Are there any good artist tribute albums?

Marylou's Corvette within the last couple of years did a song-for-song cover of Dylan's BLOOD ON THE TRACKS.

THE DOC POMUS trib including Los Lobos (Lonely Ave.) and excellent versions of Viva Las Vegas (wistful ballad, Shawn Colvin) and Dylan doing the Boogie
Woogie Country Girl(?) is prob my all-time fave trib.

Close Second: Tulare Dust.

doug

 

Ken I still have my LP. I would grade it VG++. It's at the top of my list for a needle drop.

Back in my retail days in the early 1990s, we sold a schwack of a Swedish Depeche Mode tribute CD called "I Sometimes Wish I Was Famous". The CD contained 16 tracks with some interesting interpretations of such songs as "Dreaming Of Me", "Puppets", "Blasphemous Rumours", "Stripped", "Never Let Me Down Again", and "Shouldn't Have Done That".

 

Um...was that not Uncut magazine?

Uncut has also released a couple of other covers CDs. There was one a couple of years ago featuring all Beatles covers. Last year Uncut released a double Rolling Stones issue. Two different covers. Two different CDs contained all Stones covers.

 

I have a Badfinger tribute CD, I can't recall the name of it, but it is pretty damn good. I recall the track "I Can't Take it" being excellent, one for the highlight disc. I think it was by Dwight Tilley, again, I am at work so I don't have access to the disc.

Maybe prix would know.

 

Well, if one artist recording an album of another's songs qualifies as a tribute album, then there's
"Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy" (1960)
Dave Brubeck "Dave Digs Disney" (1957) (does "Brubeck Plays Brubeck" (1956) qualify as a self-tribute? )
Then there's Ella Fitzgerald's many songbook albums from the 50s (eg, "Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook")

 

Yup, my bad.

 

From Louis Armstrong:

"Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy"
"Satch Plays Fats: The Music of Fats Waller"

 

Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye - A Tribute to Roky Erickson!

 

Lou Reed also contributes a fine version of "This Magic Moment"... he was a personal friend of Pomus.

 

Guess you can say that the Dylan 30th cncert is kind of a tribute album. It kind of runs the gamut from great (Richie Havens, McGuinn, Petty, Vedder, Colvin & Friends, Clapton) to not so great IMO (Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder's intro that's longer than the song, & well....Dylan )

 

IMHO, there's a big difference between "tribute" albums and "cover" albums. It's not prevalent at all today, but back in the 50's, 60's and even the 70's, it wasn't uncommon for artists to do cover versions (or entire themed cover albums) of songs from a movie, songwriters or bands, etc. It was a lot more prevalent in jazz--look at the Beatles themed albums, or the million-or-so takes on West Side Story.

To me a "tribute" album is a various artist compilation. (I haven't heard one in at least a decade that is even listenable...the few I've bought, I've cringed over. All were mentioned above.) Or if not various artists, a "cover" album is now lumped into the "tribute" category IMHO.

An obscure example? Both Poncho Sanchez and Dave Samuels did tributes to Cal Tjader. Poncho's was a helluva lot better musically...Samuels (on Verve) and/or Univer$al's marketing department, billed his as a "tribute" and had a couple of guests on it. The CD booklet even tried for that funky 60's psychedelic retro look...I barely call this a tribute. More like a cash-in.