Keith Richards adapting a Lou Reed track to tee off Record Store Day should be a bigger deal. It still is, a legend covers a legend, and we are all better for it. But the gluttonous boom of legacy act covers last year torpedoed the rarity of these moments. Everyone fancies themselves an original champion of another artist when they step into the recording studio to lay their love on a song of old. Bob Dylan does it more than enough in his live shows and has consistently done so since the 1960s. But when U2 started covering their own works and a rambling Van Morrison started howling along on two cover albums, the machine-like output of some became troublesome. Not for I’m Waiting for the Man though, released ahead of Power of the Heart, which thanks to experiences elsewhere, has more to prove and less time to do so.
A classic Velvet Underground track and keeping the same instrumental pace and flavour, those warm collections of instruments rising in unison, clawing at one another and trying to hold focus before Richards’ voice booms through is wonderful. Rhythm guitar glory still lingers and a near spoken-word approach from Richards hears The Rolling Stones alumni match pace with the Reed classic. They both hold such a unique comfort in their voice, and Richards being of the same era of sound gives this a crucial, old-school understanding. What is lost is the punch of sourcing drugs, the desperation on the streets of Harlem felt thoroughly contemporary back in the mid-1960s and cannot be replicated here, no matter how sincere an effort Richards offers.
Instead, all which can be done is inference. Richards does not change much, for there is little to change when it comes to a song like I’m Waiting for the Man. Legends attempting to hold a candle to the monumental works Reed released in his life, a compilation of his perceived best efforts and not a flicker of Lulu to scream of. Some slick guitar work filters through in the latter parts. Of course, it does. This is Keith Richards covering The Velvet Underground. Such words should offer prophetic visions of greatness – and though this I’m Waiting for the Man cover is monumental; the same excitement does not bubble around the rest of the tracks. Even then the tones and terms Reed lived by during this period are extracted as best they can for a time and age which no longer exists. Fifty-seven years is a long time of change, and Richards does his best to cobble those sounds together.
He does well and I’m Waiting for the Man is all the better for it. Richards is keen to bounce right in, without the instrumental opening of the classic The Velvet Underground & Nico original. What is lost in this is gained in a presence from Richards which must be secured to overcome any sense of copycat efforts. Reed had such a presence on the original, it only makes sense to crash through and match it – but not exceed it. The original still has the crackle of guitar and a rhythm and blues-like experience filters through, something lacking in the Richards version for his piece of I’m Waiting for the Man. But what he lacks in instrumental build he makes up for in a surprisingly fluid approach to adapting one of the greats.
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