This week's robbed hit comes from retro-soul rocker Lenny Kravitz, who landed his second top-40 pop hit in the spring of 1999 with "Fly Away". Later that year, Kravitz contributed a song to the soundtrack of the Mike Myers comedy movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It was a cover of the rock classic "American Woman", by the Canadian band Guess Who. The original, written by bandmates Burton Cummings, Randy Bachmann, Jim Kale, and Garry Peterson, topped the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart in 1970...
"American Woman" was thought of as an anti-American imperialism song, which the band on the most part denies, explaining it was simply about women being less, well you know in their homeland. But what most people took out of the song was the rhythm guitar hook, which Kravitz cribs for his take, though eschewing the solo that also defines the original. "American Woman" was released about the same time as another cut from the movie, Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger", but his took a bit longer to catch on with the public. Eventually, it was added on when Lenny's 5 album was re-issued..
Kravitz's version of "American Woman" hovered around the midway mark on the Hot 100 pop chart in American in October of 1999. The cover spent eight weeks at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, while getting to #7 on the Alternative Rock list. It also climbed to #23 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format tally. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, "American Woman" won the trophy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, his second in a four-year winning streak. A third single from the record, a remake of Cameo's "Word Up" by Spice Girls' Mel B (or "Scary Spice"), went to #13 on the British singles chart.
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In 2000, Lenny performed the song with Burton Cummings and Randy Bachmann of the Guess Who for the MTV Video Music Awards...
Fast forward to Kravitz in concert in 2014...
And finally, at the Live Earth charity gig the following year...
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