Various Artists - Covered: Willie Dixon, Volume 2: 1966-1972

This is the second of three albums in the Covered series, showing the songwriting skills of blues legend Willie Dixon. I've tried to focus on the influence Dixon had on rock and soul music. The time period here probably represents his peak for that kind of influence, as British rockers especially were really into his songs.

For many of these songs, I had a hard time deciding which version to use, because there are so many great versions. I narrowed down the choices by having only one artist per song for the whole series. Okay, I did cheat a bit on this one, since Koko Taylor sings both "Wang Dang Doodle" and is part of a duet for "Insane Asylum." But I picked the latter mainly because it's a rare example of Dixon singing lead, showing he was a perfectly capable blues singer.

With Volume 1, I included the song "You Need Love" by the Small Faces (also known as "You Need Loving"). That was fairly true to the original Dixon song, first made popular by a version done by Muddy Waters. Led Zeppelin clearly was familiar with the Small Faces version, since their lead singer Robert Plant was an unabashed Small Faces groupie for a time. They tweaked with it and turned it into the classic "Whole Lotta Love." At first, they claimed they wrote this by themselves, but they were later forced to add Dixon's name to the songwriting credits.

01 Wang Dang Doodle (Koko Taylor)
02 Diddy Wah Diddy (Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band)
03 The Same Thing (Animals)
04 I Love the Life I Live (Mose Allison)
05 Insane Asylum (Willie Dixon & Koko Taylor)
06 Back Door Man (Doors)
07 Hoochie Coochie Man (Jimi Hendrix)
08 You Shook Me (Jeff Beck Group)
09 Fire (Etta James)
10 Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
11 Evil (Derek & the Dominos)
12 Dead Presidents (J. Geils Band)
13 Do the Do (Tim Hardin)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gLJ3Z

As with the cover photo for Volume 1, I have no idea what year this cover photo is from. But I'm guessing it's some years after the one for Volume 1 due to his receding hairline. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it. Also like the photo for Volume 1, I darkened his skin some to better match how he looks in the actual color photo I used for Volume 3.