Texas - Cover Versions, Volume 2 (1999-2015)

Yesterday, I posted the first of two albums of cover versions by the band Texas. Here's the second and final album. You should read the write-up to that other album for general information. But, in short, you don't have to be a fan of Texas's original material to enjoy these albums. As you can see, the band covers the same kind of music that is generally featured in this blog, and lead vocalist Sharleen Spiteri has an excellent voice.

Speaking of Spiteri, she went solo for a few years, roughly from 2008 to 2012. Then the band got back together and has stayed together ever since. So there's a big chunk of songs here that are credited to Spiteri instead of Texas. But it basically sounds the same. Note that Spiteri released a solo album in 2010, "The Movie Songbook," that entirely consists of cover versions. I've deliberately avoided including any songs from that album so as to not cut into album sales. But I did include a couple of songs from it if they were significantly different versions.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song: 

01. Surrender - Diana Ross
02. Take Me with U - Prince
03. Private Number - William Bell
04. Across the Universe - Beatles
05. Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley
06. What Do I Get - Buzzcocks
07. All These Things that I've Done - Killers
08. I Heard It through the Grapevine - Gladys Knight & the Pips / Marvin Gaye
09. Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
10. Should I Stay or Should I Go - Clash
11. Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen
12. God Bless the Child - Billie Holliday
13. Many Rivers to Cross [Acoustic Version] - Jimmy Cliff
14. I'd Rather Go Blind - Etta James
15. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner
16. The Letter - Boxtops

It terms of sound quality, everything here sounds very good. I've maintained extra high sound quality standards for these two albums. That means some songs got cut. (I'm particularly bummed I couldn't find a good enough version of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley.) Eleven of the 17 songs here are officially unreleased, which is a lot more than for the first album. But that doesn't matter due to the high quality control.

UPDATE: On March 10, 2021, I updated the mp3 download file. I had "All These Things that I've Done" by the Killers as a song from 1998 in the previous volume of this series. But a commenter pointed out to me that that couldn't possibly be correct. The Killers didn't exist as a band yet then, and didn't release their debut album (with that song on it) until 2005. So I've moved the song here. I'm at a total loss as to when and where it's from. I'm placing it around 2008, since it's a Sharleen Spiteri solo version, and that's when her solo career began. But I very well could be wrong. If anyone knows better, please let me know. 

Oh, and to keep the album lengths close between this album and the previous one in this series, I moved two songs from here to there ("Don't You Want Me" and "Parisian Pierrot").

01 Surrender (Texas)
02 Take Me with U (Texas)
03 Private Number (Texas & William Bell)
04 Across the Universe (Texas)
05 Suspicious Minds (Texas)
06 What Do I Get (Texas)
07 All These Things that I've Done (Sharleen Spiteri)
08 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Sharleen Spiteri & Jamie Lidell)
09 Son of a Preacher Man (Sharleen Spiteri & Charlotte Church)
10 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Sherleen Spiteri)
11 Streets of Philadelphia (Sharleen Spiteri)
12 God Bless the Child (Sharleen Spiteri)
13 Many Rivers to Cross [Acoustic Version] (Sharleen Spiteri)
14 I'd Rather Go Blind (Sharleen Spiteri with Ronnie Wood)
15 River Deep, Mountain High (Texas)
16 The Letter (Texas)

https://www42.zippyshare.com/v/g0x7uzbP/file.html

The cover photo is of Sharleen Spiteri in 2003. The photo is actually of her in an embrace with actor Ewan MacGregor, but I cropped him out of it. Once again, my apologies to the other band members for not featuring them on the cover.