From the moment that I heard “Fast Car”, when Tracy Chapman released it in 1988, I’ve not only loved it, but I also thought it would be perfect to remake or remix.
Years later, probably in the middle of the 90s, when I met a club DJ, I even provided him the track with the challenge to create a remix of it, which he actually never manage to figure out. Oh well, some people just don’t share the same vision, but now, there’s someone who did.
His name is Jonas Blue and he has updated the track to 2016. The guitars have gone, and have been replaced by piano to make this happen, but it’s not at all a bad attempt.
It’s one of the many classics that are have made their way to popular Dutch radio stations in an electronic cover version. Chaka Khan’s (Rufus) “Ain’t Nobody” is also among them. The down side to this, is that I love, love, love the original versions and the remixes just don’t make it up there, but I get the sense of updating these tracks to have them last with a new generation.
Tracy Chapman had her breakthrough with “Fast Car”. By accident, by the way. I once wrote about this for my own website. She was performing at Nelson Mandela’s birthday concert. A big honor for an upcoming folk artist like her. But when one of the major acts failed to arrive at the scene the promoters quickly asked to take to the stage again. That’s when she sang “Fast Car” and the rest is, as they say, history.
Tracy Chapman may have lost her commercial success from back in those days, but she’s still one of the most respected artists around and has just released an official greatest hits collections around Chirstmas, last year.
Time will have to tell, whether it will be a big breakthrough for Jonas Blue featuring Dakota. Where Tracy´s version sounded like a timeless winner, this version is just very now, but very enjoyable nevertheless.
