Q. Is heavy metal band Judas Priest’s rendition of folk singer Joan Baez’s Diamonds And Rust the most leftfield cover version ever?
Judas Priest’s cover of Joan Baez’s Diamonds And Rust, from their Sin After Sin album (1977), is indeed a remarkable and unexpected interpretation.
The song, originally a folk classic, was transformed by Judas Priest into a powerful metal anthem.
Reviews often highlight the cover’s emotive qualities and the haunting quality it maintains, while also praising the distinctive guitar work that Judas Priest brought to the track.
Joan Baez herself expressed her admiration for the cover, stating she was ‘stunned’ and ‘thought it was wonderful’ when she first heard it.
It’s a testament to the versatility and creativity of Judas Priest to take a song from a completely different genre and make it their own, which many fans have come to love.
Judas Priest’s Diamonds And Rust showcases how a song can transcend its original context and be reimagined in a new and exciting way.
Robin Weatherston, Devizes, Wilts
In 1985, thrash metal band Megadeth released their debut, Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! Next to songs about Satanism, serial murder, sex and drugs, they released a cover of These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, the Nancy Sinatra hit.
But the band had somewhat twisted the lyrics, written by Lee Hazlewood. He eventually had the song banned and it was removed from the album for a time.
There’s also Marilyn Manson’s cover of the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) and Guns N’ Roses’ covers of Paul McCartney’s Live And Let Die and Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.
Conversely, singer-songwriter Tori Amos has released a mournful take on Slayer’s Raining Blood.
William Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, has a long history of making leftfield covers. There’s his surreal poetic cover of The Beatles’ Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and his bonkers but brilliant cover of Pulp’s Common People.
Paula Wilson, Wells, Somerset
Q. Did author A. A. Milne write detective stories for his creation Winnie-the-Pooh?
No, HE didn’t.
Milne was famous on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1920s, mainly for his dramas, one of which, Mr Pim Passes By (1921), was described by a reviewer as ‘perfection’.
He was also highly regarded for his novels, poetry, short stories and articles for Punch magazine, as well as for his film screenplays.
An admirer of Arthur Conan Doyle, Milne did write one detective story, The Red House Mystery, in 1922, but this was three years before he created Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga and Roo.
The mystery story, still popular today, featured detective Anthony Gillingham and his friend Bill as they applied logic to solving a baffling murder case.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex
Q. I read that when drugs called sulfonamides were introduced, they started a pharmaceutical revolution. How did this happen?
The effect that the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin had on 20th-century medicine has tended to overshadow the earlier revolution brought about by sulfonamides, known as sulfa drugs.
During the 19th century, doctors discovered that many diseases were caused by bacterial infection. This led to the search for chemical preparations to combat bacteria and other microorganisms.
Spurred on by the horrors of the First World War, where countless soldiers were killed by infected wounds, German scientist Gerhard Domagk dedicated his life to research to combat the threat of infection.
In 1932, Domagk recognised that a red dye could have anti-bacterial properties and demonstrated that it protected infected mice.
It was released onto the market in 1935 as Prontosil, and Domagk was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1939 for it.
A patent for Prontosil was not awarded because news of its antibacterial properties had leaked out and other laboratories developed their own versions.
There followed a proliferation of sulfa drugs. These had a profound effect on medicine, particularly during the Second World War, where survival rates from wounds increased to 50 per cent, compared with just four per cent during the First World War.
While the anti-staphylococcal action of Penicillium notatum was discovered in 1928, the significant clinical introduction of antibiotic penicillin did not occur until the 1940s.
Until then, sulfonamides, carried as part of soldiers’ equipment during the war, were the most effective class of antimicrobial drugs.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge
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