Still another "Samson and Delilah" variant. I love Patty Griffin, but when I first heard this one I didn't like it that much. But it grew on me.
I still like Ashley Cleveland's better, though. Older folks may remember that Peter, Paul, and Mary also recorded the song under the "If I Had My Way" title. To my taste it sounds a little on the awful side now.
I like The Blasters version best of all these, but that’s likely because that was the first version I heard many moons ago. I probably have that album, Hard Line, floating around on vinyl somewhere. It came out in the early 80s, I think.
I see what you mean about it having to grow on you. If I had heard this version first, I would probably have liked it very much immediately. Patti Griffin is one of 3 or 4 favorite women singers, and this is pure Patti Griffin, but I really like that Ashley Cleveland version.
I guess the Peter, Paul & Mary was the first version I heard, but I had forgotten that. I used to really love their music, but the more I hear folk music that sounds closer to the original–which we will never hear–the more I dislike the prettied up kind.
AMDG
PP&M were extremely talented, but to my taste most of their stuff doesn’t really hold up very well now. Not only prettied up, but…not sure what the word is, sort of made theatrical in a way that doesn’t really fit the spirit of the material. It’s the failing of most of those early ’60s folk-based groups.
Rob, I had a cassette of Hard Line back in the ’80s, and really liked most of it. It got lost or broken or something. A few years ago, when the major labels were on eMusic, I was able to pick up Testament, which is their complete Slash recordings, 51 tracks of it, for a very low price. Some great stuff there. Most of it’s very similar in style, so usually four or five songs at a time is enough for me, but excellent.
Right — I remember really liking the first half of Hard Line but finding the 2nd half kind of ho-hum.
I was thought the Grateful Dead’s version was the best, they were the first i heard play the song. But I really grown to like Patty’s version
I didn’t even know the Dead had done it. I’ll have to check that out.
Light On Dark Water 
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