Sunday, January 21, 2018

RALPH STANLEY COVERS THE VELVETS

I've got no idea how this slipped past me. Wait, I do. I'm not enough of a Bowie fiend, or even Velvet Underground fiend, to know about every burp and fart they ever recorded. So the fact that an early cover of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting For the Man" by a band called Riot Act, with Bowie on vocals, slipped past me shouldn't surprise me. What did surprise me is that the Riot Squad was covering it practically before it was released. In late 1966, Bowie's manager at the time returned from a trip to New York with an pre-release acetate of the first Velvet's album, given to him by Andy Warhol. The Riot Act started performing "I'm Waiting For the Man" right away. Bowie was only in the band for a couple months, so the recording was done soon thereafter. It didn't see release until 2013.


After hearing it, I started thinking about the whole Lou Reed/Bowie thing. That top photo above appeared in a magazine around 1972, and led to speculation that they were more than just friends. I don't remember being all that surprised by it, rather I found it funny because another photo in the sequence revealed that the third wheel obscured by their smooch is Mick Jagger. After all of the ostracizing dynamics of the Stones, it was nice to see him the odd man out.


Here's a smattering of versions of two Velvet Underground songs, "I'm Waiting For the Man" and "White Light, White Heat", another song that Bowie and Reed shared more than once. The real oddball down there is unrelated to Bowie or Reed (other than Reed's authorship). It's a cover of "White Light, White Heat" by bluegrass icon Ralph Stanley. The shit you find...

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
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