Monday, February 1, 2016

Battle of the Bands: Desperado Trilogy

Welcome to Battle of the Bands today's battle of the band is a tribute to Glenn Frey. Hopefully this moth fewer classic rockers will pass away.



The rules are simple I pick a song and present a couple of bands battling it out with the song. You pick the one you like best by casting your vote in the comments. Why you voted the way you did and other comments are always welcomed.


Please check out the other battles:

 list of Battle of the Bands participants..

 I snagged it from STMcC Presents 'Battle of the Bands': 

@ ‘FAR AWAY SERIES’ by clicking HERE.
@ ‘TOSSING IT OUT’ by clicking HERE.
@ ‘YOUR DAILY DOSE’ by clicking HERE.
@ 'BOOK LOVER' by clicking HERE.
@ 'MIKE'S RAMBLINGS' by clicking HERE.
@ 'CURIOUS AS A CATHY' by clicking HERE.
@ 'THE SOUND OF ONE HAND TYPING' by clicking HERE.
@ 'DCRELIEF - BATTLE OF THE BANDS' by clicking HERE.
@ 'THE DOGLADY'S DEN' by clicking HERE.
@ 'CHERDO ON THE FLIPSIDE' by clicking HERE
@ 'ANGELS BARK' by clicking HERE.
@ 'JINGLE JANGLE JUNGLE' by clicking HERE.
@ 'JANIE JUNEBUG, RIGHTING & EDITINGby clicking HERE.
@ 'J.A. SCOTT' by clicking HERE.
@ 'NOVELBREWS' by clicking HERE.
@ 'QUIET LAUGHTER' by clicking HERE.
@ 'BE REINVINTAGED' by clicking HERE


The song the Eagles classic "Desperado"..


Some great winter lyrics in this song such as...

"Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day"

I love this song! Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh are probably my favorite members of the Eagles. So, I am going to indulge myself and break some rules this time around. I am going to have three contestants because one is a live version and the song is relatively short.



Contestant One: Miranda Lambert



Contestant Two: Linda Ronstadt



Contestant Three: Karen Carpenter


One tribute, three versions in honor of Glenn Frey. I choose three females because the song originally done by the Eagles had the male vocals already. Vote for the version you like best in the comments. I will be back soon with the results. Please visit the other participants as well. 

15 comments:

Guilie Castillo said...

Very cool battle, Mike. Brutal winter indeed... Hope the losses give us a break for a while. I love this song, love that you chose only female vocalists for the battle... and, to my surprise, I'm voting for Miranda Lambert. Linda and Karen do a great job—fantastic, even; I mean, who can dispute their purity of voice? But—to me—Miranda's slight grittiness felt more in the spirit of not just the Eagles but the lyrics and the original intent. Does that make sense?

Great, great battle. Thanks, Mike. Farewell, Mr. Frey.
Guilie @ Quiet Laughter

Dixie@dcrelief said...

You've picked three great covers, Mike. Still I have to go with the smooth, soul-moving sound off Karen Carpenter. I also like the instrumental of this one.

My vote goes to Karen. Tough battle!

Arlee Bird said...

I've always liked this song a lot too. So many memories over the years that I connect with this song. All of the versions are fine. I'm most familiar with the Ronstadt version so I relate well to this one. However I like the production value and the drama of the performance of Karen Carpenter's version. So beautiful.

It's a close contest for my ears, but I'm going to go with Karen Carpenter on this one.

Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out


Cathy Kennedy said...

Mike, very nice battle. A classic Eagles' song covered by three amazing women. At first glance, I thought I'd go with Linda. I knew I wouldn't vote for Miranda because she tends to be too twangy. I wound up liking Karen Carpenter the best. Her rich vocals touched my soul very much like the original.

Michele at Angels Bark said...

Wow Mike, this is a tough one! I like all three versions and right now I find myself torn between Linda Ronstadt and Karen Carpenter. We lost Karen Carpenter tragically and way too young. Her voice is so fantastic. But so is Linda's. Can I vote for both??? Honestly I'm torn. I keep going back and forth between the two. I guess in the spirit of this wonderful tribute to Glenn Fry, I'll cast my vote to another great that we lost, Karen Carpenter.

Really great battle and fabulous tribute post!

Michele at Angels Bark

Jeffrey Scott said...

I have to place my vote for Diana Krall. Huh? What do you mean she wasn't in the mix? Well, she would have been my pick. :p
These versions are all good. I like Karen Carpenter, and almost all of her music. It's too bad she's not still with us. But I also love Linda Ronstadt. However on this song, I have to choose. And for me, it's really only a choice between Linda Ronstadt or Karen Carpenter. For this particular song, Linda gets my vote. I'm hoping Karen comes in second.

John Holton said...

Gee, Mike, make it hard on a guy, willya? Three of my favorite female singers... how do I choose?

I'll go with Linda Ronstadt. I love Karen Carpenter's voice, and Miranda Lambert could sing the phone book and make it sound good, but Linda... Linda was special. I'm glad that her recordings are still around, even though she's retired from singing.

farawayeyes said...

Nice tribute Mike. Miranda does a fine job and what should have been the Eagles last performance together. I guess they are now not going to have the chance to do that together thing anymore...at least not in this life. Sad, how things work out some time, but it was nice the boys wanted to wait for Glen.

Linda does a great job on this song as well she should with so many close associations with The Eagles and Glen in particular, but if I gotta choose a woman doing this tune, it's gonna be Karen. She has just the right amount of melancholy to her voice to make this a classic.

Just so we're clear; my vote goes to Karen Carpenter,

farawayeyes said...

Ok, now unless you have comment moderation set up here and I don't know it, listen to the sound of my screaming. On a day like today, I do not have time for bloggers normal tricks.

I left a nice comment about The Eagles and all three of these women, but do not have time to recreate it. Please give my vote to Karen Carpenter. She has the right amount of melancholy in her voice to make this a classic of her own.

Mike said...

I did find a version of her covering the song

Mike said...

I do have a moderation set up, only way I could get rid of the catcha stuff.

Stephen T. McCarthy said...

MIKE ~
First, I'll say that I appreciate your using Comment Moderation in order to get rid of that Captcha crap. Man, that was SO-OOO ANNOYING. Captcha is bad enough, but when they added that "Which Picture Isn't Like The Other Ones?" bullshit it simply became intolerable.

Now, onto the Battle...

Although I'm no longer a fan of 3-Way BOTBs (only because there are so many participants now that it's a big enough time investment as it is), nevertheless, this is my favorite of all the BOTBs you've ever put together.

Not only is 'DESPERADO' my favorite Eagles' song, it's one of my very favorite songs, period! Also, I relate to it on a very personal and deep level. It's a beautiful melody, with a moving message, and the lyrics are absolutely A-list! (Few Rock artists have written lyrics as well as this. The metaphors are wonderful, and the words truly paint a mental picture.)

All three of these versions were good, but when you're starting with such a great song to begin with, it would probably be hard for a professional singer to really mess it up.

Of the three, my least favorite was Linda Ronstandt's. I've never been a big fan of hers (even though she was damned sexy to gaze upon). She gets a bit screechy in a couple places, and she seemed to think that by raising the volume she could make it more believable. Her recording seemed the most like a "performance" - I wasn't convinced she was really feeling what she was singing.

I enjoyed Miranda's take on it, but by as far as you can see on the wide open range, my favorite is by KAREN CARPENTER. Karen is my favorite vocalist of all time, and she had the perfect tone and innate melancholia in her voice to deliver this song flawlessly. (I actually own the Carpenters CD that contains this cover.)

Great song, excellent covers, KAREN CARPENTER from here to the snow-covered mountain tops in the distance!

~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'

Robin said...

All three of these were good. I really like that they all put their own spin on this song. Miranda Lambert is one of my favorite country music ladies. Her songs always have just a bit of bite to them, and I like that very much. I think this is one of Linda Rondstadt's best recordings. But, like so many others have noted here, Karen Carpenter lives in a category all her own. She had a lovely voice that really lends itself to any song in the melancholia category. Any song, period, but especially in the melancholia category. So, I have to vote for her... Karen Carpenter, that is.

Birgit said...

I am not one for Miranda Lambert's take but that is just because I am not one for country all that much. I love Linda Rondstadt's version because she has such a great voice but then I heard Karen Carpenter. She puts so much sadness in the song and longing and really captures the words in how she sings it so she gets my vote. It's always a shame to hear her sing and know how young she was when she died from such a horrible thing like anorexia

Cherdo said...

This was a tough one. For me, it all boils down to Linda Ronstadt (whose voice I love) or Karen Carpenter (whose everything I love). That said, it was still a tough choice. This is the stuff that great battles are made of. Well played, my friend.

For this round, I got to go with Karen Carpenter.