Interesting and notable rock-&-roll accomplishments by teenagers

Cafe Society
1

I’ll offer two that are in line with the kinds of factoids I have in mind:

– Guitarist Neal Schon was invited to join Santana at age 17. Schon did perform (and get a production credit!) on Santana’s album Santana III, but did not tour with the band. IIRC, he felt he was too young to leave the country to tour. Two years later, at 19, Schon co-founded Journey.

– Singer Steve Winwood recorded with the Spencer Davis Group starting at age 16. Their biggest American hit, "Gimme Some Lovin’ ", features an 18-year-old Winwood on lead vocals and organ.

…

Trying to stick to rock-&-roll anecdotes here. There seem to be many, many youngsters that made it big in soul/R & B/dance and later rap – Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, New Edition, Kriss Kross, etc. And pop music has always had the teen idols of the 50s & 60s, the likes of Leslie Gore and Lulu, and today the manufactured boy bands and acts like Britney Spears and Hillary Duff.

But how many teenagers, over the years, have made their marks in straight-ahead rock-&-roll the way Schon and Winwood did?

2

The first two that spring to mind are Ted Nugent as a member of The Amboy Dukes and Rick Derringer as a member of err… uhm. that band that did “Hang On Sloopy”.

3

Good ones – the Amboy Dukes’ debut album came out when Nugent was 18. A year later, the title track to their second album – “Journey to the Center of the Mind” – became a hit.

Derringer was 17 when he recorded “Hang on Sloopy” with The McCoys.

4

If I recall correctly, Dave Davies was 17 when the Kinks recorded “You Really Got Me.”

5

George Harrison was 16 when he joined The Quarrymen; he was 17 when the group changed its name to “The Beatles” and began playing in Germany; and he was 19 when “Love Me Do” was released in England.

6

So if Schon was born a couple of years earlier, we would have been spared Journey? This is why I sometimes think the gods hate us.

7

Kate Bush was 16 when she was discovered by David Gilmour. EMI was so impressed with her that they supported her family for 3 years while she finished school and worked on her music. Her debut album came out when she was 19, and launched one of the most influential careers in rock history.

(Her new album, *Aerial *, her first in 12 years, is out soon.)

8

The guitarist for Iron Butterfly, Eric Braun, was 16 years old when he joined the band and recorded the classic, “In-A-Gadda-Da-vida.” He had been playing guitar for three months when he joined the band.

9

Most of Def Leppard was about 18 when they made their first album On Through the Night.

Hansen are an obvious mention - they were low teens when MMMBop became a hit and they do actually play their instruments.

need we mention the Jackson 5 and “Little” Stevie Wonder?

Fiona Apple was discovered when she was about 16 and her first album Tidal was released a few years later.

The band Eve 6 was signed in high school and paid to finish school and work on their music chops.

Just a few to get warmed up…

10

Gordon Gano wrote most of the songs on the Violent Femmes’ first album while he was still in high school. He was 18 when the album debuted.

11

Anna Something of Bow Wow Wow was 15 when she recorded “I Want Candy.”

Penelope Houston formed The Avengers when she was 19, wrote all the lyrics and developed enough of a following to open for the Sex Pistols when they came to San Francisco, playing, IIRC, 300 shows in 12-month stretch.

12

Covered in the OP. I noted that this type of thing was more common in some genres than others.

13

Tommy Stinson, bassist for the Replacements, was 12 when they formed. He was born in 1966, so was a teenager when they released Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981), * Hootenanny* (1983), Let It Be (1984), and Tim (1985).

14

Tommy Lee and Vince Neil were 18 when **Motley Crue ** turned the LA music scene on it’s head and were 19 when Too Fast for Love was released.

15

I believe both Rich and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes were in their teens when Shake Your Money Maker was released, but I can’t find any definite ages.

16

Janis Ian’s first recognition came for a song called “Society’s Child” when she was a teenager. She then fell kind of silent until “At Seventeen” hit.

17

Alex Chilton was 16 when the Box Tops recorded “The Letter” in 1967.

18

Well, that was gonna be my contribution. Hard to believe that gravelly voice belonged to a 16-year-old.

19

Keith Moon was 19 when “My Generation” was released.

More obscurely:

Michael Brown and Steve Martin of the Left Banke (plus the rest of the group) were teenagers when they recorded “Walk Away Renee.” Brown, who wrote the song, had an unrequited teenage crush on a girl named “Renee.”

Dodie Stevens was twelve when she recorded the hit single, “Pink Shoelaces.”

Lucky Peterson had an R&B hit at the age of four and a half with “1-2-3-4,” which got him a gig on The Tonight Show in 1974. He continued to perform into adulthood, and is still active today, releasing an album as recently as 2003.

20

The band Live was formed when Ed Kowalczyk was a teenager. I believe he was still a teen when they recorded Mental Jewelry.