Petra Haden - Acapella 4: The Sheltering Sky (2017-2019)

To refresh your memory, Petra Haden is very talented, both as a violinist and a vocalist, but she isn't very well known. She has a particular talent for singing acappella versions of songs in which she sings all the instruments to create a full sound. So here's more in that vein.

All these songs are unreleased on any album, but have been posted at Haden's YouTube webpage. Since it had been six months since I last checked, I looked again and found she'd done one song since then, a cover of a Radiohead song. Naturally, I added it to the end of the album. Unfortunately, that's the only song she's done for all of 2019. I hope she keeps going with more of her acappella covers in the future, and more frequently.

As with past volumes in this series, some of the songs have sung words and others just have wordless vocals. The most of the ones with words are all well known, so I won't bother to list who did the originals. But there are few songs that weren't hits, so I'll detail those. "There in a Dream" is by Charlie Haden, a jazz bassist who also happens to be Petra's father. "Stonehenge" is by the hilarious Spinal Tap. The wordless ones are lesser known. "The Sheltering Sky" is by King Crimson. "Hope" is by Robert Fripp (of King Crimson). "Throughout" is by Bill Frisell."

01 The Sheltering Sky (Petra Haden)
02 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Petra Haden)
03 Carol of the Bells (Petra Haden)
04 Hope (Petra Haden)
05 There in a Dream (Petra Haden)
06 Throughout (Petra Haden)
07 In the Air Tonight (Petra Haden)
08 Boys of Summer (Petra Haden)
09 Let 'Em In (Petra Haden)
10 Stonehenge (Petra Haden)
11 Idioteque (Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15849845/PetraH_2017-2019_Acapella4Th_SheltringSky_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I chose a photo of Haden from 2014. There are more recent photos, but I thought this is a particularly nice one.

Petra Haden - Acappella 3: The Beautiful Ones (2017)

Here's the third of my four albums made from Petra Haden's YouTube videos. Never heard of Petra Haden? Don't worry about it. In short, she's got an excellent voice and she multitracks like crazy to make herself a one-person Beach Boys, performing entirely acappella versions of an interesting variety of songs.

On this album, about half of the songs are famous songs with lyrics, such as "Every Breath You Take" by the Police, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Maniac" from Flashdance, and "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin. The other half are originally instrumental songs that sound great done with nothing but voices, such as the theme to the Taxi TV show.

If you haven't checked out any of the albums in this series, what are you waiting for?

01 Rebel without a Cause [Main Title] (Petra Haden)
02 Going to California (Petra Haden)
03 Law and Order Theme (Petra Haden)
04 Angela [Theme from Taxi] (Petra Haden)
05 Sometimes It Snows in April (Petra Haden)
06 Whatever Was Arranged (Petra Haden)
07 Maniac (Petra Haden)
08 Every Breath You Take (Petra Haden)
09 I Burn for You (Petra Haden)
10 The Beautiful Ones (Petra Haden)
11 Black Hole Sun (Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634867/PetraH_2017_Acapella3TheBeautiflOnes_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art using a screenshot from an image Haden put in one of her YouTube videos. I have no idea where the image comes from, but I think it's a fun way to illustrate acappella music.

Petra Haden - Acappella 2: Red (2016-2017)

Here's the second of four albums I've made using Petra Haden's acappella versions of famous songs. They all are officially unreleased and have only appeared at her YouTube account.

This album is a bit different than the first one in that only four of the 12 songs have actual sung words to them. But of course all the songs are sung, since Haden's voice makes every single note of every song here. It's really impressive how she can create a soundscape by multitracking her vocals over and over again.

I highly recommend you check out this album (and the other albums in this series). If you want soothing mood music, this hits the spot.

This time around, she does songs by the Police, Mike Oldfield, Tangerine Dream, Charlie Haden, Michael Hedges, Blind Faith, and two songs by King Crimson. Additionally, she does several oddities, such as the themes to the original Star Trek and the Incredible Hulk.

01 River's Edge Theme (Petra Haden)
02 Bring on the Night (Petra Haden)
03 Tubular Bells (Petra Haden)
04 Star Trek [Original Series Main Title] (Petra Haden)
05 Love on a Real Train (Petra Haden)
06 Auld Lang Syne (Petra Haden)
07 Silence (Petra Haden)
08 Two Days Old (Petra Haden)
09 Can't Find My Way Home (Petra Haden)
10 Red (Petra Haden)
11 Matte Kudasai (Petra Haden)
12 The Lonely Man Theme [The Incredible Hulk] (Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634462/PetraH_2016-2017_Acapella2Red_atse.zip.html

All of these songs come from Haden's YouTube videos. But she never has a video of herself singing. She'll just post a photo to go along with the music instead. This is one of the photos. I thought it fit the "Red" album title nicely.

Petra Haden - Acappella 1: Frame by Frame (2016)

In 2005, Petra Haden released an album called "Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out," which contained acappella versions of all the songs on the Who's "The Who Sell Out," done in the exact order of the original album. I really enjoyed this album (even though I'd never heard of Petra Haden), because she didn't just sing the lyrics, she sang all the instruments too, creating a full sound that allows one to hear the Who's great album in a different way. She even sang all the fake commercials between the songs.

While I liked that album a lot, I didn't get any of her other albums. Actually, she's mainly known for being a violinist in a variety of bands and hasn't put out much solo stuff at all, even though she has a great voice. However, I recently discovered that she's been active on YouTube since 2016, putting out her acappella versions of all sorts of interesting songs. So I've gathered them up and assembled them into albums, generally ordered by the dates of her YouTube postings.

This is as good as acappella music gets. This is miles beyond barbershop quartets. Think the Beach Boys at their vocal best, except it's all just Haden, multitracked enough to sometimes sound like a full orchestra of voices.

You really need to down this and check it out. I think it's very cool, and it's a shame that she's only put these out on YouTube instead of releasing them on albums. She has a very interesting taste in music, obviously picking songs by how well she thinks they'd work in acappella form. On this album alone, she covers Duran Duran, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, the Psychedelic Furs, Journey, the Beach Boys, and more!

By the way, the last three songs don't fit with the others chronologically. They are from years before (2007 to 2012), and were all the other acappella songs I could find from her other than her "Who Sell Out" album. But musically they fit in perfectly with the rest of the album, and I didn't have anywhere else to put them.

She's posted so many songs that this is just the first of four albums I've compiled, of about 45 minutes of music each. And she's releasing new songs from time to time, so hopefully I'll eventually be able to post even more from her.

01 Save a Prayer (Petra Haden)
02 Blade Runner Theme (Petra Haden)
03 Frame by Frame (Petra Haden)
04 Don't Box Me In (Petra Haden)
05 Goodbye Blue Sky (Petra Haden)
06 Life on Mars (Petra Haden)
07 The Ghost in You (Petra Haden)
08 Love My Way (Petra Haden)
09 Batman Theme (Petra Haden)
10 Don't Stop Believin' (Petra Haden)
11 Music (Petra Haden)
12 God Only Knows (Petra Haden)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634474/PetraH_2016_Acapella1FrmebyFrme_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a photo of Haden, but I don't know what year it's from.