EARVOLUTION: Wednesday's Earful: Eddie Vedder; Indio

By: David Schultz

Unless you were from Toronto, Ontario, a true music geek in the Eighties or a member of Gordon Peterson’s family, it’s unlikely you had ever heard of Indio. Even after the success of Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack for Into The Wild, which featured the memorable “Hard Sun,” you probably still hadn’t heard of Indio. If, like me, you wondered how the Oscars could fail to nominate “Hard Sun” for Best Song, that’s probably when you found out that Indio nee Gordon Peterson wrote and recorded the song in 1989 and that Vedder’s version was simply a topnotch cover.

In a gesture that could kindly be called unappreciative, Peterson has apparently used the songwriting royalties he’s earned to hire a lawyer and sue Vedder for eroding the integrity of his song by altering the lyrics. The two versions are hardly different; if anything, Vedder softened up some of Peterson’s clunky imagery to fit the tone of the movie that profiled the life and death of Christopher McCandless. Vedder’s cover of “Hard Sun” rescued Peterson from obscurity, giving him recognition that eluded him entirely upon the release of his only album, which due to the renewed level of interest, was re-released in 2009.

Labels: Eddie Vedder

// posted by schultz @ 5:47 AM

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Wednesday's Earful: Eddie Vedder; Indio

Recent Posts