roachboy

if you want to hear a series of truly horrifying recordings, listen to the kronos quartet trying to cover various "pop" tunes---like purple haze.

you can hear the effects of the fact that someone had scored hendrix's piece then arranged it for string quartet---it seems that the quartet somehow imagined that the scoring would have no effect on the resulting sound--but it is horrible in that the "we are getting down now" sense derives from these prissy pitch bends that they do as a feeble attempt to imitate hendrix....not able to break with the antiquated euro-classical conceptions of "correct" but nonetheless trying to produce versions of hendrix (for example) that retain the features of the originals, the best they were able to do was produce novelty records, which are interesting mostly as a kind of list of things that classical players should not do when they try to cover pop songs.

but i think that you could apply the same general critique to almost any cover version. excessive reverence for the original seems to turn most of them to tedium.
same goes for many jazz players--for example, i find miles davis's version of "time after time" to be unlistenable..and this from a hopeless fan of miles' work from around 1960 to 1975....

in the end, i suspect that the problem lay in a basically patronizing relation to the originals, the confusion of the (very) straightforward structural features of most pop songs/pop performances with the absence of complexity.

if you really think that a classically-trained baritone could cover dylan better than dylan does, then i would suggest you pony up for a recording and post it so we can hear what a "proper" version would be like.

personal aside: my brother is a bluegrass musician.
now i hate bluegrass like few things on this earth, but i respect the musicianship involved with pulling off the sound because it is much much harder to do at all, not to mention do well, than you would think from listening to recordings of it. the vocal arrangements might be locked into modes rooted in protestant hymn-singing, but the simplicity of the form does not mean that it is easy to pull off, particularly live. part of this follows from the starting assumption: you have to believe in these forms to do them. to communicate through them they have to communicate something to you. they can't be simply devices that you pick up and use (or "correct") if you want to be able to work in that form and not become a joke.

bluegrass instrumentation tends to be unforgiving of mistakes was well--for example a banjo produces almost no resonance, so there is no latitude for covering technical missteps. so while the structures played are simple, what goes into producing those structures sonically is really not, and it requires an enormous level of dedication to do. that i do not share this type of dedication to this form does not mean that i do not recognize it.

i dont think everyone has to like everything...but it does not follow from disliking a form, or disliking particular performers, that you know anything about what goes into making the performances. it seems really self-limiting to move from disliking a form to disrespecting the players who engage in it.

unless you really think that you can produce better, more correct versions--in which case i would encourage you to do it, and maybe post them here for our general instruction.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite