Someone mentioned Stephen Stills unsuccessfully auditioned for the Monkees. Another high-profile Monkees reject was Danny Hutton, later of Three Dog Night.
Billy Preston, keyboard-playing wildman for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (at various times), wrote “You Are So Beautiful” which was a hit for Joe Cocker. However, legend has it that Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys) was present at the time and that he contributed. DW used to sing the song at Beach Boys shows in the late 70s/early 80s.
“Someone” my ass. Its in the post I just quoted. :smack:
Remember the song, “Rollercoaster” or “Love Rollercoaster” by the Ohio Players. Well I remember when the song first came out and everyone was buying the record, tapes, whatever…because the sound of a woman screaming while she was being murdered accidently got recorded during the set. Oh yeah, people were going apeshit to hear it. Some poor woman was stabbed in the studio and they left it on the track to promote sales.
What you don’t believe me?
:smack: Wait a minute…this isn’t the thread about urban myths is it? Nevermind
In that case, how about this?
Bing Crosby sold more records than Elvis AND the Beatles combined. Plus he did more and better movies than they did as well. In other words, he was more popular than “The King” or “The Fab Four”.
That’s rich… 
Wow, this post is like a whole self-contained world of music by the artists I’d be listening to now if I’d never discovered punk rock. (These days, I’m genuinely suspicious of any musician who appears to know too much about how to play their instument.) I’ll bet you’re also into Suzanne Vega and They Might Be Giants.
I just accidentally typed “Suzanne Vegas.” Talk about one letter changing the mood…
The amplifiers that “go to 11” from Spinal Tap were real-- they were manufactured by Electro-Harmonix, a Soviet company most famous for the Big Muff guitar distortion pedal. Electro-Harmonix was famous (still is, actually), for using old Russian military surplus parts, often using parts that were “close enough.” (This is why, as most guitar players will tell you, every Big Muff sounds different-- not literally true, but there are a lot of different combinations of parts sold as the same pedal.)
The 1972-73 run of E-H’s 40-watt Small Troll amp used knobs that calibrated up to 11; supposedly, these were surplus parts originally made for a WWII-era Morse Code generator. (Why a Morse code generator would need knobs that go to 11 I don’t know).
Anyway, Christopher Guest ran across one of these in a music store several years before Spinal Tap, and it inspired him to do the now-famous shtick about how “this is better, it’s one more.” When the Spinal Tap project came along, Guest made sure they got one of these to use in the movie for that scene. 
You gotta cite for that*? Zeppelin is my favorite band of all time and I have a hard time imagining them sandbagging their performances until Grant tells them otherwise.
*In a “I’m super curious” kind of way as opposed to “You goddamn liar!”.
I don’t doubt you, but didn’t they get Marshall to specially build one for them for the film, or am I just thinking of the film itself?
Josh Homme has contributed to every american guitar record made in the last 2 years. Or it seems like it anyway.
ELO
When ELO released their first record in the US, their record company still didn’t know what the band wanted to call it, so the record company secretary was assigned the task of contacting the band for the name. She tried unsuccessfully to get someone to answer her telephone call and marked “No Answer” on her phone log. That accidentally became the name of the album that was released in the US when the boss misinterpreted her memo. (In the rest of the world, it’s known as simply, “The Electric Light Orchestra”.) Jeff Lynne of ELO has written and/or produced many hit songs for other people including “You Got It” (Roy Orbison). He is also the “forgotten” member of the Traveling Wilburys (“Oh yeah, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and…and…”)
Genesis
When Genesis released their first album “From Genesis to Revelation” many record stores mistakenly thought it was a religious album and filed it in the gospel section of their stores. Coincidentally, the man who is responsible for naming 10cc also named Genesis - Jonathan King, who was responsible for the 1960’s hit “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon”. Genesis started their career only intending to be a “songwriter’s collective” and never thought that they would actually be performers. When they realized that no one would play their songs, they decided to do it themselves. Phil Collins appeared in the film “A Hard Day’s Night”. A nineteen year-old Phil Collins also played congas on George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” album on the track “The Art of Dying”. An anagram of “Phil Collins” reveals: “Clip-on Shill”
MISC
The fabulous UK group, Level 42, took their name from the Douglas Adams “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” book. 42 seemed too simple a name and their manager suggested adding the word “Level” to the beginning.
John Denver wrote the Peter, Paul, and Mary classic “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
Willie Nelson wrote hit songs for many people: Always on my Mind (Elvis), Crazy (Patsy Cline), Funny How Time Slips Away (Billy Walker), Pretty Paper (Roy Orbison)
The group UB40 (“Red, Red Wine”) took their name from the form used by the unemployment office in Britain.
The group Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young took their name by combining all the last names of the group’s members - IT’S TRUE!! (just seeing if you were still awake) 
Speaking of Spinal Tap, the movie was almost entirely guided improvisation. As I heard it there were only two scenes that were scripted completely.
And speaking of Murray Head’s rendition of “One Night in Bangkok,” because Thailand was so offended by the lyrics, they banished him from ever visiting there again. I haven’t heard if that ban was ever lifted. His response was something to the effect of “Why ban me? I didn’t write it.”
Not true for UK. And even if true, so what? The claim was that “The Loco-Motion” went to #1 three times. Neither Little Eva nor Grand Funk had a #1 with the song in the U.K. and I’ll bet not in Australia either.
I don’t have a cite for this, but I think I read it in “No One Here Gets Out Alive”, by Danny Sugarman (about the Doors). When Jim Morrison “died” in France in 1971 he was reading a script by…graduating film student Oliver Stone.
Boy howdy, does this ever send my BS meter into the red. Why would anyone outside the film school be reading a script by a film student?
They were in no way sandbagging, just professional courtesy. The opening act should not overshadow the headliner. This was their first US tour and they needed the good press. According to “Hammer Of The Gods”, page 74, It happened at the Filmore East, NYC, on Jan 31.
I can’t find the drum reference in the book, maybe it was in a liner note. I’ll keep looking.
Cheers,
Vega
Do’h :smack:
While going though the book for Bruce_Daddy’s cite, I found the paragraph that talks about the name. They also mention a reference to the Iron Butterfly “light/heavy” connotation.
Cheers,
Vega
I’d heard that Stone (who went to the same film school as Morrison) pitched a Doors biopic to Morrison before he died. I’ve never heard that Morrison was reading a Stone script when he bought it, but if he was, that could’ve been the reason.
Homer Simpson to Lisa: “Who’s your favorite Traveling Wilbury? Is it Jeff Lynne?”
Who also premiere “Superstar” from Jesus Christ Superstar, lyrics by Tim Rice. Who also did the lyrics for “Chess” and brough Head into the project. Rice wanted Head to play Che in “Evita,” but Andrew Lloyd Webber insisted on C.T. Wilkerson, who later became Colm Wilkerson and made musical history as Jean Valjean in “Les Miz.”
Head was the only singer who took 1% of the net royalites of the JCS album over the $250 offered to him. His brother is Anthony Michael Head.
In order to get JCS approved by the Soviet government, they wrote different lyrics and called it “Rock and Roll At Dawn.” I wish I could find anything from that show!