The cover story

When he wrote his song “Everything Old Is New Again” in the 1970s, Peter Allen didn’t know that he was predicting the lay of the pop music landscape circa 2004.

Flip on the radio and it won’t be long before you hear Sheryl Crow singing “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” her new version of Rod Stewart’s 1977 rendition of Cat Stevens’ 1967 song.

You’re also likely to punch up Limp Bizkit revisiting the Who’s 1971 single “Behind Blue Eyes,” Uncle Kracker weighing in on Dobie Gray’s lilting 1973 hit “Drift Away,” Counting Crows reviving Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” from 1970 or No Doubt putting its spin on Talk Talk’s 1984 hit “It’s My Life.”

Kid Rock is getting new mileage out of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” pop-punk band the Ataris boosted its career with a ramped-up reading of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” and Tim McGraw is crossing over from country radio to adult contemporary with his take on Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”

Has everyone in pop music suddenly forgotten how to write a song?

In reality, observers say, the flurry of contemporary musicians covering songs of yore is the result of ever-tightening radio playlists, the superstar producer’s transcendence of the songwriter-performer, and the spillover into pop and rock of rap’s penchant for bringing music of the past into the present.

“It feels like there’s a kind of move toward great songs more than great albums,” says producer Rick Rubin, who has worked with acts as diverse as the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash and Tom Petty. “For so long we lived in an album culture.... But the power of the individual song seems to be meaning more now. In a way it’s like it was in the ‘50s.”

Indeed, nearly a half-century ago when rock was born, most stars recorded their own takes on other musicians’ hits. Elvis Presley’s version of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes” out-rocked the original, and the King landed one of his first nationwide hits with his update of Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog.” Jerry Lee Lewis charted his versions of Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” and Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”

That continued a pop tradition, dating to the beginning of recorded music, in which the song was preeminent. In the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, it was common for multiple recordings of a hit song to wind up on the airwaves and the charts. (A dozen versions of the pop standard “It Had to Be You” charted from 1924 to 1944.)

The tradition even carried into the ‘60s.

“The Beatles spent the first part of their career as a cover band, so did the [Rolling] Stones, covering all those blues and R&B; songs,” notes radio personality and musicologist Dr. Demento.

But when Bob Dylan ushered in the age of the singer-songwriter in the mid-’60s, the new standard in pop music was for performers to write and sing their own material. A cover version might turn up as an album track or on the B side of a single (which is the case with the Foo Fighters’ surprise hit reading of Prince’s “Darling Nikki”), but they rarely were released and promoted on their own.

Toward a ‘song mentality’

In the last decade, however, the self-contained musician has become subservient to the superstar producer. The singer often becomes little more than a face for a catchy song or production.

“We’re moving more toward a song mentality in everything we do, whether it’s downloading a song off the Internet, what we want to hear on the radio or if we’re watching one of the music channels,” says Jeff Pollack, one of the nation’s leading radio consultants. “There’s a degree of comfort in a cover song, which makes people pay attention. It’s happening more, and that suggests this is not a generally fertile time for new ideas musically.”

As Peter Allen sang: “Don’t throw the past away/ You might need it some rainy day.” And there are practical aspects to the heightened use of cover versions.

“It does solve an A&R; issue of coming up with a single in a short period of time, say, if you want to get a greatest-hits record out and you don’t have a spare hit single in the closet,” says Jim Guerinot, manager of No Doubt, the Offspring, Social Distortion and others.

There’s also a point in the career arc of every musician where the viewpoint shifts from the horizon ahead to the rear-view mirror.

“The job of all of a sudden being a star is taking up all their attention,” says Del Bryant, executive vice president of BMI, one of the two major song licensing companies in the U.S. “Some start reaching back to some of their favorite old songs because they don’t have as much time to be writing their own new favorite songs.”

Bryant notes that anyone can record any previously recorded song, be it the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” or Beyonce and Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love.” The only requirements are that they pay a compulsory licensing fee -- about 8 1/2 cents per album, single or download sold -- and they don’t monkey significantly with the melody or lyrics. If that happens, the songwriter can step in and halt the cover from being released.

More reworkings on the way?

Some suggest that we’re likely to see even more reworkings of familiar songs, just as the movies depend ever more on old plots, vintage TV shows and remakes or sequels of proven hits.

“Hip-hop and rap artists have opened the door and made it acceptable. Other people have seen that it works, and they’re not afraid,” says Todd Brabeck, executive vice president of membership for the other major song licensing organization, ASCAP. “It’s been increasing over the last 10 years, and it doesn’t seem to be going in the other direction.”

“American Idol,” where unknown singers try to lose the “un” by singing well-known songs before the judges and millions of viewers, has contributed, Brabeck says. Karaoke even figures into the picture, according to Jim Nayder, host of National Public Radio’s “Annoying Music Show,” which thrives on wretched covers of pop songs.

“You can now go to your local Wal-Mart and get a karaoke machine for your kid, and they can be sitting in their bedroom with state-of-the-art equipment and backup doing Lisa Loeb,” Nayder says. “And the hits that make it to a Wal-Mart karaoke CD are pretty much foolproof.”

Getting the attention of hard-to-impress radio programmers may be the biggest motivator for doing a cover, with its “instant recognition,” says radio consultant Pollack.

“There’s an initial curiosity about how that cover was done, and if it’s really good ... it can get instant airplay and can be a bonanza,” he says.

Still, there’s no guarantee a cover will click, even when a band feels strongly about a favorite song it wants to update.

“The song has to be a great song, but it also has to have a quality of whatever the personality of the artist is,” Rubin says. “The beauty of Johnny Cash singing [Trent Reznor’s] ‘Hurt’ was that even though it was written by someone who was in his late 20s, when Johnny sang it at 71 it sounded like he wrote it, like it was his autobiography.... I’ve had to explain to some acts, ‘Here’s what this song says to me, and even though it’s melodically good, what it’s saying doesn’t go with who you are.’ ”

For many songwriters, “any cover is a good cover,” says Michael McDonald, who is getting airplay on adult contemporary radio stations with his version of the 1967 Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” a song Diana Ross took to No. 1 three years later.

“It would be a lie to say I’m not critical of some of the covers I hear,” McDonald says. “But on a philosophical level, I know it’s better if people are covering my songs than not.”

He also was well aware that no matter how his current album of Motown covers came out, he’d be leaving himself open to criticism for tampering with pop music classics.

“Being a songwriter,” McDonald says, “you’re always thinking of the [original] songwriter and you’re always hoping it’s something they would approve of.”

Other songwriters say we shouldn’t fret about whether the backward glancing reflects poorly on the state of pop songwriting.

“I think it’s a good thing, like the car companies that are turning to old designs for inspiration,” says singer-songwriter John Hiatt, whose songs have been turned into hits by Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King and Eric Clapton. “When you start looking to your history, it can easily spawn something new eventually.”

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Best selling covers

Cover artist: Whitney Houston

Song: “I Will Always Love You”

Weeks at #1 (year): 14 weeks (1992)

Original artist (year): Dolly Parton (1974)

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Cover artist: Elvis Presley

Song: “Hound Dog”

Weeks at #1 (year): 11 weeks (1956)

Original artist (year): Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton (1953)

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Cover artist: All-4-One

Song: “I Swear”

Weeks at #1 (year): 11 weeks (1994)

Original artist (year): John Michael Montgomery (1994)

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Cover artist: Bobby Darin

Song: “Mack the Knife”

Weeks at #1 (year): 9 weeks (1959)

Original artist (year): Dick Hyman (1956)

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Cover artist: Tennessee Ernie Ford

Song: “Sixteen Tons”

Weeks at #1 (year): 8 weeks (1955)

Original artist (year): Merle Travis (1947)

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Great covers

Sometimes a song is reinvented so well that many people forget it’s not the original. Thus, “Twist and Shout” is linked more with the Beatles, not the Isley Brothers.

*--* Artist Song covered The Beatles “Twist and Shout” Elvis Presley “Blue Suede Shoes” Aretha Franklin “Respect” Patti Smith “Gloria” Stevie Wonder “For Once in My Life” Jimi Hendrix “Hey Joe” X “Breathless” Johnny Cash “Hurt” Jerry Lee Lewis “Over the Rainbow” Frank Sinatra “New York, New York”

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Bad covers

Only serious covers considered, ruling out William Shatner’s “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and Jack Webb’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” Whitney, Dolly Parton’s original was all we needed.

*--* Artist Song covered Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” Hall & Oates “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” Frank Sinatra “Something” Joan Baez “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” The CrewCuts “Sh-Boom”

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Unconscious cover versions

Here are songs that resulted in legal action because of similarities to earlier hits.

The remake? George Harrison, “My Sweet Lord”

The original: The Chiffons, “He’s So Fine”

The remake? The Beach Boys, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

The original: Chuck Berry, “Sweet Little Sixteen”

The remake? The Beatles, “Come Together”

The original: Chuck Berry, “You Can’t Catch Me”

The remake? Whitney Houston, “The Greatest Love of All”

The original: Gordon Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind”

The remake? John Fogerty, “The Old Man Down the Road”

The original: Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Run Through the Jungle.” Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz unsuccessfully sued Fogerty for plagiarizing his own earlier Creedence hit.

Randy Lewis can be contacted at randy.lewis@latimes.com.