I've just found yet another couple of covers of this classic released in the last month or so. William DeVaughn didn't release many records himself (you can read about him in the Discography I posted last year), but must be living very well, thank you very much, from royalties from this song.
Orgone [2021] - Be Thankful For What You Got [3 Palm]
Taken from their new album 'Raw & Direct' released on 8 Jan 2021 is a live version.
The group includes Adryon de León who I featured a few days ago whith her new solo release.
Lucky Daye, Big Freedia & BJRNCK [2020] - Be Thankful For What You Got [Parlophone]
Released 4 Dec 2020
Second Hand Songs lists only 15 versions but I think I could easily list many others they haven't listed:
* flags a few of the better versions
Yo La Tengo (1998 sounds a bit 'flat' to me)
*DJ Maze (1999)
*Beres Hammond (1991)
Peter Blakeley (1994 Blue-Eyed)
*Shug Jackson (1996 a good hip-hop version - I like this style of 'rhythmic' rap)
Cool Hipnoise (1998 very smooth & mellow version by Potuguese artist)
Omar with Angie Stone (2000)
Omar with Erykah Badu (2000) (I can't tell a great deal of difference between the two versions)
Rocky Padilla (Live) (2001 - a live version from latin soul singer)
*The Winstons (2002 - good modern take by the band that brought us Color Him Father)
*Nick Rolfe (2003 - a decent neo soul version)
Wicked Minds feat Wreck, Face (2003 hip-hop version)
Kings of the City (2004 hip-hop version)
Fingazz (2005 - vocoder vocals)
Donald McCollum (2006 - neo soul version which doesn't add anything),
Cleveland Watkiss (2008 - British vocalist version),
Lawrence 'Lipbone' Redding (2009 - blue-eyed version),
The Comptones (2009)
The Hit Nation (2010)
Maurice Davis (2010)
The Champagne Band (2010)
*Prezident Brown Feat. Ryan (2011)
Payaso (2011 hip-hop)
Block Station Feat. Arthur Miles (2011 a decent club version there's a few different mixes including a sugar dub mix))
*D'Wayne Wiggins, Too Short, Silk-E (2012 - some rappin' at the start but not through song),
*Emily Gimble (2012 - a good female blue-eyed version)
B.A.D. Connection (2013 - speeded up house version),
Androidboss (2014 - another 'vocodered' version!),
The Unit Band (2014),
Minga (2014 - female blue-eyed smooth jazz (ish) lounge version.),
Ray Barnard (2014 - another blue-eyed version that doesn't add much)
Soul Club (2015)
High And Mighty Brass Band (2015 - don't be fooled by the name this has got some balls)
Christopher Crius (2015 Blue-Eyed 'carbon-copy)
*Billy Lofton (2015 - nice bversion by US singer now based in Australia)
Zoe Leone (2015) several versions one with William Devaughn and another solo,
Little Sara and the Night Owls (2016 - blue-eyed Seattle based group)
Deesmuve (2016 hip-hop)
David C. Johnson (2016 - carbon-copy)
Soul Unlimited (2016)
*Lady C (2017 - 'bluesy' acoustic version)
Jimmy Read Feat. King Kass (2017 - another thumping club/house version)
*Charlie Brown Superstar (2016 - thumping club version)
*Fo' Clips Eclpise (2018 - a decent 'rhyhmic' rap version),
Pepe Marquez (2018 - lowrider / latin soul version),
Earl Detrick (2018 - neo soul/R&B version),
The Space Lady (2018 - as name implies a 'spacy' / ambient version)
Richie Hart (2018 - guitar jazz inst.)
Raquel Rodriguez & Stan Taylor (2019 - a fairly 'loyal' modern cover),
TheDJLawyer (2019 (probably Alan Coulthard?) - horrible 'disco' version),
*The Notations (2019 - loyal cover from these veterans)
Greg Landau (2019 from Songs From LA Mission) 2 versions:
*Be Thankful (remix feat. Andy Allo) - good neo/lowrider version
Foster C K (2019 - neo soul/R&B version),
*Talibah Safiya (2019 - a neo soul 'smoothed out' version),
Alvin Garrett (2019 - neo soul/R&B version)
Detroit Soul Sensation (2019 - blue-eyed neo soul version)
*Abavuki (2019 - a tight jazz guitar inst. from an African artist),
*Reginald Thomas (2019 - a slowed down Gospel ballad version - very different)
6twentytwo (2019 - just a bit of a 'mash-up' of beats this one)
TOPTEXAS DJNATO feat. Deesmuve (2020 - may be a mash-up of Deesmuve above?)
Terence Rico Bryant (2020 - slowed down Inst. version)
*Sharon McMahan (2020 - fairly loyal cover with amended/updated lyrics),
J-Felix Feat. Sol Goodman (2020),
*Henry Clarke (2020 - updated 'message' versions)
Soul Messengers (2020 - modern soul take (ripped from Solar radio!)),
Rick Leon James (2020 - slowed down jazz guitar inst. version)
Reggae versions:
Junior English (1976),
Diana Heron (1979),
Cornel Campbell (1980)
One Blood (1980),
Winston Curtis (1984),
Pure Silk & Ken Boothe (1992)
Bunny 'Rugs' Clarke (1999),
Border Roots (2009)
Sugar Minott (2011)
Helen Rogers (2015),
Mechelle Melledee (2015)
Linn And Freddie (2017),
Carolene Thompson (2018),
Prince Fatty (2019),
BTBTokko (2019),
The Reggae Revolution (2019)
Dimas & The Same Song Band (2020)
I got a bit carried away with this exercise as I knew there must be more than 15 versions of the song (I think there are approx 86 listed above on top of the 15 on Second Hand Songs) so that's at least 100 versions and counting. I'm sure I could find more if I dug even deeper. There are a few I've left out because they are simply not very good.
Curiously, there aren't that many pre 2000. It seems to have been really jumped on after around 2010 - every man and his dog seems to want to cover it, but apart from a few (marked with '*'), they are all too similar to the original so why bother?
1 comment:
Dope. Thanks for digging around.
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