It was much later, actually in 2006, when the CSN album was re-released that the Airplane frontman was finally co-credited for it. Fastforward to the present, and CDs, mp3s and, most of all, mp3 players like iPods make the effort of putting a playlist together a breeze. If you have all or most of your tunes in digital form, some clicks are all it takes to make your CD for the day or a playlist that you can play directly off your mp3 player itself. Anyway, that's enough of digressing. What's your perfect Sunday playlist? Last Sunday, I ended up with some great new (and newish) music.

Yet, cover versions of other people’s original songs can be great fun. Sometimes they are a great way to get introduced to new bands. The first time I heard Sublime, a ska punk (ska is a Jamaican musical genre considered a precursor to reggae) band from Southern California, I got drawn to into their music by their cover of a Grateful Dead favourite, Scarlet Begonias.

The late Brad Nowell from Sublime added an entire new verse to that song, which gave it an edgy, trippy twist that the original didn’t have. So, in December, when I came across a nice, long one-hour and forty-five-minute podcast from live music download website, I heard a version of The Doors’ Riders on the Storm by Widespread Panic and Roadhouse Blues by Railroad Earth. Now, I don’t much care for the The Doors, but the two bands—Panic with their trademark jams and Railroad Earth with their rootsy, bluegrass sound—recreated those two songs in a manner that I could have never imagined. Nor, I am sure, would have Jim (may his soul R.I.P).

Good covers are like new wine in new bottles, although the original grape may be the same. Yet, not everyone can pull off a good cover. Some cover bands are boringly predictable. Like The Dark Star Orchestra, which faithfully recreates entire Grateful Dead concerts, each member painstakingly copying the band’s every lick, riff and vocal notes. Or Think Floyd, a British band that, yes you guessed right, meticulously plays everything that Pink Floyd ever wrote.

These are tribute bands that could act as a placebo for die-hard fans who can’t get over the break-up or demise of their loved musicians and who clutch at anything that recreates or reminds them of their idols. Yet, there are exceptions to this. Some hook you with their originality. Like Lez Zeppelin, an all-woman band from New York who play only Led Zeppelin songs and are really, really good.

One of my favourite musicians is Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall), an American singer-songwriter with a rich oeuvre of her original music in her trademark minimalist style. But Power has an album called The Covers Record where she’s done songs that are almost entirely covers of other people’s songs. And one that’s outstanding is the Rolling Stones favourite, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Now, I have heard Mick Jagger himself sing Satisfaction in several ways over the past four decades and more (sigh!), but I never thought the song could be interpreted the way Power does it on her album. If you haven’t heard The Covers record, I’d recommend looking for it and checking out several other covers, including her amazing version of Lou Reed’s I Found A Reason.

Last year, when the attitude-laden Billy Corgan took his band, Chicago’s alternative rockers, The Smashing Pumpkins, on tour, he generously laced its gigs with covers, doing their version of classic tracks. Their version of The Beatles’ Nowhere Man is a must-listen.

Some bands take the concept of doing covers to an altogether different level. Brain Damaged Eggmen is a project that fuses two great jam bands, Umphrey’s McGee and The Disco Biscuits, both huge acts on today’s jamband scene. Their fusion takes its name from the Pink Floyd song, Brain Damage, and a line from The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus. When Brain Damaged Eggmen do gigs, they only do their interpretations of Floyd and Beatles songs—usually dedicating one set to each band. Now, that’s what I’d call a real tribute.

Sanjoy Narayan is Editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times