Song covers that are better than the originals

If you've ever heard Kid Creole live, his version of "If You Wanna Be Happy For The Rest of Your Life, Never Make a Pretty Woman Your Wife" is both absolutely hilarious and an amazing high energy funk workout. I think Harry Belafonte's is the original, but it can't hold a candle to the Kid's take.

Marty

Also,

Lindsey Buckingham does a solo guitar arrangement of Rogers and Hammerstein's "This Almost Was Mine" that IMHO blows away the original Cast version.

Marty

From the last time this kind of thread went around:

Danny Gatton's take on Earle Hagan's "Harlem Nocturne", a song usually associated with Duke Ellington. IMHO, guitar playing doesn't get much better than this.

Don Dixon/Marti Jones' version of Joe Tex's "You Got What it Takes (To Take What I Got)". The sound of two singers in love/lust. (Dixon and Jones are married.) My wife and I used this one for our first dance.

Marty

Luka Bloom's cover of LL Cool J's "I Need Love".
Don't know if he's ever recorded it, but a showstopper in concert.

I just found a new one:

Grant Green covering The Isley Bros. "It's Your Thing". This is a great take on a classic - definitely worth checking out.

Marty

An oddity:

Todd Rundgren's "Pretending To Care" has been covered many times (notably by Jennifer Warnes), but always left me with the sense that someone could/should do more with it.

Then, I heard an absolutely great version by one Fred Froom (maybe related to Mitchell Froom, I thought). I did an internet search for Fred. It appears that he has recorded one track only: Todd Rundgren's "Pretending To Care".

At least it was a good one.

Marty

Similarly, one 'Goner chose the well known Santana cover of Black Magic Woman over the Fleetwood Mac original.  A lot of people would agree, but not me.   Carlos Santana rounds off all of Peter Green's sharp edges, and I think that the song suffers for it.  YMMV.

Funny that you struck a chord (pardon the pun) with me once again, BDP.

I actually admire Jimi a ton and fully appreciate what he brought to the table in terms of changing the way a lot of people approach the instrument, so I guess that I disagree with some of your post. However, I just don't love the guy's music and never listen to his recordings.  I'm an admirer, but not a fan.