I am always amazed at what artists can do to transform songs and put their own unique and distinctive stamp on them. Sometimes they take tracks from other genres and make them country. It is a form of genius, I think. Only people with creativity, vision, and boldness can pull this off successfully. And over the years, many have. We take a look at four times that country artists have availed themselves of songs from non-country sources and "countrified" them.
Videos by Wide Open Country
"I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" By Mark Chestnutt
This Aerosmith classic didn't seem like it was made for adaptation to country. But Mark Chestnutt went out on a limb and did just that at the behest of his recording label at the time, Columbia Records, Per Taste Of Country, Chestnutt "scored a multi-week No. 1 hit with his remake of a smash Aerosmith hit," but he paid a high price for it. Evidently George Jones thought that Chestnutt was turning his back on genuine, pure country. Chestnutt, with gentlemanly grace, apparently understood Jones' ire. "George Jones got mad at me for doing that. I don't blame him. I don't blame him at all."
"Footloose" by Blake Shelton
Remember the 1984 movie Footloose with Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer? Kenny Loggins sang the fun, toe-tapping, classic pop title song. Then Blake Shelton came along and covered it, rousing country-style. Per nbc.com, "Shelton's cover reached the number 63 position on the Hot Country Songs chart that year [2011]...." The occasion was a reboot of the 1980s film. The music from it sure didn't gather any dust!
"Hurt" By Johnny Cash
Would you ever have thought that Johnny Cash would record a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails? Not only did he do it, but it was a spectacularly forlorn, intensely moving cover. It was even more poignant because Cash sang it near the end of his life, and each word is imbued with extra significance due to that fact. When Cash, his voice raspy, weary, and subdued, intones, "I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus on the pain / The only thing that's real," you just sense the man's corrosive agony. He and his wife, June Carter Cash, both died the following year, in 2003.
"Gold Dust Woman" By Waylon Jennings
A card-carrying member of the outlaw subset of country singers, Jennings did full justice to this track from Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks. She wrote and sang it for the band's classic Rumours album. This cover was on the equally classic 1978 LP, Waylon & Willie.
