Rhino’s Got You Covered: The Hollies, The Beat Farmers, David Bowie, and Emmylou Harris

It’s Wednesday, so it must be time to take another dip into the Rhino catalog and trot out a new quartet of cover songs that you may or may not have heard before. Let’s get started, shall we? This week’s theme is Springsteen songs, so prepared to get Bossed around!

• The Hollies, “4^th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” (1975): Although this was certainly one of the earliest Springsteen covers by an artist of note, thereby instantly making it worthy of inclusion, The Hollies have another interesting tie to Springsteen: as a result of having heard some as-yet-unissued tunes, lead singer Allan Clarke recorded “Born to Run” before Springsteen himself had even released it. Too bad Clarke’s label sat on his version and failed to release it until Springsteen was already in the process of dominating the charts with his own version.
• The Beat Farmers, “Reason to Believe” (1985): Although their career came to an abrupt end with the sudden death of drummer / occasional singer Country Dick Montana, The Beat Farmers performed and recorded some solid roots rock in their time. Indeed, their TALES FROM THE NEW WEST album is a classic, including not only this song but also covers of The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes” and John Stewart’s “Never Going Back.”
• David Bowie, “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” (1989): Recorded during the STATION TO STATION sessions, this track remained unreleased until Bowie’s SOUND + VISION box set, making its inclusion one of several really good reasons to plunk down the dough to own a copy.
• Emmylou Harris, “The Price You Pay” (1981): Truth be told, we could fill an entire playlist just with Harris’s Springsteen covers, because lord knows this isn’t the only one of his tunes that she’s ever interpreted, it’s only the first. Over the years, Harris has also turned in versions of “Racing in the Streets,” “My Father’s House,” “Tougher Than the Rest,” and “Mansion on the Hill.”