Twenty Years Later: Fruition Covers The Wallflowers’ ‘One Headlight’

Following last year’s successful Songs Of Their Own video series of artists covering songs by the Grateful Dead, the Twenty Years Later video series features some of JamBase’s favorite musicians recording songs released in 1996. Looking back, the music released 20 years ago proved to be critical in both rock ‘n’ roll history and particularly within the jam band scene. The year 1996 saw seminal albums released by Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Bela Fleck and The Flecktones, moe., The String Cheese Incident, the Disco Biscuits, Keller Williams, Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, God Street Wine, Strangefolk and The Slip, helping to solidify the maturing jam scene.

There were also influential records issued in 1996 by the likes of artists as diverse as Beck, Jamiroquai, Modest Mouse, Rage Against The Machine, Johnny Cash, Pearl Jam, Sting, Tool, 2Pac and many others. The Twenty Years Later video series takes a look back at those releases, with participating artists covering songs from albums turning 20 this year. For this installment, Fruition drove home “One Headlight” by The Wallflowers.

The second single off The Wallflowers’ massively successful, double platinum-certified second album Bringing Down The Horse, “One Headlight” reached No. 1 on several of Billboard’s charts. The highly popular track written by the band’s frontman Jakob Dylan went on to earn Grammy Award wins for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, along with Dylan on guitar, the original recording featured his band mates bassist Greg Richling, guitarist Michael Ward and keyboardist Rami Jaffee along with Jon Brion on guitar and Matt Chamberlain on drums.

The five members of Fruition traveled south from their home in Portland, Oregon for a recent appearance at The Chapel in San Francisco. Prior to their show at the intimate Bay Area venue in support of their new LP Labor Of Love, the quintet composed of Jay Cobb Anderson (lead acoustic guitar/vocals), Mimi Naja (mandolin/vocals), Jeff Leonard (bass), Kellen Asebroek (piano/vocals) and Tyler Thompson (drums) swung by the JamBase offices for a recording session. The resulting stripped-down arrangement of the 1996 hit single can be heard in the video below:

Head here to see all of the entries in the Twenty Years Later series. Stay on top of all of JamBase’s video content by subscribing to the official YouTube channel here.