Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Battle of the Bands: Cruisin' into Black History Month



February is cruising along. February is Black History month and I am using it for a theme for my Battle of the Bands. I started with the blues and this time I am going to another musical place called Motown.

Smokey Robinson is a legendary singer and songwriter. He was is one of the greatest artist from the Motown era and he has a birthday fast approaching. Obviously he is a great choice to pick a song from since he has a large catalog of songs and he has been covered by many musicians.

The Song: Cruisin'



Smokey Robinson isn't in this competition so please don't vote for him. 

Contender One: D'Angelo



Contender Two: Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis



Who gets your vote? I think they are both great covers. One has two big names, so we have a little bit of a Samson and Goliath thing going on. Names don't matter. Hopefully it is all about the music and who you vote for, I just count them up and provide the results sometime after the 21st. Vote in the comments and we will have a winner soon! Please check out the other Battle links here. That site has the most up to date list.

Well I hope you enjoyed the Battle and come back and visit soon!

7 comments:

Cathy Kennedy said...

Mike, It's hard to go against Smokey Robinson. You found two nice covers, though. I'm giving my vote to Gwyneth Paltow & Huey Lewis. They did a remarkable job together and I loved that it's covered as duet which seems to fit the song purrfectly. Good battle, my friend!

Arlee Bird said...

I must say that I don't recall ever having heard this song. Guess I haven't kept up with Robinson's music since the sixties.

I had to listen pretty closely since they sound very similar. I'm going to have to go with Huey and Gwyneth as I preferred their vocals and I liked the way they traded lines in the song.

Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out

John Holton said...

I'll be honest, I didn't hear that big of a difference between the original and the two covers. That makes it hard to decide. I'll go with the majority here and say Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow, although D'Angelo did a great job of the song.

Mary B said...

My vote is for Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. Good battle!

~Mary
Jingle Jangle Jungle

Stephen T. McCarthy said...

Sorry, MIKE, but I can't be the one to save you from a shutout here. Never heard of D'Angelo before, but I thought he did it well (even if it went on too long). However, like the others, I preferred the duet.

~ D-FensDogG
Check out my new blog @
(Link:] Stephen T. McCarthy Reviews...

Birgit said...

I am going with Huey and spewey...I mean Gwyneth. The ther guy just sounded so bland and vanilla to me. The duet kept my attention more

Robin said...

I'd heard Huey and Gwyneth on this song before. I really liked the first guy, but I think the duet is a really amazing. I see from the comments that I'm not the only one who thinks so... Sorry to not help with the shutout...

Huey and Gwyneth for the win!