Did you listen to NPR today? Were you paying attention?

January 11, 2005 7:12 PM

Who was the artist covering Ain't Misbehavin' on NPR today? Heard around 4 pm eastern on WAMU. Female. Mena something?
posted by NortonDC to media & arts (7 comments total)

Nina Simone? I was just listening to her cover of it. I wasn't listening to NPR this afternoon though, so I could be wrong.
posted by annathea at 7:15 PM on January 11, 2005

Found: Mina Agossi (temp link?)

I searched NPR and Google, but didn't check the station's own site. ehp.
posted by NortonDC at 7:24 PM on January 11, 2005

P.S.--It sounded fantastic.
posted by NortonDC at 7:25 PM on January 11, 2005

Ah, permanent link: Mina Agossi
posted by NortonDC at 7:27 PM on January 11, 2005

Ain't Misbehavin' mp3 clip by Mina Agossi.
posted by liam at 7:48 PM on January 11, 2005

i'm curious--it's not really a good enough question for ask.me, so i'm plunking it here--is it appropriate to refer to a recording of a standard or a song that's not particularly associated with any artist other than the composer as a "cover"? isn't it more properly called so&so's "rendition" or "version" or "recording"? i know we had a big long thread about whether or not "cover" was racist (because it originally referred to song re-recorded by white artists so that they would have commercial value), but it seems to me that "cover" has now moved completely to a realm where it's pop/rock bands doing one another's songs and doesn't really apply to something like ain't misbehavin'. is this just some weird personal opinion?

(also, thanks for sharing this)
posted by crush-onastick at 9:32 AM on January 12, 2005

I think you're right about standards in general, crush-onastick, but there are some that are closely enough identified with one artist that any subsequent version may be referred to as a cover. I tend to think of "Ain't Misbehavin'" as a Fats Waller number in the way that I think of "Fever" as a Peggy Lee number. Speaking of the latter, those partial to Agossi's "Ain't Misbehavin'" may well enjoy a version of "Fever" retitled "Tumour" (as in " You give me tumour...") by the late french no-wave chanteuse Lizzie Mercier Descloux.
posted by liam at 10:18 AM on January 12, 2005