Stu Reid Under The Covers: She & Him Cover Sam Cooke and The Morning Benders Take on Paul Simon

I love me some cover songs. More specifically, I love good cover songs. So when I found myself desperately close to entering a musical funk, I was borderline joyful to find myself wrenched from the gaping maw of a rut by a phenomenal cover by The Morning Benders. I've been slightly obsessed with The Morning Benders over the past couple of months, and a cover of "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book was just too much to pass up.

But the discovery didn't end there, oh no. For a little digging revealed that a couple years ago The Morning Benders recorded an entire album's worth of covers, including some mind-bendingly good ones. It's called The Bedroom Covers, and it's definitely worth a download. LUCKY FOR YOU IT'S FREE! And still available over on The Morning Benders' blog. Go get it. My favorite of the tracks is a cover of Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion," probably because I'm a sucker for Paul Simon. It's pretty great, though.

A little extra digging brought up another great little cover project from Zoey Deschanel and M.Ward, better known in the music world as She & Him. I'm not sure what they did this cover for, but it seems like maybe some sort of radio show. I'm pretty hesitant to hear anyone cover Sam Cooke, but they don't fool around with the phrasing too much, which I like. This tune has the human touch in Zoey's voice that was sadly missing from She & Him's latest album, Volume II. Dig in.


The Morning Benders - Mother and Child Reunion (Paul Simon Cover) (YSI) (filesavr)

The Morning Benders - I Wanna Be Like You (Jungle Book Cover) (YSI) (filesavr)

She & Him - Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke Cover) (YSI) (filesavr)