One Man-Band Plays Amazing Covers, Note-for-Note, of Yes, CSNY, Zeppelin & More

I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet many incred­i­ble musi­cians in per­son, and I’ve always enjoyed watch­ing them do some­thing bet­ter than I ever could, whether it’s wail­ing away on the drums, gui­tar, key­boards, bass… what­ev­er the instru­ment, it’s great fun to see a mas­ter in action. And I’ve met a few mul­ti­tal­ent­ed indi­vid­u­als who could do a lit­tle, or a lot, of every­thing. But I’ve nev­er met any­one as tal­ent­ed as Jim, the musi­cian in these videos, who goes by the name of Fri­day Night Lul­la­by, and who recre­ates near­ly every note and nuance in clas­sic rock songs from Yes, Led Zep­pelin, Jethro Tull, the Who, CSNY, and more.

His one-man-band mot­to is “we are one per­son,” and you can see why. With the ben­e­fit of record­ing tech­nol­o­gy, he can turn him­self into an orches­tra. At the top of the post, see a teas­er video in which Jim gives us snip­pets of the 60 songs he’s remade. And above, see his ver­sion of Yes’s “Round­about.”

Now you can argue that no mat­ter how good he is, he could nev­er repro­duce the musi­cal per­son­al­i­ties of, say, Steve Howe or Jon Ander­son, and that’s fair enough, but beside the point, real­ly. The guy is good beyond belief, and I’m cer­tain­ly in awe watch­ing these videos of him at work in his home stu­dio, play­ing all 43 tracks of “Round­about.” Or, if Yes isn’t your bag, let him wow you below with the vocal har­monies in CSNY’s “Car­ry On.”

Still not impressed? Check his ver­sion of Stair­way to Heav­en here, or alter­na­tive­ly A‑Ha’s “Take On Me,” below. It’s a depar­ture from the clas­sic rock mate­r­i­al he’s clear­ly more com­fort­able with, and he han­dles it with the same deft­ness and skill, includ­ing that mid-song high note, show­ing off some pret­ty keen video edit­ing skills to boot. For even more mind blow­ing cov­ers, check out the Fri­day Night Lul­la­by Youtube chan­nel.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Four­teen-Year-Old Girl’s Blis­ter­ing Heavy Met­al Per­for­mance of Vival­di

Dutch­man Mas­ters the Art of Singing Led Zeppelin’s “Stair­way to Heav­en” Back­wards

The 15 Worst Cov­ers of Bea­t­les Songs: William Shat­ner, Bill Cos­by, Tiny Tim, Sean Con­nery & Your Excel­lent Picks

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness