Same Song Title Different Composers

[Dan Gould]

I thought about this when Larry posted about Norman Simmons' Midnight Creeper recording: How is it that so many different composers went with that title?

I've got: Teddy Edwards (excellent Muse recording BTW); Lou Donaldson; Norman Simmons; AMG tells me that Al Grey wrote one too, though I don't know for certain its a different tune than each of the others. There's also recordings by James Cotton and Luther Allison though I have no idea if they are really the LD tune or what.

Are there any other examples of so many tunes by the same name in the same genre? 

[JSngry]

If "pop songs regardless of era" counts as a genre, my reflex responses are "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" and "P.S. I Love You".

"Midnight Creeper"/"Midnight Creep" is/was a common expression in "blues cultures", so that's probably why it got used so much, everybody knew what it meant.

You could probably do a scholarly essay (and immediately regret it) about the significance of midnight in so many vernaculars.

[medjuck]

Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying.  One sung by Ray Charles (and others) and one by Gerry and the Pacemakers.  I like them both. 

[GA Russell]

Speaking of Gerry & the Pacemakers, they did a song for their Ferry Cross the Mersey movie called "What is this Thing called Love."

[clifford_thornton]

Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman" and Ornette's "Lonely Woman." Same goes for "Peace."

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman" and Ornette's "Lonely Woman." Same goes for "Peace."

Isn't there a Benny Carter Lonely Woman?   

Edited October 27, 2017 by medjuck

[bertrand]

This is why discographies MUST have composer credits, or they are useless.

Bertrand.

[jazztrain]

2 hours ago, medjuck said:

Isn't there a Benny Carter Lonely Woman?   

Yes.  Lonely Woman was the first one that occurred to me.

 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's also 'Stormy Monday' written by T-Bone Walker or Earl Hines & Billy Eckstine. Same SONG different writers

More to the point, there's 'It's too late', written by:

a) Chuck Willis (and more famously recorded by Otis Redding);

b) Wilson Pickett, the title track of his first LP (on Double L); and

c) Carol King and someone called Tony Stern, it sez on O'Donel Levy's 'Breeding of mind'.

Howzat!

MG

[GA Russell]

Maggie Mae (May).  Both Ian Whitcomb and Cream did the traditional folk song.  Rod Stewart's hit was a different song.

[jeffcrom]

23 years before Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley wrote "Who Can I Turn To?," Alec Wilder wrote a song of the same title. They're both excellent pop songs, but I prefer Wilder's - it has his usual odd melodic turns and unusual harmonies. It hasn't been recorded that often, but I have it on a Morgana King LP, and Jo Stafford and Lee Wiley recorded it.

[JSngry]

8 hours ago, medjuck said:

Isn't there a Benny Carter Lonely Woman?   

Stan Kenton dseemed to have a thing for that one.

Those seems kind of silly, even for Kenton. Whatever Pete Rugolo was up to, I can hear but not feel.

And then again, I like June Christy well enough but this doesn't grab me at all. No real breath in there, and those lyrics very much seem to me to need all kinds of breath.

I think Bill Mathieu got it right in Kentonian terms. This one I can hear and feel..."Stan Kenton" was always as good as his writers, and Mathieu was a badass mofo as far as that thing went. This thing breathes, sighs, screams, cries, hell yeah, Bill Mathieu.

 

[jazztrain]

How about “In the Still of the Night?”

- Cole Porter

- Hoagy Carmichael

- Fred Parris 

[bertrand]

Wallace Roney recorded two DIFFERENT songs called 'Lost', one by Wayne Shorter, one by Jacky Terrasson.

Bertrand.

[catesta]

The Dave Clark Five has a song titled "Because" and so do The Beatles.

Fleetwood Mac, Motley Crue and Skid Row all did a "Rattlesnake Shake".

[GA Russell]

The Dave Clark 5 had two hit singles called "Everybody Knows."

[JSngry]

3 hours ago, GA Russell said:

The Dave Clark 5 had two hit singles called "Everybody Knows."

Were either of them by Johnny Hodges?

[GA Russell]

Nope!

[aparxa]

All Alone (Waldron)

All Alone (Berlin).

 

[Big Beat Steve]

More in the field of jazz:

The original title of Gerry Mulligan's "Apple Core" was "So What" (and was recorded under that title too) - and this was NOT the Miles Davis tune.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[medjuck]

The Thrill is Gone:

 

And of course the blues sung by BB King and others. 

On 10/30/2017 at 1:53 PM, GA Russell said:

The Dave Clark 5 had two hit singles called "Everybody Knows."

And Leonard Cohen had one. 

[AllenLowe]

funny reading this because last year Ken Peplowski and I talked about doing a CD of songs with the same names as standards, but completely different tunes and changes. I wanted to call it Sub-standards.

Edited January 4, 2018 by AllenLowe
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