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August 12, 2025 • 11 mins

This week on Music Time, James Irwin takes a look at some big hits that were originally written by a lesser known group - and many of them will surprise you!

Also, Ed Sheeran is coming to New Zealand for five stadium shows - but can he sell out stadiums elsewhere in the world? 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from news Talk said b Higgs, new releases and keeping
tabs on local artists is music time on Wellington Mornings.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Okay, James, I'm just going to pull up the couch,
put my feet up on the bench and let you
take it over because you just don't let me get
involved on anymore. You don't think my talent's.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Now Everything you do is tremendous. Today, I wanted to
talk about artists who don't just cover songs, they kind
of redefine a song. So you know, this is going
to be controversial and there's gonna be people. So I'm
thinking about, you know, bands that have done a song
and it's not you know, the original came out and
it was never a huge hit, and then someone comes

(00:55):
along and redoes that song and it's almost that we
now think of when we think of that song, we
think of the artists that covered it.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Can I just mean there's two artists like that. See
Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton, I mean she wrote so many,
so many songs, and so many people actually had big,
huge hits out of it. There's another one coming.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
She right, I always love love you that I think
she did, Yeah, she did. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
The other one that you know one no one, sorry,
give that again, Carol King and Carol King. Yeah, Carol
King another one that I always liked because I love
Tony Joe White. Now you would have known the other
of you would have ever heard of Tony.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
I saw Tony Joe White live years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Did I saw him down at the Greek Fall down here?

Speaker 5 (01:39):
Saw?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, not there I was anyway anyway, Tony Joe wrote, right,
Tony Joe White wrote Steamy Windows. Tina Turner, Yeah, yes
of it.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, yeah, there you go, and you see an icon.
Tina actually did a lot of that. They took a
lot of songs and you know, redefine them as their own,
but they were.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
They were a couple of songs and they think right
back to the sixties.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
A lot of our New Zealand artists, you know, the
Ray Calumbus, that's how they could do it. Yeah, they
and being a band, you would look at these songs
that were successful overseas and you would redo the song.
You know, Ray Columbus definitely did it. Shane redid it,
John Rowles did it.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
And a band called Creation Creation. They did it. Tell
Laura I love her or Carolina.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Hey, so if you've got a suggestion Texan now as well,
because you might be already screaming at you know, just
this morning around the office, and I got about a
list of about twenty songs. So Texan, if you've got
some songs that you don't have been redefined. So let's
have a listen to this first one. I won't even
say who it is.

Speaker 6 (02:45):
Go out eving that and the buddy.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
So that's Prince recorded as the Family, his side project.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Here we go.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know this version of it.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Since you've been gone, I.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
Can is it snado commis and so it's Prince's song.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
So Prince did in eighty four and they did it
in about nineteen ninety.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
I think that came out Wow for her second album
Beautiful Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, so massive her.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, so it was. It was an absolute huge hit.
It was.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
It was a stunner. I reckon, we just roll straight
onto the next one and I'll talk about it afterwards.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Gloria Jones nineteen sixty five. Let's roll through to the eighties.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
So the band was soft sol so Gloria Jones she
was a motown singer. Now, interesting fact about her that
she went on in the seventies. She became great friends
with Mark Bolan. Bolan from t Rex played with t
Rex as the keyboard player. And actually she was responsible

(04:05):
for Markland's death because she was the driver of the
mini that crashed into the car after drinking a few wines.

Speaker 7 (04:11):
So so yeah, Mark Boland probably regrets ever being a
fan of hers from the sixties, and he luded into
playing in t Rex and and that was his demise
in about nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
I think that was so yeah. I mean again that
that song was huge.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
It was.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
It was a big number for Gloria Jones in the sixties,
but it was massive for so Cell.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Okay, let's roll the next one. This is even I
recognize it just yet.

Speaker 8 (04:44):
Listen to the This is Otis reading respect Recofrement the greatest.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Now let's join them up in a second. I've joined
them together, so I have a listening second. He's both
of the.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Image.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Oh yeah, we're getting down in the studio today.

Speaker 9 (05:16):
It's actually really good books together.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Ah, I mean, Otis Reading, in my opinion, is the
greatest American singer. Songwriter of all time, and he wrote
doc of the Bay. I mean he only lived to
make he might be in the twenty seven club. He
only lived to twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven years old.

Speaker 9 (05:33):
He cried yeah, before Dock of the Baby came back.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, doctor posthumorous number one was it only weeks later
he had written it. It had kind of sat around.
They didn't use it at first.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
He died.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
They released it when was huge. I mean in otis reading.
He sang a lot of songs, like he sang stand
by Me.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
He didn't.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
He didn't write stand by Me. Bennie King wrote that
he sang my Girl. He didn't write that either, I can't,
I can't my Girl. Maybe Smokey Robins the Temptations. Smokey
Robinson wrote it for the Temptation.

Speaker 9 (06:08):
That's yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
So you know, like there's all these songs that you
identify with another place.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
At another time.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
The next one.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah, let's write the next one. What have we got?

Speaker 6 (06:23):
The Beatles.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
They didn't write it.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
They didn't write it as Lee Brothers.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
They didn't write it the top notes. Did they write it?

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yes, they did, Okay, And that came out about nineteen
fifty seven. Interestingly, and this will be a fact. I'm
sure Ethan will have some thoughts here. Phil Spector produced
the top notes to start with the first version, so
that was the last version, so I reversed the order.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Of that one.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
And then in his later years he obviously went on
and produced the Beatles with the letter the album.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
Is that correct even?

Speaker 9 (07:08):
I think so?

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I'm pretty sure he was, because there was controversial. Lennon
loved him, George loved him. McCartney hated what he did
to the Let It Be album with all the orchestral stuff.

Speaker 9 (07:18):
McCartney hated the Let It Be.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah, I hated it, didn't he?

Speaker 9 (07:21):
Sorry, Leonard hated it. Not McCartney, he loved it.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
I thought it was the other way around.

Speaker 6 (07:26):
Are you sure?

Speaker 9 (07:26):
I may have got it wrong.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
I think it's the other way around, But doesn't that
doesn't matter that we could We can have a fight
over there.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Let's go on to the next one, because I'm really
interested in this one. Yeah, this was my face.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Too much confusion.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
We all know him.

Speaker 5 (07:39):
I can't get it, and it's yeah, Hendrix versus Dylan.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Together.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
I couldn't get this one to work. Listen, is the
best part.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I can never split my three favorite guitarist apart my
three favorite.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
Who are your three favorite print prints?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Eric Clapton and Jimmy Hendry.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh yeah, I was going to say, is there a
Jeff Buckley or anyone? Yeah, they're all. They're all pretty spectacular.
So so that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
So this next one.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
The whole reason this came about was because you know
Max sound newsrey to hear on news talks here, but
he's got a peccable music taste as well as fashion sense.
And we got talking about Jeff Buckley last week and
it got me and we started talking and Jeff Buckley
did a rendition of a song that Leonard Cohen had done,
so and we're and it was huge when it came out.

(08:46):
It was on Jeff So i'll play it to you
in a second. It was on Jeff Buckley's debut album, Grace,
his only album because he died drowning unfortunately followed the
footsteps of his of his father, who died you know,
well before his time. And let's have a listen. You
see if you recognize.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
It, there was a secret course.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
So this is Leonard Owen. Please and then please the
Lord but you don't really care for music.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
And John Cale did a killer version of ninety one
as well, which I haven't got on here.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
It like this, the min.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
The babble catch.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Jeff Buckley's version.

Speaker 7 (09:37):
Was.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
It was one of those songs you couldn't escape in
the mid nineties. It was a bit like when Fat
Freddy's First came out around Willington and every single cafe
and bar was playing it and that song. If you
went to any folk night and there was someone with
a guitar, you could guarantee they were going to play.
The Jeff Jeff Buckley version of Hallelujah just about killed me.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know what I used to I remember that song
from the Carols by Candlelight concept. Oh yeah, one of
the ZDM. I think it's either one of the ZDM TJ's.
I think it might have been Grunt Probably they sung
it and did an amazing vision.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
I could be wrong. It could have been another one.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I've got one question for you, and I've got time.
Does he share and play concerts for, you know, stadiums
overseas or is it just that he's really popular in Australasia.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
I would have thought that he would have done it.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
What is our producer thing?

Speaker 9 (10:22):
I reckon he doesn't hot take. I reckon he's kind
of faded a little bit. I feel like, you know,
he sells out here because it's a novelty right yeah, yeah, yeah,
especially in Wellington where we don't get stadium shows.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
So interesting.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
I've just been I've been thinking about that this week
and I know he's going to sell out Wellington.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
He's going to sell out Christ's Christ Yeah. Yeah, so
he's gonna say.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
I just was wondering if he does he go to
the States. He's selling concerts is a huge in the States.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
I don't know, you don't know. There was a bit
of a tea the thing.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
No, no, and I don't know. And I've just been
thinking about it over my you know, you know what
gigs on.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
I love him. I love him.

Speaker 9 (11:00):
It's going to say we said a text here wait
for me Marianne from the dedication.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Okay, that's a New Zealand band eddication.

Speaker 9 (11:06):
It was written by an Endlish Grouphew.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
They were all those New Zealand hits in the early
seventies and eighties. They were early seventies, sixties, late sixties,
early seventies and late seventies were all covers by because
you couldn't buy the songs here. Yeah, that's remember Bunny
Bunny Walters had that song, Oh gosh, that'll come so much.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
So we could do this all day.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
You could do this all day, but we won't. Yeah, right,
what gigs are coming up with?

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Well, there's a few gigs we've got.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
We've got to go. We've got to go. Sorry, actually
I've got to go. We've got We've got into bad
conversation the end, didn't we Sorry, buddy. It will be online.
The gigs will be online.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, Listen live
to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am week days,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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