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Listen to this great playlist of Black artists covering the Beatles

2021-12-16 00:00:00

I recently worked on a project (more info TBA once it's public!) that involved some digging into music scene around Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In the course of that research, I learned not only that Wilson Pickett had recorded a cover of "Hey Jude," but that he had done so at the urging of Duane Allman, who played guitar on the track, and thought it would be a radical move for a Black artist to cover a popular Beatles song at the height of Civil Rights Movement.

That cover is just one of 65 songs included on this new playlist from music blogger Matthew Perpetua, which features 4 hours of Beatles covers performed exclusively by Black artists.

Certainly there's some meta-commentary at play here about the roots of rock & roll coming from Black American music, which was then revolutionized by some white guys from England, who re-exported that sound back to the States. But it's also just a damn good playlist.

Black Beatles: R&B Covers 1963 – 1972 [Spotify | Apple Music]

New playlist BLACK BEATLES: R&B COVERS 1963-1972, a selection of major Black artists of the period interpreting the music of the Fab Four

Spotify: https://t.co/ZoDNQQzR7M

Apple: https://t.co/khFOdPIp2W

here's a preview of the first half… pic.twitter.com/fOgasQwMKp — Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) December 4, 2021

Image: whatleydude / Flickr (CC-BY-SA 2.0)
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