Seasonal Songs: "Summertime Blues" (1958)

Happy First Day of Summer!

To celebrate, let's listen to the greatest Summertime record of them all: "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran on Liberty Records in 1958:

I think Eddie Cochran was great and that records just two minutes of awesomeness!

That record is a classic, so naturally a lot of artists have recorded their own versions over the song years, with the records by Blue Cheer and The Who being particularly popular.

Most of those other versions don't grab me, although I do appreciate the various artists wanting to put their own spin on the song.

We have to jump all the way to 1987 for another version on "Summertime Blues" that I do dig and it comes from the soundtrack of "La Bamba," the Ritchie Valens biopic.

In the movie, Rockabilly icon Brian Setzer (of The Stray Cats) appears as Eddie Cochran and performs "Summertime Blues":

I think Brian Setzer is great, so how can you go wrong? I like how the arrangement allows room for a guitar solo.

One thing I will say is that the authority figures on Brian's version sound more like the ones on Robert Gordon's 1977 version (which isn't bad, but like the 1962 Beach Boys version just kind of seems like an album track) than on Eddie's original.

We leave the Rockabilly field for one more version that I like, which is country superstar Alan Jackson's take from 1994:

I'm an Alan Jackson fan anyway and I like how they take the song and give it the feel of Alan's earlier hit "Chattahoochee" to make it sound exactly how the Alan Jackson version of "Summertime Blues" should sound!