Hi Rex.
I'm not sure the Echo Nest API is going to help you that much. We don't connect different versions of a song to each other in any way -- it's impossible to tell the difference, for example, between two artists who happen to have songs with the same name and an artist covering another's song. And there is no first-class notion of who is the 'original' artist for a song, or when the 'original' release was (or even the ability to sort songs matching a name by release date).
Have you looked into the Musicbrainz API? It seems like that might provide more of what you're looking for there, relating multiple recordings by different artists to the same 'work'.
-Eli