Favorite audiophile-quality cover bands ...


While my love of music is vast in scope and includes jazz, classic rock, classical and more niche genres to numerous to list, I have never listened much to cover bands, by which I means bands that primarily cover the works of others rather than create original material. 

But I make an exception for an exceptional group whose covers of Chicago, especially that band's earlier years when its work was more intricate and driven, a cover band whose members don't speak English, based in Moscow, a collection of phenomenal Russian musicians and one Ukranian, Leonid & Friends.

They don't really re-interpret as much as they recreate but with better studio equipment and the result are covers that are as musically compelling as the originals but recorded more cleanly. While Chicago is their focus, they also do covers of Deep Purple and Earth, Wind and Fire, as well as a recent original.

They have CDs but the quickest path to get a sense of their talent is through Youtube; here's a link to a Chicago classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_torOTK5qchttp://
jonsher
The only one I’m aware of is the album on Telarc by the Beach Boys/Jan & Dean tribute/cover band named Papa Doo Run Run. They are from my hometown of Cupertino, California, and their original drummer---Jim Shippey---was a coupla years ahead of me at Cupertino High. He played in the Cupertino High School Marching Band, as did the drummer of the legendary Garage Band The Chocolate Watchband.

In 1975, PDRR and the Jump Blues/Swing Band I was playing in shared the same booking agency. We somehow got a job playing in a high school gymnasium somewhere in the valley, and the other act was Papa. I hadn't heard about them since they changed from being a Top 40 cover band named The Zu in the late 60's (when Shippey got drafted in '67, he recommended me as his replacement. My audition was to play a coupla shows with them, after which they offered me the job. I declined; though they were already making good money, they weren't very good. A fella has his pride ;-) .

Anyway, the reaction of the high school kids to our Jump music (Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, Big Jay McNeely, Ruth Brown, etc.---in other words, post-war, pre-white Rock 'n' Roll, Black music) was hilarious---they looked at us as if we were from Mars. When Papa started their set of Beach Boys/Jan & Dean/Surf songs, two things became obvious: they still weren't very good, and the kids loved 'em.

I haven't heard the Telarc album (I'm no masochist ;-), but as it's on Telarc I assume the sound is audiophile. 
@bdp24  - I have that Papa Doo Run Run record. Haven't listened to it in more than 20 years. I'll try to pull it out sometime this week and give it a spin.....
Leonid & Friends are wonderful...thanks for reminding me about them. Are they on Tidal or Qobuz?