{"id":28817,"date":"2025-01-31T05:30:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T10:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28817"},"modified":"2025-01-31T10:02:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T15:02:37","slug":"five-great-covers-by-the-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/31\/five-great-covers-by-the-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Great Covers by the Who"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Who released <em>Odds &amp; Sods<\/em> on their own Track Records in October 1974. A compilation of rare tracks, the record was assembled by the band\u2019s bassist John Entwistle in response to the proliferation of unauthorized (bootleg\/pirate) collections of Who songs like <em>Who\u2019s Zoo<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>By 1974, the Who had released six albums of new material. But along the way, the London foursome had cut and released a wide number of non-album tracks, and the band\u2019s vault was already filling with unheard demos, songs that hadn\u2019t found their way to release, and other rarities. Most bands could only hope to have put together a collection of leftovers as fine as <em>Odds &amp; Sods<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In the years since, other collections of Who rarities have seen release. But select tracks remain rarely-heard; some are all but unknown outside the circle of hardcore Who fans. And as prolific a songwriter as Pete Townshend has been (Entwistle was too, albeit to a lesser extent), the Who recorded quite a few covers along the way. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of<em> Odds &amp; Sods<\/em>, here are five notable (and comparatively rare) tracks featuring the Who performing the work of other artists.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHeat Wave\u201d (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nWritten by the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, \u201cHeat Wave\u201d was first popularized by Motown group Martha and the Vandellas. Their 1963 single was a smash, charting #4 on the pop singles chart and #1 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s r&amp;b singles chart. The Who cut their version \u2013 a relentlessly rocking, bass-forward take \u2013 in 1966. In America, the track was included on the group\u2019s second album, <em>Happy Jack<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Bi8H_JAZe-A?si=yK68TeT5wgL1cwal\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cBarbara Ann\u201d (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nWho drummer Keith Moon was an unapologetic Beach Boys fan. What he wasn\u2019t was a credible vocalist. But that didn\u2019t stop him from recording a solo album, the wild, wooly and cheeky <em>Two Sides of the Moon<\/em>, in 1975. That LP featured Moon warbling the Beach Boys\u2019 \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Baby,\u201d but in fact Moon had cut another cover of the group\u2019s music much earlier. The band had performed \u201cBarbara Ann\u201d for the BBC, and a clip of the group performing it in the studio was featured in the 1979 documentary <em>The Kids Are Alright<\/em>. A studio recording \u2013 with the whole band singing \u2013 was included on the 1990s expanded reissue of <em>A Quick One<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8tJ3yAKDAIw?si=k0kXdvzlBpICskIU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cUnder My Thumb\u201d (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Rolling Stones were the target of zealous anti-drug police in London, and in 1967 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were arrested on drug charges. In solidarity with the group, the Who recorded covers of two Stones songs: \u201cThe Last Time\u201d and \u201cUnder My Thumb.\u201d Many years later, the latter track would be included as a bonus cut on an expanded reissue of <em>The Who Sell Out<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wPkLeaHqvDo?si=R9tucy6o84-vVz3u\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright for Fighting\u201d (1991)<\/strong><br \/>\nElton John and the Who have a long history of association: Elton famously portrayed the Pinball Wizard character in the <em>Tommy<\/em> musical film. And in 1991 when <em>Two Rooms<\/em>, an all-star tribute to Elton and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin \u2013 was put together, the Who contributed their own powerful reading of an Elton John hit, \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright for Fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0exRGBr1IVI?si=teWJ5Soo4Tm45PJL\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cFire\u201d (1989)<\/strong><br \/>\nWild and operatic singer Arthur Brown was signed to the Who\u2019s Track Records when he released <em>The Crazy World of Arthur Brown<\/em> in 1968. Pete Townshend served as \u201cassociate producer\u201d on the album, which featured Brown\u2019s incendiary signature tune, \u201cFire.\u201d As a single, the tune rose to the #2 spot on the U.S. singles chart, bested only by the Beatles\u2019 \u201cHey Jude.\u201d More than 20 years later when Townshend was making a solo album, <em>The Iron Man: The Musical<\/em>, he enlisted his Who band mates in making a cover of the song.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SP2sAxRaoUU?si=ZoA--bhMCn7bQXCl\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Who released Odds &amp; Sods on their own Track Records in October 1974. A compilation of rare tracks, the record was assembled by the band\u2019s bassist John Entwistle in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2190],"class_list":["post-28817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-the-who","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28983,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28817\/revisions\/28983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}