Customer Reviews

Cutting Their Own Groove

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This album features Big Daddy doing contemporary (at the time) songs in the style of the pre-Beatles era. It's a lot of fun to hear these songs done this way, and Big Daddy does it well. Each of the songs "borrows" the arrangement of a classic oldie. Here is a list of the songs and the arrangements that they are mimicing:

1. "Greatest Love of All" (not sure what it's modeled after)
2. "Like a Virgin" (like "Venus" by Franlie Avalon)
3. "Graceland" (like "All Shook Up" by Elvis Presley)
4. "Once in a Lifetime" (like "Day-O" by Harry Belafonte)
5. "The Living Years" (like "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las)
6. "Money For Nothing" (like "Sixteen Tons" by Tennesse Ernie Ford)
7. "Hold On" (like "Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson)
8. "Ice Ice Baby" (like "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry)
9. "Welcome to the Jungle" (like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens)
10. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (like "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters)
11. "Born to Run" (like "Travelin' Man" by Ricky Nelson)
12. "Memory" (like "Unchained Melody" by Vito and the Salutations)
13. "I Want Your Sex" (like something by the Lettermen)
14. "Nothing Compares 2 U" (like "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard)
15. "Help Me Make It Through the Night" (like "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters)

This brilliant album should have sold a few million when it first came out, but as with all good things, you don't realize what you had until after it is gone.

The band's approach of arranging contempory songs in the classic style of the 50's and early 60's (or "making old versions of new songs") has never been better on this album. I challenge you to listen to their covers of "Ice Ice Baby", "Help Me Make It Through The Night" or any other tracks without laughing and tapping your feet.

Their style is truely unique. The 90's and the 00's are, as Dr. Demento called them, the decades of covers. And while current artists (like the Fabulous Bud E. Luv, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, The LoungeOLeers, and even Paul Anka!) put a retro, lounge spin on old songs, Big Daddy has been reworking songs since 1983. But don't think that these guys are merely a lounge act. They are also the origial Mash Up artists. Their cover of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" is done with the instrumentation of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode", while keeping Vanilla Ice's melody. It takes real musical chops to pull this one off and these guys do it like no one else.

The people who make up "Big Daddy" are skilled vocalists whose voices blend as smoothly as cream in coffee. This is a great collection of recent hit songs as you have never heard them before. These talented artists have retained the integrity of each song while taking (extreme) liberties and having a LOT of fun with the melody and style. "Money for nothing" is particularly enjoyable, and you've never heard "memories" like this. If you like your music slightly twisted, buy this CD.

Rhino really needs to make all of Big Daddy's music available as a compilation -- including stuff like the animated video for their version of Simon & Garfunkel's "At the Zoo" that was used as a promo for a major zoo...

As to their stylings -- yes, their version of "Living Years" takes off from "Leader of the Pack" -- but it finishes up somewhere around "Dead Man's Curve", sliding smoothly from one to the other.

Their "Ice Ice Baby", as noted, retains the structure of Vanilla Ice's thing -- but, harder than that, it takes the Queen/David Bowie piano riff that Ice sampled, makes it into a Chuck Berrie riff... and still lets you hear the original riff.

And their "Born to Run" is simply wonderful...

Oh -- and i think that their version of "Memory" is based on "Speedo" by i-forget-who, rather than "Unchained Melody"...

Big Daddy is a 50's and 60's retro group who interpret songs from the 80's and 90's as if they were recorded a few decades earlier. Imagine Little Richard, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Chuck Berry and Jackie Wilson singing songs made famous by Bruce Springsteen, Prince, U2, Madonna and Dire Straits. The effect is enjoyable, interesting and humorous, but doesn't bear listening to very often. If you are a listener who loves both 50's and 80's music, you will enjoy playing "Cutting Their Own Groove" for your friends. The songs benefit from the re-interpretation, and you will never again hear the originals without thinking of Big Daddy.
The group also recorded the entire "Sgt. Pepper" album in the same manner.