Tupelo Honey
here’s a cover i recorded this afternoon of Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, though i completely altered the chord structure of the song. best listened to in headphones, or a decent sound system.
here’s a cover i recorded this afternoon of Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, though i completely altered the chord structure of the song. best listened to in headphones, or a decent sound system.
February 24th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Fucking amazing. Loved it. I’ve been working on lots of covers myself. My favorite so far, Mercy Street.
Your version of Van Morrison is wonderful. I’d love someday to lay down a track or something for you. Have you sung Mercy Street (Peter Gabriel) before?
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February 25th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
thanks, bi11. great to hear from you again. i was wondering.
have never sung that song, other than along with the album, years ago. love it. would love to do it.
let’s talk soon via phone…
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February 25th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Peter Gabriel has a live version in which Mercy Street is introduced a cappella. You can really hear the harmonies that way. He makes a slight rhythmic change in delivering the melody to the version he recorded in the 80’s. Amazing to think how old that album is now. This music is not from my most innocent period of music appreciation (see my comments to Tribute to George). I was already fancying myself to be a musician, and possibly a jazz one at that.
I think the song lends itself to solo piano, or piano accompaniment of vocals. One interesting feature I’ve found in it, is that the interaction between the harmony and melody such that often we find non chord tones in the melody resting on the chords. There isn’t a single shade of chromaticism, not one key change, but this amazing richness the piece gets from bringing out different natural tensions within the C# natural minor tonality.
Since I’m kind of working along with a jazz-influenced language there is a tendency to seek alternate harmonies, or add chromatic leading tones and the like. With this tune, I cannot go there. So I appreciate it for stopping me from proceeding with a bag of assumptions about how to interpret a popular tune.
This is of a piece with a new attitude for me, about how to proceed with making music — for me focusing a great deal on material that is not my own original stuff is a new thing. Also, after contemplating the development of Bill Evans’ piano approach (been reading about him, and listening, and there are some videos in which he discusses music), I’ve decided to follow my own path along some of his principles. Bill Evans rich harmonic and sonic vocabulary was painstakingly built brick by brick, with no short cuts. He didn’t jump ahead into the exotic, he focused on basic musical principles. Playing Mercy Street has taught me something rudimentary about harmony — a richness from an economy of means. It occurs to me that one could spend a great deal of time mastering that level.
Of course this is to say nothing of the bare emotional effect of the tune and the words.
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February 25th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
very interesting, bi11, thanks.
my primary focus right now is relaxing my body/mind so i can loosen up and sing.
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February 25th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Don’t know as my curious analysis of Mercy Street could help you very much in that department. Listening to the song, though, would certainly help.
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