Some people are just flat-out smart-asses.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be at times, mind you, but a good smart-ass pulls it off with a modicum of grace and might give you a chuckle for it. In the music world, there are relatively few of the latter. Instead of a wink and a nod, they just about knock you unconscious and then ask if “you saw that.” You can tell one from the other by their choices in the realm of cover songs.

A word of note to anyone who is not a music nerd accidentally finding themselves at this site: a cover song is when an artist records another artist’s song, hence covering it. The term ‘remake’ fits as well. The term ’smart-ass’, at least relative to this article, refers to those who decide to go all hipster and record something that bears no relevance, charm or wit toward their own sensibility. I’m thinking of Madonna’s cover of “American Pie” or that godawful A Perfect Circle CD where the songs weren’t just reworked, they were worked over, until all that was left was roadkill disguised as tribute. Then there’s the Bluegrass Tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. More notoriously, I’m thinking of the late-’50s pop songs from black artists covered by teen idol white artists because, you know, if it comes from a white guy in a sweater, the subtext can’t be about sex. Right? Pat Boone? Tutti Frutti?

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March 19, 1976, is a Friday. Newspaper readers learn that Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho entered the presidential race yesterday, even though the race is well underway already. Also yesterday, Paul McCartney’s father, James, died at age 73, and the state of Kentucky officially ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. (It had rejected the amendment in 1865.) Today, closing arguments continue in the bank-robbery trial of heiress Patricia Hearst. In Sierra Madre, California, a bicentennial time capsule is buried under the flagpole of the city’s new police and fire building. The Garden State Rotary Club of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, holds its first meeting.

The Indiana Hoosiers defeat Alabama in the Mideast Regional semifinals of the NCAA basketball tournament. (On Sunday, they will qualify for the Final Four by beating Marquette, and will eventually win the national championship, going undefeated for the year.) Programs on TV tonight include The Rockford Files and Space: 1999. Celebrity guests on the recently renamed $20,000 Pyramid are Soupy Sales and All My Children actress Stephanie Braxton. Future TV actress Rachel Blanchard and future NBA player Andre Miller are born. Guitarist Paul Kossoff, formerly of Free and currently of Back Street Crawler, dies aboard an airplane flight after years of drug abuse; he’s 25.

Bette Midler plays Tarrytown, New York, the Electric Light Orchestra plays Boston, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band plays Kansas City, Kansas, Elvis Presley plays Johnson City, Tennessee, and Bad Company plays Dallas. On the Cash Box magazine chart for the week, “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen replaces the Miracles’ “Love Machine” at Number One. The hottest record on the chart is Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady,” blasting from 27 to 10 in its sixth week on. Also new to the Top 10 are “Sweet Thing” by Rufus at Number 7 and “Dream On” by Aerosmith at Number 8. Several hits that will last well into the bicentennial summer are further down the chart as well: Dorothy Moore’s “Misty Blue,” “Sara Smile” by Hall and Oates, and ELO’s “Strange Magic.” A teenager in southern Wisconsin continues his behind-the-wheel driver’s ed instruction in eager anticipation of getting his license within a few weeks; whenever he’s in the car, the radio is always on. And whenever he’s not.

“Disco Lady,” Johnnie Taylor
“Strange Magic” (live in Boston, 3/19/76), Electric Light Orchestra

Instincts run hot and cold, depending on who is relying on them. Some artists go against the grain and it works out fantastically for them. Some make last-minute choices that, while not haunting them forever, certainly don’t help them a hell of a lot. Ben Folds runs somewhere in the middle.

His biggest successes came early on as the namesake of the Ben Folds Five trio. That first eponymous disc was eminently buzz-worthy, whipping indie kids into a frenzy much as we’ve seen with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arctic Monkeys and, more recently, Vampire Weekend. The second disc, Whatever And Ever Amen, made a strong case for the resurgence of piano pop, and indeed we hadn’t heard something so pretty (and at the same time vitriolic) since Joe Jackson’s punk period. It didn’t hurt that “Brick” suddenly became an unexpected hit. After one more studio disc and a b-sides/live cuts compilation, though, the three in the Five were reduced to one. (more…)