I conclude my look at the band Big Daddy with their last album of all new performances, 1992’s Sgt. Pepper’s. Here they took on the awesome challenge of recording every track from the classic Beatles album in their own inimitable way (in other words, doing them as ’50s and early ’60s-style cover versions).
First, we look at the song ”With a Little Help from My Friends,” performed here with a definite Johnny Mathis influence. Once you get past the change, it’s really a quite pretty song (and the guy does a pretty good Mathis as well).
With a Little Help from My Friends
What if Jerry Lee Lewis did his own version of ”Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”? Well, it would certainly rock! There’s some great piano work on display here.
I like this version of ”Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” because I enjoy the song ”Palisades Park” by Freddy ”Boom Boom” Cannon, and meshing the two together like this works quite nicely.
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
One of my favorite songs on the original Sgt. Pepper’s album is ”When I’m Sixty-Four,” and I love what Big Daddy did with the song too. Doing the song as a nod to ”Sixty Minute Man” (which came out in 1951), Big Daddy actually does a more modern version than the original!
Finally, we end with the song ”A Day in the Life,” with an obvious parallel to Buddy Holly’s ”Oh Boy.” Listen as the song takes a chilling (and very effective) turn at the end.
If you’d like the whole album, you can find it here. Big Daddy’s next release was a greatest hits album, which you can get here. Their only album still available (in mp3 form) is Cutting Their Own Groove, and of course it comes highly recommended by yours truly.
As a special bonus, here’s Big Daddy performing two songs from the album. By the way, this first clip doesn’t start until about 15 seconds into it. (And no, I don’t know why this show seems to be hosted by a German version of the Church Lady.)
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/BQqaUlK-w8Y" width="600" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/TpuP3mNCDEI" width="600" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
Comments