another British DJ John Truelove, who enjoyed no fewer than three separate chart hits with the same song in different mixes. It was even the theme for Sky Sports live football coverage for almost a decade. And that's when Florence Welch stepped in.

It's one of my favourite songs ever, she said in 2008. As a kid, going to clubs and raves, she said, this song made me feel love. When we started playing festivals ourselves, we were thinking of an amazing cover we could do, and I thought of Candi Staton. Even in rehearsals, playing it was just the most euphoric feeling. Then playing it live and seeing everyone's arms in the air, and the faces – it was the best feeling ever! 

OK. We're just coming up to the break now. I'll be back with you for another hour of fabulous covers after the news, but first two songs from David Bowie. In a few minutes, the stunning Wild Is The Wind, the closing track from the album Station To Station, in my opinion probably Bowie's masterpiece. It's also arguably the best cover song Bowie ever recorded not least because he throws every last drop of pure agonised emotion into the song. This was a famously troubled time for the Thin White Duke when he was living on a diet of milk and red peppers, and wrestling with deep psychological fears brought on by what was then a vast intake of chemical stimulants. How many times has that topic come up now in the past hour...

The track was originally recorded in 1957 by Johnny Mathis as the title song for the Hollywood movie of the same name, but the biggest influence on Bowie was a later version recorded by Nina Simone. "Her performance of the song really affected me," he said later. "I thought it was just tremendous, so I recorded it as an homage to Nina."

Before that, though, a song not from but by David Bowie. Boys Keep Swinging was the first single released from Bowie's new album Lodger in April 1979. At around the same time, up in Edinburgh in Scotland, singer Billy Mackenzie and guitarist Alan Rankine were struggling to attract the attention of record companies to their new band The Associates. They had plenty of their own songs, but they couldn't get a contract. So while Bowie's version was still in the charts, Mackenzie came up with the idea of recording an illegal cover version of it and sending it to record companies and radio stations. "People said, 'That's awful. How dare they!, but it worked. The idea was to prove a point. It was a strange way of proving it but it worked. It was picked up by John Peel's late night show, and the ensuing attention won them a contract with The Cure's label Fiction Records. Here it is: Boys Keep Swinging from The Associates followed by Bowie and Wild Is The Wind.