It’s a safe bet that during the Beatles era, many musicians wished they could be members of that group. Since this wasn’t possible, a lot of them contented themselves with recording the Fab Four’s songs. A wide assortment of artists issued covers, from Motown stars such as the Supremes (“You Can’t Do That”) to pop groups ranging from Spanky and Our Gang (“And Your Bird Can Sing”) to the 5th Dimension (“Ticket to Ride”). Even performers from outside the pop/rock world weighed in, including Liza Minnelli (“For No One”), Count Basie (“Hold Me Tight”) and Mae West (“Day Tripper”).
A new boxed set, We Can Work It Out: Covers of the Beatles 1962-1968, released on Nov. 24, 2023, on England’s Cherry Red Records, features all these tracks and many other John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison compositions, plus one song they didn’t write: a novelty track from the Four Preps called “A Letter to the Beatles.” The anthology serves as a companion to 2020’s Looking Through a Glass Onion: The Beatles’ Psychedelic Songbook 1966-72. Like that covers anthology, the new one includes three CDs and a well-illustrated booklet with information about every track. The years in the album’s title apparently reflect when The Beatles created or recorded the music because the 85 selections here actually date from about 1963 to 1974.
The collection can be ordered in the U.S. here and the U.K. here.
The set features a fair number of luminous artists and a few famous covers, such as the Mamas and the Papas’ “I Call Your Name” and Peter and Gordon’s chart-topping “A World Without Love.” Some well-known tracks, such as the Rolling Stones’ “I Wanna Be Your Man” and the Silkie’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” are missing, however, undoubtedly because of licensing issues. The focus is more on obscure artists and recordings, including several songs the Beatles never officially released, among them “It’s for You” by Trea Dobbs and “Tip of My Tongue” by Tommy Quickly, who was managed by Brian Epstein.
Some of the artists seem to have been content to simply ape the Beatles’ sound and arrangements. “P.S. I Love You” by the German group the Rattles, for example, could be mistaken for an alternate version by the Fab Four. Ditto “Do You Want to Know a Secret” by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, who relied heavily on Lennon-McCartney material throughout their career; and Kenny Lynch’s “Misery,” which has the reported distinction of being the first-ever Beatles cover. Also barely distinguishable from Beatles recordings are “Baby’s in Black” by the Hi-Fis, the Crickets’ “From Me to You,” the In-Sect’s “Yes It Is,” Frank Bacon’s “She Loves You,” the Baskervilles’ “Another Girl” and the Rackets’ “I Want to Tell You.” Several more tracks echo the well-known recordings but in other languages, including Les Lionceaux’s French reading of “It Won’t Be Long” and Dino E I Kings’ Italian “I Should Have Known Better.”
The proceedings grow more interesting when the performers bring something fresh to the material. Mary Wells’ arrangements of “Please Please Me” and “Help!” aren’t much different from the Beatles’ recordings, but brassy instrumentation and her distinctive voice transform these tracks. The Charles River Valley Boys turn “I’ve Just Seen a Face” into a mandolin- and fiddle-spiced bluegrass gem while Los Angeles’ Sunshine Company reinvents “I Need You” as moody midtempo folk and saxophonist Steve Marcus reimagines “Tomorrow Never Knows” as an 11-minute jazz excursion.
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Also likably reworked are “If I Fell,” by the Coterie, an all-female vocal quartet from Dublin that recalls the Paris Sisters; “In My Life” by Jose Feliciano; “I’ll Follow the Sun” by Glyn Johns, who later served as chief engineer on the sessions for Let It Be; “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl,” by Canada’s Five Man Electrical Band; and “Taxman” by blues artist Junior Parker.
Inevitably, in a multi-artist set like this, not everything is a winner. A horn-spiced instrumental reading of “Norwegian Wood” by Paraffin Jack Flash Ltd., while undoubtedly different, misfires. So do the supper-club jazz vocalizing of Strawberry Fair on “Things We Said Today”; the big band reading of “Got to Get You into My Life” by Jackie Trent; and Jan and Dean’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” from their misconceived Filet of Soul LP.
Of course, this package starts with the advantage of featuring rather consistently first-rate material, so even many of the tracks that don’t sound particularly fresh still sound pretty great. Lots of them, though, manage to sound both fresh and great, which is why Beatles fans would be well advised to check out this anthology.
