Ever wanted to hear Eddie Money cover Train, the Beatles, AC/DC, and the Four Tops? No? Well, he doesn’t care.

That’s the snarky message that I read from my friend Jeff this morning on Twitter. There is no faster way to get me to buy music than to drop the name of one of my favorite artists, and then tell me in the next breath that they have a cool cover song available, an entire album of covers, etc.

Back in January, Rebecca and I took our fiery redheaded friend Kelly, in town from Los Angeles, to the House of Blues for her first experience, “shakin’ it with the Money Man.” Eddie rocked and rolled his way through an incredible catalog of hits, and I swear to God, Kelly laughed out loud each and every time she saw Money do the “Eddie Money spin.” Those of you that have been to an Eddie Money show in the past 10 years know what I’m talkin’ about. It’s Eddie’s move, the one that makes all the ladies swoon, and back in the day, it was probably the move that got Eddie a lot of backstage friends after the show. For those of you haven’t been to see “Ready Eddie” recently, the “Eddie Money spin” is basically your dad or grandfather tryin’ to dance a little bit, tryin’ to look cool. It doesn’t quite work, but it’s cute.

As a child of the 80’s, I grew up on the Eddie Money hits – mainly “Take Me Home Tonight,” “Walk on Water,” “I Wanna Go Back,” and “Endless Nights” were the ones that hit my ears in my early years of being a music fan. Working at a record store in the 90’s (there’s that topic again,) I really gained a full appreciation for the Money Man with the acoustic live EP Unplug It In.

Money was already gazing at the taillights of his career, but the acoustic setting really revealed the “artist” of Eddie Money to me, and I was instantly kicking myself for missing Money’s acoustic tour stop in Cleveland a year earlier. Whether it is a cover song, or an original, the man can take both and make it an Eddie Money song, as witnessed when listening to his version of “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me,” and Money’s own “Save A Little Room In Your Heart For Me.”

Old faces and old places don’t bother me
Like they seem to bother you
We’ve had our day
No more sorrys to say

So when I heard about Eddie Money: The Covers EP: Volume 1, I was excited to hear it. I could picture Money wrapping those road weary vocal cords around “Drops of Jupiter,” originally a hit for Train a few years back. Money’s version is exactly as you would expect it to sound, begging you to waste a little bit of time on the Money Man. With Joe Cocker already having tackled “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,” it’s not hard to imagine Money singing that one, and he delivers a version that doesn’t stray too far from Cocker’s cover of the Beatles original, and that’s fine. The Money Man tackling some AC/DC in the form of “It’s A Long Way To The Top” is where Covers really starts to get fun. You couldn’t have chosen a better AC/DC track, and Money is drivin’ drunk on this one, jerking the rock and roll tour bus around the twists and turns of your audio highway.

Hotel motel
Wanna make you cry
Lady do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin’ old
Gettin’ grey
Gettin’ ripped off
Under-paid
Gettin’ sold
Second hand
That’s how it goes
In a rock and roll band

Seriously, let me start the petition for an Eddie Money cover record of AC/DC tunes. Fan-frikkin-tastic!

I didn’t want to hear an album of 50s/60s covers from Money, and even though the prospect of country/western versions of Money’s own hits was interesting, Covers is really the project that is a knockout, and it’s a shame that it’s only four tunes. But then again, it does say “Volume 1” as part of the title, so I’ll be looking forward to see what might pop up on Volume 2!

Purchase Eddie Money: The Covers EP – Volume 1 from Amazon – MP3 Download