Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" C/ uber C?

great flute solo hahahah...makes toto sound like steely dan no thanx

discofied yacht rock is my new favorite genre, though

sweet song, no question
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU3u5UDjYeY&feature=related

this song fucking rules

The only Neil Young cover ever that bests the original

Great November song.

Bought a used copy of her first album yesterday.

When "Lotta Love" was on the radio, I didn't like it at all. It's such an emblematic record of that time, what I think of as the Ronco moment (if that doesn't mean anything, the record label that took over from K-Tel in the late '70s in issuing compilations filled with Top 40 hits by mostly marginal artists; or, if you'd rather, yacht-rock, as everyone else calls it): even as a Neil Young cover, it's got the same crystalline production and disco-ish beat and light-jazz instrumentation (a flute solo even) as the Little River Band and Gino Vanelli and every other record that was around.

I became reacquainted with it when I started collecting Neil Young covers 15 years ago, though, and I've really come to like it. Not the greatest Neil cover ever, though, not even the greatest one that became a hit--I'll take Saint Etienne--but she does make the song her own.

That "though" in the last sentence snuck in there uninvited--shouldn't be there.

I know I heard it numerous times when I was a kid, but somehow unlike every other soft-rock song that imprinted on my brain from that time period for better or usually worse, I had absolutely no memory of it until I heard it again for the first time 6, maybe 7 years ago on an oldies station, and had an instant Proustian "whoa!" moment.

Funny thing was, even as I enjoyed the instant nostalgia rush the song provided, I was lukewarm on it as a song: seemed too strident. And yet I kept hearing it after that on other oldies stations and each time it sounded better and better and eventually I fell madly in love with the thing.

I've actually come to prefer the flop disco remix though. Maybe I just wore the original out, but I felt the remix gave it a back a little bit of that Neil darkness. Speaking of which, the "Comes A Time" studio version is my least favorite of his takes on the song. I far prefer the live versions he did, especially the one on "Live Rust", which sounds more upbeat as if he was influenced by the Nicolette version, as well as the one from the NYC stand of the '76 tour, which has a real anguished late-night feel to it, especially when he moans "How much does it cost" on the bridge.

I bought her debut several years ago but still haven't sat down to listen to it.

Like many backup singers, Nicolette Larson has no personality; the production and its stridency does it for her.

(Alfred, your username, OMG)

*opens IPA*

it's a lovely cover for sure, good posts clemenza and (new user?!) gjoon