I’m listening to the soundtrack to The Blues Brothers. Their version of the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’” is pretty good, but there was always something about it that bugged me that I couldn’t really put my finger on. I finally realized what it is: they change the melody. They don’t always go up to the higher notes at the end of phrases (like “you better take it easy ‘cause the place is on fire”), and they’ve sort of ironed out the syncopation. Those were two of the things that made the Spencer Davis Group’s version so great.
While I do like the Blue Brothers’ addition of horns, I feel that they’ve done it almost at the expense of the organ riff. The organ part is still there, but it’s not emphasized like it is in the Spencer Davis Group’s version. If they emphasized that organ part along with the horns, it could sound great. Although my thinking that is probably just because I love the sound of Hammond organs so much.
