Editor’s Note: This is the first of an occasional feature focusing on covers of — and sometimes by– a band or artist. Check out The Covers Project for more interesting information about covers.
The cover above is a 1968 performance of the Bob Dylan/Rick Danko song “This Wheel’s on Fire” by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & Trinity. Auger is best known for Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, which still is a touring band.
This cover did well enough to rate a Wikipedia entry:
“This Wheel’s on Fire” reached number five in the United Kingdom in June 1968. With distortion, the imagery of the title and the group’s dress and performance, this version came to represent the psychedelic era in British music. Driscoll recorded the song again in the early ’90s with Adrian Edmondson as the theme to the BBCcomedy series Absolutely Fabulous, whose main characters are throwbacks to that era.
It always seemed like an odd choice for the “Absolutely Fabulous” theme. The show, by the way, indeed was absolutely fabulous.
Below is Gomez’ version of Up on Cripple Creek. The band has 10 albums — and a website that’s not so great. So here is the Gomez’s AllMusic landing page. The site SongFacts offers a great bit of trivia: The song was recorded at Sammy Davis’ house, which the band had rented to record its eponymous named second album. A commenter at the site disagrees with the claim, however.
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