I have a few recordings of PG doing covers of other people's songs; some live, some studio.  I have studio versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Summertime" and "Suzanne".  I have live versions of "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll BeThere".  The studio versions are impressive.  Anybody else have recordings of PG doing covers, and how are they?

Suzanne appeared on a various artists album Tower of song: the songs of
Leonard Cohen (1995)   (original recordings of Lenny are better IMO);

Summertime is on some disgusting (oversugared, featuring harmonica)
V. A. tribute album of George Gershwin songs, don't remember the name.

The two others I haven't heard of. I wouldn't be too enthusiastic of hearing an albumful of covers sung by Peter Gabriel, that are from different kinds of projects, not an original PG project as a whole (compare Tori Amos' cover album Strange Little Girls.)

FragileDT wrote: Where did you find these covers? I've never heard them.

As Easy Livin said, Strawberry Fields Forever is from the "All this and World War II" film and, considering it's the greatest song of all time and shouldn't really be touched, he does a pretty good job on it. He's probably the only person I can think of who could do it and not mess it up completely.

As for "Ain't that peculiar", I seem to remember I had that years ago on an album which (I think) was called the Bristol Recorder, which was a magazine/LP of new artists from the Bristol area. This was probably around 20 or more years ago so my memory of it is a bit hazy and I probably don't have the album any more.

Perhaps somebody else can confirm this?

A bit more info here

http://www.deltaforce.net/~jnu/pg/interviews/bristol.recorder - http://www.deltaforce.net/~jnu/pg/interviews/bristol.recorde r

I´ve only heard strawberry... sounds good

On his first tour the band used to play I Heard It Through The Grapevine at soundchecks - I don't know if any recordings exist, but I I think that he'd more than do the song justice.

BTW Alan, I completely agree with your comments about Strawberry Fields Forever. Some things are sacred, and that's one of them, but Gabriel just about pulls it off.   

In 1991 I recorded from the radio a concert of Peter Gabriel from his first solo tour. The radio station`s people said "Peter Gabriel Live at the Roxy, an exclusive concert broadcasted for you by our radio station". Days later, I went to a record shop and I found a bootleg called "Live at the Roxy". As I have recorded the concert, which sounded as a bootleg when broadcasted, I didn`t buy the bootleg.

In that concert Gabriel sang "Ain`t that peculiar" and "All Day and all of the night" (the last song was a song originally recorded by The Kinks in 1965, I think). "All Day..." sounds good sung by Gabriel. "Ain`t that peculiar": I never have listened to the original version, and I don`t know who was the original singer.

Guillermo wrote:  "Ain`t that peculiar": I never have listened to the original version, and I don`t know who was the original singer.

That's a Marvin Gaye song, written by Smokey Robinson.

      To those who wondered:  all of these songs (and much more) are collected on a couple of CD's I picked up at a record convention years ago.  Titled "Sound Fruit" and "Post Script", these CD's came with fancy color artwork and good notes, and appeared to be "official" releases, but it's now apparent that they are not.  I believe they were made in Canada.

nobody wrote: Guillermo wrote:  "Ain`t that peculiar": I never have listened to the original version, and I don`t know who was the original singer. That's a Marvin Gaye song, written by Smokey Robinson.

I see that Peter Gabriel, like Phil Collins, likes very much Soul Music or Rhythm and Blues or Motown Music.

Guillermo wrote: nobody wrote: Guillermo wrote:  "Ain`t that peculiar": I never have listened to the original version, and I don`t know who was the original singer. That's a Marvin Gaye song, written by Smokey Robinson. I see that Peter Gabriel, like Phil Collins, likes very much Soul Music or Rhythm and Blues or Motown Music.

He's often said that seeing Otis Redding in the mid 60s was a formative musical experience, and Sledgehammer is his tribute to the great man.

A lot of the first generation of British prog musicians cut their musical teeth playing soul/R & B  covers(proper R & B, played by skinny white guys from Essex, not that rubbish they play on the radio these days) in mod clubs in the mid to late 60s. A lot of them dug deeper into jazz and blues, then psychedelia came along and somehow it all turned into prog.