This week I heard the first song on this list and it got me thinking. What other groups of the 70s covered doo-wop or R&B songs from the early rock’n roll era, but whose primary work was in different genre?

The connection is fun to my historian brain because a lot of the musical acts making it big by the 1970s were kids in that early era of rock ‘n roll, when African American musical styles went mainstream and global. So their covers songs were their rock, new wave, or punk spins on the classic songs from their youth.

Obviously, folks covering oldies because it was the music of their youth wasn’t a new idea to me. The new part was that I never really thought of the below groups as comprising people whose childhoods were from that era. Because their sounds were so distinct and specific to their era, I just thought of them as something new, kind of a break from the past.

And so that’s how I came up with the below list. These are all musical groups known for work in 70s subgenres like punk and new wave, but who covered R&B songs from that earlier era. They are also musical groups made up people who were alive and conscious (and impressionable) when the song they covered was first a hit.

5. “Denis” by Blondie (1978)
This cover of 1963’s “Denise” by Randy & the Rainbows (a doo-wop group from New York) changes the spelling of the name that is the title, but not the way the name is pronounced. It also flips the gender from a girl to guy, I assume to fit lead singer Debbie Harry in the lead. Wouldn’ve been way cooler as a subtly queer song, but its still fantastic. It was the first international hit for Blondie, pioneers in the new wave sound and so much more.

4. “Do You Love Me” by The Heartbreakers (1979)
Punk bands on this list are probably the most surprising, at least to those of us who came of age after the genre was born. For those who were there, the connection between 50s and 60’s R&B and punk were clear and, often, intentional. Here, punk pioneers The Heartbreakers perform their version of the massive 1962 hit from the Contours. This is a live recording of their version of the song, as featured on their second album, 1979’s Live at Max’s Kansas City. Because the band had technically broken up the year before, it’s also a kind of reunion album.

3. “Tears of a Clown” by The Beat (1979)
Until looking up the band for this post, I didn’t know they were only known as “English Beat” in the US. Back home they were just “The Beat, ” and yes they were. One of the many legendary bands from Birmingham, England, their unique ska sounds and grooves mixed with punk tendencies are more than bit of the US alternative trend of the times. This cover of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ legendary 1967 hit “Tears of a Clown” was, for The Beat, their very first single! Here they are lip-synching to it on “Top of the Pops.”

2. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by The Slits (1979)
The Slits were a all-female band formed in late-70’s London. Comprised of women who had played in two early punk bands––the Castrators and the Flowers of Romance––their sound was very much a mix of the kinds of varied sounds of London at the time. Now viewed as “post-punk,” the band was never that big, but over the years they’ve been talked about as a influence in the Riot Grrrl movement and more. This cover of the legendary Motown tune written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong was on their debut album. The song was famous since 1967, when Gladys Knight & the Pips released their version. Smokey Robinson and The Miracles recorded it in 1966, but didn’t released their version until summer of 1968. The most famous version was released later that year, by the great Marvin Gaye.

1. “Do You Want to Dance” by The Ramones (1977)
When I heard the cover by Blondie this week, this was the first song I thought of. First recorded and released by Bobby Freeman in 1958, this song remains one of the most recognizable “oldies.” New York punk progenitors The Ramones had a fondness for covers, and a fondness for old R&B. In many ways their music drew from the R&B sounds of the 50s and 60s, especially groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri-las. Their cover of Freeman’s hit was released on their 1977 album Rocket to Russia, their last with all the original four members of the band.

Honorable mention goes to “Tainted Love,” covered by Soft Cell in 1981 but originally recorded and released by Gloria Jones in 1964. In this instance, the cover was bigger than the original (and the same for the people who recorded each). I’ve written about it here before.