Additional Covers
Several months after the release of Joplin’s version of the song, Jerry Lee Lewis produced a cover, with a more country-like style and theme coming into play. When it was released, it only reached number 40 in the US charts. Perhaps one of the reasons why it did not have a huge impact was the fact that it lacked resemblance to the original, which was already immensely popular. Rock band The Grateful Dead also enjoyed some limited success with their slightly jauntier, upbeat version of the classic song.
American musician Kenny Rogers performs at the Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, Illinois, July 10, 1981. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
Even the legendary Johnny Cash, best known for songs such as “Ring of Fire” and “A Boy Named Sue”, gave the song a twist for his live “På Österåker” album in 1972. Chet Akins, Waylon Jennings, Olivia Newton-John, and even several European talents such as Cornelis Vreeswijk and Gianna Nannini covered the song too, with the latter two artists rewriting the lyrics into their own languages of Swedish and Italian respectively. This was the first time the song had been translated, but it wasn’t to be the last.