I really like Willie Nelson's cover of "White Shade of Pale".
I first heard him do it a few years ago and I was a bit indifferent, another cover... but then, I listened to it again a few times and I really enjoy it now. Can't knock the original, we've all heard it a hundred times or more, I have... but Willie's has a special charm too.
It's interesting that Johnny Rivers did the earlier version of "By the time I get to Phoenix", it's pretty good and similar to the later Glenn Campbell version but of course, everyone knows Glenn's and not Johnny Rivers:
Johnny Rivers "By the time I get to Phoenix":
! No longer available
And that song really helped thrust Glenn Campbell into superstardom...
This man first did the song this way during a Memphis club date when he got an idea to extend it with a spoken beginning, then committed a longer version of it to tape for his second (and still best) solo album following a few years where he made himself one of Stax's most valuable songwriters . . .
Isaac Hayes, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"
! No longer availableHot Buttered Soul and its followup,
The Isaac Hayes Movement, also laid down the template on which Barry White built the earlier part of his own coming successful career . . .
(The backing is by the reconstituted Bar-Kays, who regrouped with the two surviving original members following the deaths of most in the same plane crash that claimed Otis Redding.)