Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 04/26/2012 at 12:43 PM News

The Popdust Files: covers, credence clearwater revival, ike and tina turner, proud mary, santigold

Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” is a very easy song to do a very boring cover of—in fact, you might have to go back to Ike and Tina Turner’s classic nice-and-slow (then not-nice-and-slow) version of it 40 years ago to find a rendition of it that was even slightly interesting. UNTIL NOW. Not that Santigold’s “Proud Mary” cover for BBC Radio is gonna set the world on its ear or anything, but it turns out John Fogerty’s jam sounds surprisingly good performed with just vocals, synth bass and 808 handclaps.

Of course, we’d have to see Santi performing a super-high-energy version of it in a spangly silver dress to know for sure if it was Tina worthy. We have confidence—at the very least, she could get those two creepy backup dancers of hers to do it for her. Listen to her version at the NJ Underground site here, and check out an old school Ike and Tina performance of it below: