One-person band covers are all the rage during quarantine, and this year has brought a flood of “I‘m on Fire” and “Dancing in the Dark” covers.
Every once in a while, though, a cover artist gets a bit more daring and goes deep, deep deep into Bruce Springsteen’s catalog and selects a song that rarely gets a cover treatment.
Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tebo went all the way back to 1973 and chose one of Bruce’s most complex and orchestral songs: “New York City Serenade.”
Rather than attempt a recreation of the original, though, Tebo did what the best cover artists do: re-arrange the original to make it sound fresh and new. For “New York City” serenade, Tebo stripped the song down to its core and reinvented it as a straight-up rocker.
Let’s see how he did.
Tebo gets a big thumbs-up from this blogger: terrific vocals, a fresh but still recognizable arrangement, and a clear reverence for the original song. Only the fact that he abbreviated the song keeps it from getting top marks in my book, but then again I’m not sure how he would have adapted the “listen to your junkman” section.
For more great covers from Tebo, check out his YouTube page here.
