The Clash have been one of my favorite bands for decades, yet I hadn't included them in any posts on this blog. Going to try to remedy that today. Here we have three songs that they covered.
Back in the early 80's when Eddy Grant was all over MTV with his hit Electric Avenue, one of the VJ's casually mentioned that he had penned 'Police on my Back' that the Clash had recorded on the triple album Sandinista. There was no internet back then on which to search for lost music.... but there is now. So here we have The Equals with Eddy Grant on vocals.
In the past year I found that another song from Sandinista, Junco Partner' was not an original, when I came across version from Joe Strummers earlier band the 101er's. A little research revealed that the song is based on Junker's Blues written in 1940 by Willie Hall and was first recorded in 1951 by James Waynes.
Everyone knows that ' I Fought the Law' was a cover when the Clash included it on the US version of their self-titled first album, but the familiar Bobby Fuller Four version was not the original either. The song was written by Sonny Curtis when he joined The Crickets in 1959 after Buddy Holly's tragic death.
Great stuff,and resisted the urge to put Police and Thieves in.How about a Blog with other bands doing Clash covers?
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