Listen to Nandi Bushell cover Karen Carpenter’s iconic ‘Dancing in The Street’
Nandi Bushell has shared her take on Karen Carpenter‘s iconic performance of ‘Dancing in The Street’. Check it out below.
Carpenter famously performed the hit, taking on both drums and lead vocals, in front of a studio audience on Your All American College Show in 1968. At the time she was just 16 years old – two years older than Bushell is now.
“I have so much love and respect for Karen Carpenter!” Bushell wrote on X/Twitter. “She was such an incredible drummer, singer, songwriter. An absolute legend! I have been sent this video clip more than any other, so thought I would given her amazing solo a go.”
Bushell’s cover overlays the footage of Carpenter’s original performance, so the two can be seen playing simultaneously. The 14-year-old is known primarily as a drum prodigy, but shows off her vocal abilities here too. Check it out below.
Bushell began playing the drums when she was five, and shot to viral fame in 2020 at just ten years old, for her online drum battles with Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl – with Grohl even admitting defeat in November of that year.
Grohl would later praise Bushell, saying watching her perform was “as inspiring as any Beatles record, any Zeppelin record, any AC/DC record, any Stones record”.
In 2021 she met Foo Fighters when she joined them at an LA show for a performance of ‘Everlong’, and the late Taylor Hawkins gifted her a pair of drumsticks. She would go on to perform ‘Learn To Fly’ at the drummer’s tribute concert, following his death aged 50 in 2022.
Now a social media star, Bushell regularly posts videos of her playing various covers, including songs by The Who, Metallica, Nirvana and many others. She has also released several original tracks, such as ‘The Shadows’, ‘Gods and Unicorns’, and ‘Into the Abyss’.
As well as drums and vocals, Bushell recently showed her skills on piano with a delicate, hushed rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 classic track ‘Hurt’.
Bushell appeared at Download Festival this June, playing John Lennon’s ‘Power To The People’ alongside Tom Morello, which you can watch below.
She’s getting used to appearing in front of huge crowds, as just a few months earlier she played a prodigious 10-minute rock drum medley at the O2 Arena in London, as part of the Young Voices youth choir tour.
Earlier this year, Bushell appeared on the Drumeo channel on YouTube to play along to Twisted Sisters’ ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, without having ever heard the song before.
