'Shoes' / 'Sunny'

[Guest son of stan]

Apologies if this has come up before but 'Shoes' by Bobby Bland and 'Sunny' by Bobby Hebb, apart from the choruses, are basically the same song, aren't they?  You can sing the verses of one over the verses of the other. Which came first? And given 'Sunny' was a massive hit did this ever end in litigation?

Also, any more like this? Unrelated records that have the same melody? Not taling about records that have the same backing track. Only other one I can think of right now off the top of my head is The Brooks Brothers 'Looking For a Woman' which always sounds to me like it was heavily influenced by 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones (or maybe vice versa but I doubt it..) I mean the riff and vibe and 'I can't take it'....

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2017 by son of stan

[Guest son of stan]

 

[Dave Pinch]

sunny was first..shoes is 1967...... satisfaction is first brook brothers is 1966

[Liamgp]

This sort of thing was pretty common until George Harrison was taken to court for 'borrowing' the tune to 'He's so Fine' and from then on the lawyers were looking out for any songs which sounded even vaguely similar and there have been many a court case since then. Did Paul Weller have to pay Harrison anything for blatantly nicking the tune from 'Taxman' for the Jam's 'Start' I wonder?

 

[Pga1]

Hiya, yep as Liam gp says, loads of stuff before and since that court case, which was very harsh, can't think at mo been out all night but what sticks in my mind is the b side to ' my sweet lord'  when all the uk pop stuff became popular again mid- late 7ts, if unknown ' what is life' would have been massive with that ' keep on running' vibe, and breaks for the dancers.  Sorry bit off topic, cheers

[Sunnysoul]

Small Faces : Whatcha Gonna Do About It / Solomon Burke : Everybody Needs Somebody To Love

Spencer Davis : Gimme Some Lovin / Homer Banks : Aint That A Lot of Love

High Numbers :  I'm The Face  Zoot Suit  / The Dynamics : Misery

Edited February 26, 2017 by sunnysoul

[davidwapples]

john lennon happy xmas war is over

joan baez stewball but other earlier versions around i think

[maslar]

Of the songs listed above only the I'm The Face/Misery is a clear copy. That really is blatant. Of the others while there are some similarities to varying degrees there's nothing that could be described as "ripping off" in my opinion. Gimme Some Lovin' and Ain't That a Lot of Love share a riff but there are loads of songs that share riffs. The chord structure isn't the same.  And besides, that riff - particularly as a bass riff - is found in other songs. Tap it out, it's pretty basic. Singing Sunny over Shoes works for a few bars. Then it falls apart. I've never really considered that much similarity between the two.  You can do that with lots of tunes.

I always felt George Harrison was hard done by and I suspected that a major factor against him was the fact that Phil Spector was producer on both records. Let's face it GH's knowledge of music theory wasn't great. There's always going to be the suggestion that Spector in some way may have shaped the song.

 

[Liamgp]

4 hours ago, maslar said:

Of the songs listed above only the I'm The Face/Misery is a clear copy. That really is blatant. Of the others while there are some similarities to varying degrees there's nothing that could be described as "ripping off" in my opinion. Gimme Some Lovin' and Ain't That a Lot of Love share a riff but there are loads of songs that share riffs. The chord structure isn't the same.  And besides, that riff - particularly as a bass riff - is found in other songs. Tap it out, it's pretty basic. Singing Sunny over Shoes works for a few bars. Then it falls apart. I've never really considered that much similarity between the two.  You can do that with lots of tunes.

I always felt George Harrison was hard done by and I suspected that a major factor against him was the fact that Phil Spector was producer on both records. Let's face it GH's knowledge of music theory wasn't great. There's always going to be the suggestion that Spector in some way may have shaped the song.

 

It's actually 'Zoot Suit' that ripped off 'Misery' says Mr Pedantic...

[Codfromderby]

how about the jean genie by David bowie and oh yeh by shadows of night

[Guest son of stan]

16 hours ago, guest said:

Sounds like George Michael got Last Christmas from here -

 

Thanks you are right. Have never heard this before. Quite like it, I'm afraid...