Covered #5: Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World
This series is not just about featuring hits and evergreens, that wouldn't be enough. It aims to present songs that have succeeded not only in their original version but also in many other renditions. A lot of covers are described as "better than the original" and in many cases, only a few people know the original. Sometimes there is even a dispute as to which version came first. The songs we are going to talk about and, more importantly, whose cover versions we are going to present, won't be based on the place or time of their creation, and definitely not on their original musical genre. Folk, jazz, blues, rock, pop or musical, we can find interesting songs anywhere.
Let's get this out right from the start: the author of this series considers this song to be unprecedented kitsch. But like almost everything, there's a little catch to that statement. First of all, there are several cover versions of "What a Wonderful World" worth remembering, and that's the whole point of the Covered series. And secondly, some of these covers are among the author's guilty pleasures. So it's going to be fun after all.
Louis Armstrong made his most important contribution to jazz in the second half of the twenties in Chicago, leading the Hot Five and Hot Seven bands (if you don't know those recordings, listen to them, even after a hundred years, it's still a blast). He was a killer trumpet player at the time, a world away from the role he played very successfully for the rest of his life, fulfilling the white man's fantasy of the "proper black jazzman".
However, Armstrong did not record "What a Wonderful World" until he was relatively old and a long-term guest in Las Vegas. It was after one such performance that he went to the studio and recorded the song with the orchestra between 2 and 6 a.m. – it is said that the recording session overran and Armstrong split his fee almost entirely between the musicians, taking only a token $250 himself.
The song was written directly for Armstrong by professional songwriters Bob Thiele and George David Weiss, commissioned by the head of ABC Records, Larry Newton, with whom Armstrong, now 60, had signed a contract. When Newton heard the slow tempo, he wanted to cancel the recording, but after a quarrel, the song was finished. Newton, however, refused to promote the single, so the song first made its way to the top of the charts in England, where Armstrong was the oldest artist to date. It didn't become a hit in America until much later, when it was used in the 1988 film Good Morning, Vietnam.
Ironically, in the period between the recording of the original version and its reissue, a version more or less for children raised interest in the song: that of the hugely successful 1977 TV series The Muppet Show, where 'What a Wonderful World' was sung by Rowlf the puppet dog.
After Armstrong's version was officially released for a second time as a single in 1988, backed by the film Good Morning, Vietnam, its potential as a pop standard emerged almost immediately. That same year, 1988, Willie Nelson adopted the song into his repertoire, recording it and naming his album of covers from the Great American Songbook after it.
In 1992, an unexpected blow came. "What a Wonderful World" was sung by Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan as part of their mini-album, and most importantly, they made a simple, but fabulous music video for the song. The most beautiful thing about their version and everything around it is that you don't know exactly how much the two buddies are serious about the song, and how much they're outrageously messing around with it. Either way, it's one of the best cover versions that either of them and each of them on their own, have written.
In 2007, British singer Katie Melua made "What a Wonderful World" a hit when she released the song as a fictional duet with American singer Eva Cassidy, who had been dead for over a decade. It was a single whose proceeds went to the Red Cross and was sold by the Tesco supermarket chain, reaching number one in the UK singles chart.
So far, we have only discussed more or less faithful, i.e. slow, balladic versions of the song. However, it can be treated in a completely different way. Former Ramones frontman Joey Ramone took a very straightforward, but at least rhythmically interesting (and entirely in his own style) approach to the song on his only solo album, 2002's Don't Worry About Me.
Ministry also included the song on their album of cover versions called Cover Up. In the first half, they keep the original tempo, so you think that the only change is Jourgensen's backing voice, but in the middle "it happens". Anyway, this whole album, containing Ministry's versions of the Rolling Stones, Dylan, Deep Purple, the Beatles and the Doors, among others, is quite entertaining.
If you're wondering if someone has made a reggae version of such an obvious hit (because that's always bound to happen in such cases), the answer is: yes. Ziggy Marley, one of Bob's sons, contributed it to the 2010 Disney Reggae Club compilation.
And one last demonstration of what can be done with a hit. The song was chosen, certainly because of the content, as a part of the great Playing for Change / Song Around The World series. Of course, a rendition like this simply must retain a crucial sentimental dimension. However, the combination of children's school choirs from around the world and New Orleans street singer Grandpa Elliott is a nice idea.
As usual, we will finish with the most bizarre version. In 2001, rapper Ghostface Killah released a very "stoned" song "The Forest", which starts with the first verse of "What a Wonderful World". The agency managing the song's copyright sued the rapper and his label, but the court ruled the rapped version to be a parody completely within the bounds of the law.
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