PETER GABRIEL, Larkin Poe, Harry Styles

 "SLEDGEHAMMER"

People posted a cover of Peter Gabriel's classic 'Sledgehammer' by duo Larkin Poe and it is nice enough I guess but I do find it funny that people find the  . . .what shall we call it? chutzpah? cojones? sheer effrontery!? ha ha ha  . . . . lets be kind and call it bravery, to cover classic pop songs when the definitive version by the master and the person who wrote it is still being performed and a significant part of their live set from the late 80s when it was written to their still doing it now! My caution is think very long and hard about whether you are good enough to cover such a song! Consider that maybe you are but also that you are nowhere near good enough to make it unique! If you can't make it unique but some kind of pub duo busking version what's the point? Make it unique like Hendrix did for Bobby's "All Along The Watchtower' or don't bother!

Someone who has covered it and surprised me by making it reverential and so close to the original it endears as it comes over as respectful (he did record it in Peter G's legendary recording studio! Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire) and proves he can REALLY sing! is Harry Styles version . . . . . . . . . so  here we go!

LARKIN/POE

HARRY STYLES

Now there are some great versions on the net by Peter G (YouTube really) and one from '87 shortly after been written and the one from 'Growing Up Live' is great too but my favourite is this one from the Back To Front tour (2014?) TURN IT UP!

Naturally Peter G at his peak and this we bought on release was no exception turn it RIGHT up!

On this day in music history: July 26, 1986 - “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1 week. Written by Peter Gabriel, it is the biggest hit for the British singer and songwriter. Influenced by 60’s soul music, especially the Memphis soul sound pioneered by Stax Records, Gabriel hires the Memphis Horns (Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson) to play on the track, as well as features former Ikette P.P. Arnold, Dee Lewis and Coral Gordon on background vocals. Other musicians including Tony Levin (bass), Manu Katche (drums), and David Rhodes (guitar) also play on the track. The songs highly innovative and award winning music video directed by Stephen R. Johnson (“Pee Wee’s Playhouse”) also features contributions from the Aardman Animation Studio (“Wallace & Gromit”) and the Brothers Quay. The video is filmed using a stop motion camera technique in which Gabriel’s movements and lip synch are filmed one frame at at a time while lying on his back, under a sheet of plate glass for up to sixteen hours a day for eight days. The process is painstaking and slow, and the clip takes over a month to complete. Released as the first single from Gabriel’s fifth studio album “So” in April of 1986, “Sledgehammer” becomes an immediate hit. Entering the Hot 100 at #89 on May 10, 1986, it climbs to the top of the chart eleven weeks later. The video for “Sledgehammer” wins an unprecedented nine MTV VMA awards (still the record holder for the most wins in a single year), and by 2011 becomes the most played clip in the history of the channel. "Sledgehammer" is later sampled by 3rd Bass as the basis of their hit single “Pop Goes The Weasel” in 1991.

thanks as ever to Jeff Harris at his wondrous Behind The Grooves