The Act With the Most Top 40 Cover Recordings

Recently, on Lou Simon’s SiriusXM show “The Diner,” a caller asked who took the most cover songs to the Top 40.  Her thought was Johnny Rivers—pretty good guess, it turns out--and covers were certainly his long suit.  I decided to try to find the answer rigorously.

I took my 1955 to 1991 Top 100 database and restricted it to Billboard only.  Note that many of these songs were written and originally recorded long before the rock era,  but I’m only counting the 1955-1991 time period.  I restricted it to songs appearing more than once, and ordered each group of repeat songs by date of appearance on the chart.  I did not require that the original and cover songs be separated in time.  Whether that should actually be done is an arguable point.  I then tested to see if any repeat appearance peaked in the Top 40. Eight hundred fifty-two unique songs fit this category; there were a total of 2859 recordings of these songs.

From this list of songs that appeared on the Top 100 and had at least one subsequent recording in the Top 40 I eliminated parodies, response songs and “self-covers”--reissues or re-recordings of the original version.  Any song that was only covered as a parody, response or self-cover was eliminated.  In the case of two covers of an original by a second artist the second is also eliminated, as it would be a self-cover.  This eliminated 40 unique songs and removed a total of 160 chart entries.

Thus there are 812 unique songs comprising 2199 chart entries in the dataset, 812 originals and 1387 covers, 961 of which cracked the Top 40, taken there by 569 different acts.  Fifty-six covers peaked at #1, 23 at #2 and 29 at #3.

By far, the cover champion is Bobby Vinton with 15, and an aggregate score of 41216.  Here are the Top 10:

Act
Songs
Score
Bobby VINTON
15
41216
Aretha FRANKLIN
14
26695
Johnny RIVERS
12
26814
Linda RONSTADT
12
26178
Elvis PRESLEY
12
23673
Ray CHARLES
10
23941
Andy WILLIAMS
8
14065
FONTANE SISTERS
7
9836
Dionne WARWICK
7
9820
Wilson PICKETT
7
7855

Honorable mention to Bobby Darin with only 6 covers but a score of 21143, driven by Mack The Knife.

Here are Bobby Vinton’s covers in order of entry to the chart:

Title
Original Act
Over The Mountain (Across The Sea)
JOHNNIE & JOE
Blue Velvet
The STATUES
There! I've Said It Again
Sam COOKE
My Heart Belongs To Only You
Jackie WILSON
Mr. Lonely
Buddy GRECO
Long Lonely Nights
Clyde McPHATTER//
Lee ANDREWS And The HEARTS
Dum-De-Da
Johnny TILLOTSON
(as “She Understands Me”)
Please Love Me Forever
Tommy EDWARDS
Just As Much As Ever
Bob BECKHAM
Take Good Care Of My Baby
Bobby VEE
Halfway To Paradise
Tony ORLANDO
I Love How You Love Me
PARIS SISTERS
To Know You Is To Love You
TEDDY BEARS
Every Day Of My Life
McGUIRE SISTERS
Sealed With A Kiss
Brian HYLAND


For good measure, here are the Top 10 cover songs with their original version (All covers peaked at #1)

Title
Act
Original Act
Peak
Note
Mack The Knife
Bobby DARIN
Dick HYMAN Trio (as “Moritat”)
9
Vocal vs Instrum
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Marvin GAYE
Gladys KNIGHT & The PIPS
2
Are You Lonesome To-Night
Elvis PRESLEY
Jaye P. MORGAN
65
I Can't Stop Loving You
Ray CHARLES
Don GIBSON
81
Tammy
Debbie REYNOLDS
AMES BROTHERS
29
The Twist
Chubby CHECKER
Hank BALLARD/ MIDNIGHTERS
28
Reissue went to #1 in 1962
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
The PLATTERS
Richard BARRETT
94
Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)
Domenico MODUGNO
Dean MARTIN
15
Entered the same day
Young Love
Tab HUNTER
Sonny JAMES
2
Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee)
The RAIDERS
Don FARDON
20



Comments

  1. UnknownJune 24, 2018 at 3:02 PM

    Fascinating work as always, Mr. Carroll. If you have plans to start a Ranking the 80s book, the offer still stands. I'm ready, willing, and able to give you any help you may need.

    ReplyDelete

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