Cover versions began as copycat records rushed out to beat the original
Today a cover usually means a tribute, but the term began as something more cutthroat. Record labels once hurried out their own version of a new hit to compete head-on with the original, betting that buyers would ask a shop for the tune rather than the performer.
For much of the early recording era, singling out one performance as the original would have puzzled people. Music was a live event, and sheet music existed precisely so that as many performers as possible would play a song, which made the tune matter more than the artist. With little advertising and highly local distribution, a regional singer could record someone else's hit and reach local shoppers first. Ain't She Sweet, for example, was popular in 1927 through several performers, was revived in 1949 and was recorded again by the Beatles in 1964.
The balance shifted in the late 1930s as younger buyers arrived. A swing-era teenager hunting for In the Mood wanted Glenn Miller's version specifically, and charts began tracking artists, not just songs. Even so, labels kept cutting multiple versions, partly because American broadcasters paid royalties to writers and publishers but not performers. King Records routinely made both rhythm and blues and country recordings of the same novelty songs, and in early rock and roll, R&B and country tunes were often re-recorded in smoother styles that purists felt lost the originals' rawness.
The law makes this easy in the United States. Since the Copyright Act of 1909, anyone may record a released song by paying a standard royalty under a compulsory mechanical licence, even without the writer's blessing. Congress created it to stop the Aeolian Company cornering the piano-roll market. The one power writers keep is choosing who releases the first recording, a right Bob Dylan used to block his own label from issuing a live Mr. Tambourine Man. In 2021 the Music Modernization Act handed digital licensing to a nonprofit, the MLC.
Covers now sustain whole careers. Tribute acts like Bjorn Again recreate one band; Dread Zeppelin plays Led Zeppelin as reggae. Tim Owens went from fronting a Judas Priest tribute band to singing for Judas Priest itself.
Source: Cover version
