Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance plays the yangqin
Her co-lead Brendan Perry occasionally plays the hurdy-gurdy, although usually electric guitar.
Bon Scott | bag pipes
Velvet Underground’s John Cale on viola. Cale took turns as lead singer at times, I think.
I seem to recall Simon le Bon of Duran Duran played the ocarina on the track The Chauffer.
Buddy Randall, singer for The Knickerbockers, also played sax.
Joni Mitchell played the mandolin.
That’s probably the best example of a lead singer who’s known for playing the harmonica, but lots of lead singers play(ed) the harmonica at least occasionally (Robert Plant, Huey Lewis, John Lennon, Ray Davies), and I’m not sure where the OP would draw the line.
If you included the blues (and I don’t see why not), you have people like Junior Wells, Sugar Blue, Paul Butterfield, etc. And don’t forget Bob Dylan with folk music.
Didn’t George Harrison of the Beatles play an Indian stringed instrument called the Sitar that is much akin to the guitar?
Thanks to my dad’s total love for the Beatles, I know as much about them as any Hippie left alive. LOL
Depends on how strictly you adhere to “bands where the lead singer…” Strictly speaking, you didn’t name any bands.
Yup.
I gave my nephew a banjo. He tuned it (deliberately) to sound like a sitar. The guys got an ear.
OK, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I don’t think the other two had a band moniker they went under. Bob Dylan and the Band. ETA: Oh, wait, Junior Wells did play with the Aces for a bit.
Zooey Deschanel of She & Him plays the ukulele.
Singer Lizzo plays the flute
Captain Beefheart of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band played all kinds of wind instruments.
Also Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey.
Steven Tyler, too.
Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band played trumpet and other brass instruments.
The lead singers in the bands Morphine and Royal Blood play(ed) bass, which I know was excluded by the OP, so I don’t know if these examples count, but they’re special modified bass guitars.
In the case of Morphine, the singer played a modified 2-string bass, and the lead singer of Royal Blood plays a bass guitar modified to sound like a regular electric and a bass guitar.
I dispute the notion that there is any strict line between what it is traditional for the lead singer to play and what is not traditional for them to play. When I picture a band, the lead singer is singing without playing anything. The next most common thing is that he (excuse me for always using the pronoun he) is playing some kind of guitar or string instrument like a banjo or a ukulele. The next most common thing is that he has a harmonica that he plays between his singing. The next most common thing is that he plays a drum or other percussion intrument. The next most common thing is that he is playing a violin or some other string instrument. The next most common thing is that he is playing a trumpet, a saxophone, a clarinet, a flute, or some other wind instrument. The next most common thing is that he is playing a tambourine. The next most common thing is that he is playing an accordion. The next most common thing is that he is playing an instrument with a odd foreign name that I wouldn’t have recognized if I hadn’t listened to vast amounts of music over the years. This is a spectrum, not something with a clear division into traditional and non-traditional.
What about keyboards? Steve Winwood, for example, in Traffic, etc.