Beatles Cover Versions
Endlessly collecting
During the years of collecting, Beatles Cover Versions have become a more and more important part of my Beatles mania. Collecting Beatles cover versions poses a slight problem. The amount of cover versions seems to be endless. Of "Yesterday" alone surely more than a 1000 versions are to be found. With these great amounts the cover area is difficult to oversee.
And selecting
Furthermore many of the cover versions are only to be found on regular artists' albums, which contain only one or two cover versions. Selecting is absolutely necessary. Therefore I try to restrain myself to collecting singles and / or albums with only Beatles' cover tracks, again with a special preference for the 60s and 70s.
The use of others fame and succes
Just as with the related tribute
versions, especially in the early years of the Beatles
there were many artists who tried to get their share out of the success of the Beatles.
The release of Beatles tributes or cover versions is a way of making use of the
success of the Beatles. Making a parody or a combination of
all these varieties can also be seen as such.
Themes
A frequent theme for parody is the use of the Mop Top Beatles' hairstyle.
A very well-known variety on the mop top hairstyle and mop top wig theme is the "Beatlemania" LP
by the Liverpools. The LP shows the clever use of 4 drawn heads with pony
hairstyle, (only) 4 Beatles cover-tracks and the name "Beatlemania". All this was enough to
promote and sell the LP.
Besides the "Liverpools" LP a single was released. In Holland the single was released with
the "picture" cover, shown on the right.
In the own language
Another special kind of cover versions is the cover version that is sung by the artist in his or her own language (not English).
Also Holland has its own translated cover versions. A much translated song is "Yellow Submarine". Translated as "Jelle zal wel zien" and performed by Dutch entertainer Wim Kan, it became rather famous. The Dutch singer Karin Kent made her own version of the same translation. The Wim Kan cover version became well known but most of the translated cover versions were made in very small quantities and remained unknown. Therefore it's quite difficult to find these cover versions and to get some idea of what has been released.
Some of my missing items are to be found on my searchlist
This shown EP of the Stars is one out of a small series of 4 Dutch EP's.
Probably the in Holland well-known photographer Paul Huf took the photographs for this series.
Paul Huf made his name in the sixties and seventies by his photos for the Dutch
women's magazine Margriet. In the seventies he became better known by his
photographs of craftsmen for advertisements for the Dutch Beer Brewery Grolsch.
Up untill now I've only found three EPs from the series of four. Still one to go.