There is nothing wrong with wearing your influences openly on your sleeve for all to see. Especially when your influences appear to be the late 60’s and particularly the Rolling Stones and Buffalo Springfield. I’ve also said that Alias Wayne knows how to work with covers. Ring of Fire proved that and here he applies the same smarts to two bone fide classics.
The clever thing here is that during the process of interweaving The Stone’s Gimme Shelter through Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, he manages to bleed the essence of one into the other. Gimme Shelter is smoothed out and made less menacing than its original dark design by the Byrds soulful psychedelia and For What It’s Worth gets a slight edge of…well, edge…from the Stones more intense vibe.
Again, it is a cover, or should I say two covers, done the way they should be. Just because you are taking a song which everybody is familiar with (and if you are not familiar with these songs then music is clearly not for you) doesn’t mean that you can’t do something new with your rendition. And here all boxes are ticked. The songs sound familiar yet different and blend together perfectly to create a new listening experience.
And the risk of repeating myself…why doesn’t everyone get that?
[…] Stones/Buffalo Springfield mash up Gimme What It’s Worth acted like brilliantly fun fusion and calling card for this mini-album and it is joined here by […]