Rhino’s Got You Covered: Ricky Skaggs, Metallica, Matt Pond PA, and Little Anthony and The Imperials

It’s Wednesday, so it must be time to take another dip into the Rhino catalog and trot out a new quartet of cover songs that you may or may not have heard before. Let’s get started, shall we?

•    Ricky Skaggs, “Cats in the Cradle” (1995): After enjoying considerable success on the country charts throughout the ‘80s, Skaggs jumped from his longtime label Epic Records over to Atlantic for two LPs, and while the second one, 1997’s LIFE IS A JOURNEY, completely failed to chart, 1995’s SOLID GROUND scored him two minor country hits, with this Harry Chapin cover being the biggest.

•    Metallica, “Turn the Page” (1998): Taken from the band’s covers compilation, this Bob Seger song was so powerfully delivered by Metallica that you could very easily forget that it was a Seger song, which is high praise indeed, particularly considering how close to Seger’s original arrangement the band hewed.

•    Matt Pond PA, “Champagne Supernova” (2005): Over the four-season run of The O.C., the Fox series made the most of its viewership by releasing a series of soundtrack albums, many of which featured some extremely interesting covers. This Oasis tune by Matt Pond PA is but one of them, but it’s definitely one of the more memorable in the bunch.

•    Little Anthony & The Imperials, “Over the Rainbow” (1959): Anthony Gourdine and his Imperials were one of the few bands to emerge during the doo-wop era and continue to find success for an extended period of time, but this cover of the classic tune from The Wizard of Oz was released early in their career, i.e. after “Tears on My Pillow” but before “Shimmy, Skimmy, Ko Ko Bop.”