OT: Music Notes: Oh Well

Billy Gibbons in Finland, 2010. Photo by Antti Salonen.

Remember my post in 2010 about cover songs? I've got another one for you covers mavens—Bill Gibbons of ZZ Top performing a cover of the 1969 Fleetwood Mac hit "Oh Well" off a new Fleetwood Mac tribute album called "Just Tell Me That You Want Me." ("Oh Well" was from the old Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, not the Stevie Nicks / Lindsey Buckingham radio pop band of later days. I wish Jack White would cover it too.)

Unfortunately (and annoyingly), you can't buy the single track from iTunes, but you can stream it here, among other places. I am not recommending the whole album, let's be clear about that.

Mike

UPDATE: Curiously, none of the early Fleetwood Mac studio stuff is on iTunes, but I found the original "real" Peter Green version of "Oh Well" on YouTube. And realized I hadn't heard it in years. Many, many years. Strangely I guess, it sounds too fast to me now, when, in its era, it was daringly slow for radio, about as slow as it could be.

And here's Hypnotized.

P.S. About the footer link: Richter doing the Schumann Fantasy is...wow.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A recording of interest:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim Simmons: "Always tickled to see pictures of hairy Billy. My best concert experience ever—1971, sitting on the floor of the Fayetteville Arkansas Roller Rink, 20 feet from Billy and pals playing for three straight hours. Ratty amps, ripped clothes, boots taped together with duct tape. And Billy with very short hair and of course beardless. My girlfriend was from Houston and knew the guys a bit, said Billy had just had a weekend stay with Houston cops and for fun the cops gave him a haircut. He kept reflexively reaching up to pull the hair off of his face, but there was no hair there. They were hot that night, although that could have something in the air other than the music!"

Tom Kwas: "My Mom, who died last year at 88 years old, liked ZZ Top, and actually went to a concert a while back. This posting reminds me of that, and her...."

Comments

[Andreas Weber]

> Unfortunately (and annoyingly), you can't buy the single track from iTunes

From the German iTunes store you can ...

[h.linton]

Wow! Those drums just kill it. Maybe BFG & the boys should focus more on retooling others songs than their current [on-going] drivel.

[Ken James]

That was GREAT! Love the song and the sound.
Thanks for the tip.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Definately a good listen. While I love the Peter Green version, the Gibbons version is a lot earthier. I could see this being played around a campfire in the middle of nowhere due to the simplicity of the instruments. I am glad he did not take on Hypnotised - if that is the name of the song.

[Scott]

Sviatoslav Richter playing just about anything is unbelievably good. A good sampler of his recordings is the DG 9 disk "Pianist of the Century" collection. I particularly like his Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann.

[bloodnok]

oh well .... "oh well" was my favourite track from "then play on". so sad to hear it turned into a dirge by a zed-zed ....

[Dean Johnston]

Hiya!

Just thought I'd mention - two minutes and thirty-six seconds of far out!

http://youtu.be/KE4HGlmtOcg

Dean

[John Driggers]

Hmmm, I can buy the single track (and I did) from the Australian iTunes store. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Matt]

"I Gotsta Get Paid" off their new album is a cover of a Houston rap classic ("25 Lighters") about selling crack. Definitely did not foresee a DJ Screw - ZZ Top connection happening.

[Paul De Zan]

Awesome track! Joe Jackson also did a killer "Oh Well" on "Laughter & Lust" - a strong and unfairly ignored pop album. I'm going to put it on right now.

[Mike Johnston]

"I am glad he did not take on Hypnotised - if that is the name of the song."

Mathew,
It is. A great song. That's Bob Welch, from "Mystery to Me" in 1973. He was with the band for a few years in the early '70s.

I know all those Fleetwood Mac albums because I won a complete set of all their albums from a radio contest in about, I don't know, maybe 1974. Only contest I ever won, and it was more or less accidental. I was never that into most of them, but it was interesting because the personnel shifted constantly, so the sound and the songwriting was different from album to album.

It's curious that most of those albums aren't on iTunes. Lot of fighting between the bandmembers...that might be why.

Mike

[JTW]

Wow, a mention of Fleetwood Mac's 'Then Play On'. Great album, absolutely underrated and unappreciated.

[Mike Johnston]

JTW,
I think that was my favorite of the ones I won in that contest....

P.S. The answer to the contest question was "Peter Green."

Mike

[Dave]

Billy Gibbon's version of "oh well" is available on Spotify. If you don't know what Spotify is you don't know what you're missing.

[Richard Tugwell]

1969 was the end of Fleetwood Mac as I remember them - when Green left. Sad story. The BBC had a documentary that was re-shown in May 2012 - not sure if it's available anywhere else.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k92x1

[David]

I wish Jack White would never sing again. Something about his timbre that causes me to run around looking for a deep hole to dive into.

As for the cover..the boys make it sound like it's their song, period. And this is one for as loud as you can stand it, can't really listen to this at old lady volumes.

[Semilog]

"I particularly like his Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann."

To say nothing of his Debussy, his Scriabin... and then there's his Brahms...

[right_writes]

The Peter Green version is a work of genius, this one is a very poor copy...

Jack White though...? Probably, he has a feeling for these things.

[Ed]

"Oh Well" is a great song from the Peter Green era, when both Clapton and Green were rising demigods of the music scene. It is part of my cultural DNA now. This version adds nothing, it is a warmup exercise.

Peter Green is a shadow of his former self these days. So, on this evidence, is Bill Gibbons. Still, at least no one did "Man of the World", there'd have been mobs with pitchforks.

[Dave Wilson]

You can buy it as a single track from iTunes UK too. Always had a soft spot for ZZ Top - they remind me of wild university parties in posh houses in Bath...

[JonA]

I always liked the Billy Corgan/Smashing Pumpkins version of Landslide. About the only Fleetwood Mac song or cover I can take. In high school I only had a radio in the car and was forced to listen to classic rock stations over and over and over and now I can't stand to hear any of it. Of course now I'm into all the alternative music I missed back then.

[Raffwal]

I happened to be at the concert where that photo is from. A great gig. Boy, the band must've been hot dressed in black, in direct sunshine in an unusually hot weather for Finland.

[Tom Streit]

Tom Petty has a great live version of "Oh Well. YouTube has several and there is a version on the live Tom Petty CD that came out not too long ago.

Back in the day I was fortunate enough to see Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac a number of times. Great Band. The best!

[Pat]

How about a Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon cover of "Oh Well" on their album "66 Steps": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmuT_fTEzZ4

[Mark Sirota]

None of the early Fleetwood Mac studio stuff may be there, but the best version of Oh Well is, IMHO, from Fleetwood Mac Live (1980), and that's on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/oh-well-pt.-1-live/id315231499?i=315231573

[Ken James]

The version of "Oh Well" on youtube seems greatly sped up in places. Or is it my imagination. I have the album. Still is great though.

[Dillan K]

I have been a big Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac fan for many years now. "Oh Well" was a great song.

I would have thought "Rattlesnake Shake" would have been more up ZZ Top's alley. In any case, the bearded ones are legends, and so is Fleetwood Mac! Thanks for posting this. I am consistently surprised (positively) by this blog. It's not just for my love of photography!

I've really got to try to remember to go through the Amazon links here whenever I make a purchase.

[Mike Johnston]

"The version of "Oh Well" on youtube seems greatly sped up in places. Or is it my imagination."

Seemed that way to me, too, but I literally hadn't heard it for decades--possibly 30 years.

Mike

[Joey Wilson]

Lots of memories. I grew up in the Houston area, and used to see ZZ in beer joints, in the pre-'Francene' days. Then again, we used to play Mac's 'Tell Me All the Things You Do' in the bands back then as well. It always amazed me that BG has SUCH a light touch, plays .08 sets with regular medium picks (NOT Mexican coins, friends), and never breaks strings. 'Oh Well', indeed.

[Enrique]

Good tip, and great the reference to Peter Green's Mac. The original sounds much, much more powerful to me, even after having listened to if hundreds of times.
... If music be the food of love....

[The Grumpster]

What, am I the only one who likes The Rockets 1979 cover of "Oh Well"? Gotta admit though that the original kicks ass.