Blog #3

The song I chose was "Feeling Good" originally recorded by Nina Simone, and was later covered by Joe Bonamassa. The original follows the trends of the 1960's music genres in which it was also recorded (1965). The song starts out with Nina singing, no instruments backing her up for the first verse, and then after that the instrumentation begin with no fade in, it starts with the usage of drums, piano, strings and horns. It offers more of a big band sound rather than the standard 2 guitars 1 bass and drum set makeup. Of course with this song being recorded in the 1960's it has a distinct timbre that gives it a sound of being played in a tin can, it's for lack of a better word it has some "twang" to it. The speed of the song is fairly slow 4/4 pace. but it doesn't give off a meandering feel, there is purpose to the speed even if it is rather slow. Finally, the intensity of this song is quite mild, yes it has some loud sections of the song, but Joe Bonamassa's version is much louder.

Joe Bonamassa uses the fade in t for exampleechnique when beginning the song using a keyboard as he sings during the first verse then enters the rest of the song with a growling guitar. He is then accompanied by drums, bass, and keyboard. a more traditional "Rock N Roll" set up. The song was recorded several years ago (2008)so the sound quality is much better. Because of this the timbre has more control. The timbre for this version is a lot deeper and warmer. The guitar has a nice growl to it that adds to the depth of the song and makes it a little more inviting for this generation of music listeners but still showing a tribute to the original. The speed is the same tempo as the original, but because of the speed of the guitar solo, it could be construed that it is a faster version when in fact it is not. The intensity is also different. The instrumentation is a lot louder compared to the original. The guitar has a prominence in the piece that increases the intensity where as in the original there was no guitar. Finally in both versions the lyrics stay the same. Sometimes artist will adjust the lyrics to a song in order to make it their own or for it to make sense if a woman is singing a song sung originally sung by a man or vice-verse in this case, however Joe Bonamassa stayed true to the song and did not adjust a thing lyrically. For this I commend him for "staying true" to the roots of the song.

In conclusion, both versions are very well done, and I enjoyed both of them. Separated they are both very good versions and together when compared, you can make notable differences and similarities. But the key is that the cover feeds off of the original, and doesn't do a complete 180 from the original.