Our family loves music. One of the things that I, personally, love about music is its diversity. One of the great joys that I have in life is listening to a well-known song cross genres. This is also a joy for our family. During car rides we play a fun game where we pick a well known song and search for covers of that song on Spotify. Then we decide if we like any of them better than the original. I thought it might be fun to share some of these with you and see which covers you like best. Today we are going to look at There Ain’t No Grave.
Perhaps it’s helpful to know the background to this particular song. There Ain’t No Grave was originally written by Claude Ely. Ely was a Pentecostal Holiness preacher. The story is that Ely wrote this song when he was twelve years old and dying of tuberculosis. As his family prayed for his health Ely sang this song as a response. This is the original (and in my opinion it’s pretty atrocious):
The most well known cover of this song was done by Johnny Cash in 2003 shortly before his death:
It’s pretty tough to beat Johnny Cash, but I’m wondering if you like any of these versions better than Johnny’s. Consider first this one by The Cageless Birds (with Molly Skaggs on lead vocals):
I also am very fond of this live version by Zach Winters:
Which one do you like the most?
