I love learning how musicians are influenced by each other. One interesting display of this is which songs certain artists choose to cover in live and/or album performances. In going through some live recordings today, I found that Hootie and the Blowfish have covered quite a few artists from a surprisingly diverse spectrum. I knew about the covers on their album “Scattered, Smothered, and Covered”, but that’s just a portion. What got me started with seeing them in concert a last month and hearing a several songs but not being able to place the original artist. Below is a list of every cover song I’ve come across performed by Hootie & the Blowfish. Many of these have only been performed live but some have appeared on the Scattered, Covered, and Smothered and The Best of Hootie & the Blowfish (1993 Thru 2003) albums.
For anyone who has enjoyed Hootie in the past, I highly recommend their latest album Looking for Lucky. It’s their best studio effort in the past 5 years and a frequent listen for me right now.
| Song Title | Originally performed by |
| I Go Blind | 54-40 |
| Mandy | Barry Manilow |
| Use Me | Bill Withers |
| No Diggity | Blackstreet |
| Goodbye Girl | Bread |
| Growin’ Up | Bruce Springsteen |
| The Rain Song | Continental Drifters |
| Freaks of The Industry | Digital Underground |
| Frances | Dillon Fence |
| Renaissance Eyes | Don Dixon |
| Black Water | Doobie Brothers |
| Keep Your Hands To Yourself | Georgia Satellites |
| Christmas This Year | Gerald Duncan (formerly of the Accelerators) |
| Let Me Be Your Man | Kim Richey |
| That Thing | Lauren Hill |
| Hey Hey What Can I Do | Led Zeppelin |
| Ride Wit Me | Nelly |
| Let Me Be Your Man | New Grass Revival |
| Freedom’s Child | originally appeared in the Broadway musical The Civil War |
| Driver 8 | R.E.M. |
| It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) | REM |
| Dream Baby | Roy Orbison |
| Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want | Smiths |
| Gin And Juice | Snoop Doggy Dogg |
| Almost Home | The Reivers |
| Araby | The Reivers |
| I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You | Tom Waits |
| Add It Up | Violent Femmes |
| Deep Dark Truthful Mirror | Elvis Costello |
| Sweet And Shiny Eyes | Bonnie Raitt |
| Get Down On It | Kool and the Gang |
| Interstate Love Song | Stone Temple Pilots |
| Space Oddity | David Bowie |
Also, check out CoversProject.com for some interesting cover song cross-reference.
I’ve also seen them perform these covers live:
losing my religion – rem
I should have told her – vinx
mustang sally – wilson picket
pretty comprehensive list!
i’ve been trying to find these guys doing ‘mandy’ forever – i’ve heard it only once but its one of the best covers of that song i’ve heard. lemme know what album u found that on!! i need a copy!!
Sadly, I don’t know where to find that either. I haven’t seen any official or unofficial recording that includes Mandy. If you ever run across anything, let me know where you found it.
I just saw them last night great show! they closed out the night with a great cover of Oasis’ champagne supernova
Hootie et al covered Get Down On It by Kool and the Gang on a New Years Eve Gala. I am very interesting in finding a copy of that. Do you know where I could find it?
Unfortunately, the trading scene for Hootie concerts is pretty-much non-existent. Your best bet would be the fan forum on Hootie.com.
Does anybody know the song that Hootie and the Blowfish do that counts by 3 in the song? I saw them in concert recently and it is a great song. I’m thinking it might be a cover.
that’s part of their cover of Love the One You’re With…it’s in the middle of the song along w/3rd Bass’ ‘The Cactus’. I’ve got it on a bootleg album.
The number counting comes from 3 is a Magic Number from the Schoolhouse Rocks series
Heres that one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA69pmhrBiE
The actual lyrics that they sing are from this song.
De La Soul’s 3 is the Magic number, which is derived from the first song. HBF sings the second verse which comes in at the 1:08 mark here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0irL1M15DH8
They’ve also done STP’s Interstate Love Song and Bowie’s Space Odyssey. I used to have these in my illegal downloading mp3 days.
Thanks for the comment on an old post. Space Oddity – I’d like to hear that.
I do miss going to Hootie concerts. I’m hoping to make it to one last show, should one happen. It’s probably too much to hope to see them tour again, so hopefully there will be another charity performance I can attend, whether they perform any covers or not.