I was listening to the radio the other day and “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney came on, and for the first time in a while I thought, “Wow, every single instrument and voice on this song is done by McCartney.” He did it twice in his career: Except for a couple of keyboard and vocal backings credited to Linda, everything on the McCartney and McCartney II was performed completely by Paul.
What are some of your favorites in this category? A few of mine besides the above:
Prince–his first five albums are pretty much all him. A couple of keyboard and guitar tracks by other musicians, Andre Cymone playing the bass on one album, and some backing vocals on 1999 by others. Otherwise, he played every part and sang every line on everything up until Purple Rain. Absolutely incredible.
Chris Mars–former drummer for the Replacements. He’s put out four excellent power-pop albums on which he has played everything except the bass. (Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum guested on one album, but only on one song.)
Trent Reznor–Everything on the original (non-remix) Nine Inch Nails albums are all pretty much outta his head, played by him, and sung by him.
Stephin Merrit–Sometimes he gets guest vocalists, but many of the songs by The Magnetic Fields and The Gothic Archies have his distinctive almost-too-low voice. He plays all the istruments on the albums by The Sixths, but always has guest vocalists…
On one hand, it’s impressive that Paul McCartney played all instruments on the “McCartney” album… on the other hand, it wasn’t a very good album, in my opinion.
I can think of several artists who’ve done albums all by themselves, playing multiple instruments. I know that Paul (Bad Company) Rodgers did it, and so did Steve Winwood. But again, the albums in question weren’t very good.
So, by default, I suppose I’d have to say the BEST of the do-it-yourselfers is Stevie Wonder, who’s made a lot of very good recordings unassisted.
John Fogerty. Listen to most of his solo work, great stuff, one-man-band-style. He was CCR; look what happen when he let the other guys have more control, that Mardi Gras album.
Blue Ridge Rangers was all him doing covers of country and gospel songs. It sounds like a lost CCR album; I like to surprise people with that one from time to time. If you haven’t heard it, seek it out.
Although even I have to admit John Fogerty and Eye Of The Zombie are kind of weak albums.
**Happy Rhodes ** has 10 albums (and is almost finished with her 11th). She did everything herself on her first 4 albums. She started working as an apprentice engineer at a recording studio, and to learn the equipment she recorded her own songs. The owner of the studio loved them and gave her free time to use whenever she wanted. She eventually amassed enough songs for 4 albums. They’re all quite wonderful too.
I was going to mention Mike Oldfield but Coldy beat me to it. So, instead I’ll give a vote for Roy Wood who, with Jeff Lynne, formed The Move, went on to for The Electric Light Orchestra and the put out Boulders which is one of the best one-man shows I’ve ever heard.
Emett Rhodes. He played all the instruments on his debut album, which was pretty damn good in any case. Alas, he was done in by his record company and fell into obscurity, but his album was better than McCartney’s effort (who he sounded something like).
[not quite on topic]
Not that she played all of her own instruments, but Mariah Carey did write and produce her debut album at only 21 years old. I believe it had 6 number one hits. Thats a pretty major accomplishment for someone that young. The irony is that it is the only one that isn’t filled with nothing but pop crap and actually had some musicality.
There was (alas!) a folk singer called Stan Rogers who wrote almost all of his own material as well as playing guitar and singing on his albums. He played with a band, but the music is good, pure, folk with some incredible harmonies. Listening to the live version of Barrett’s Privateers makes me glad I’m a heterosexual woman (4-part acapella male harmony! Mmmm!!), and the song 45 Years From Now was one of the reasons I accepted a marriage proposal.
On a more recent note, when Billy Joel put out For the Longest Time, I seem to remember hearing that he didn’t like the way anyone else handled the harmonies, so he recorded all the vocal tracks himself.
I was a huge Mike Oldfield fan at one time, but the ‘multi-instrumentalist’ tag doesn’t bear close scrutiny. He’s a very accomplished guitarist, who can produce good work on acoustic guitar, electric or bass.
He can’t play keyboards in any meaningful sense of the word ‘play’. He can hold down simple chords. He can pick out one-key-at-a-time-tunes, and sometimes used to do this with the tape at half-speed (and the tune transposed down an octave) to make ‘fast’ sections easier to play.
He can’t play drums, although he can bang a timpani or a gong about as well as any beginner.
For everything else - ‘normal’ drum and keyboard parts, woodwind, brass etc - he has always happily used other musicians. In live gigs all he has ever played is various guitars.
And of course he doesn’t sing or write good songs on his own (he has done ‘vocal noises’ on a few tracks, used a vocoder once or twice, which is once or twice to often, and spoke the lyrics to ‘On Horseback’).
I’d say for real multi-instrument versatility, plus great songwriting and singing, I’d vote for Stevie Wonder or McCartney. Wonder: any keyboard, harmonica, drums, songwriting, singing. McCartney: guitars, bass, some piano, drums, songwriting, singing.
No one mentioned Todd Rundgren yet? I would have thought he’d have shown up here by now.
I have to say my favorite “does everything himself” musician live in concert would be the late Duster Bennett. I saw him open for John Mayall back in the late 60’s/early 70’s. He sang, played guitar, harmonica and drums. All organic, no electronic beat boxes or tapes. A true one-man band.
I used to have Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” on cassette back in the day, and I thought in the liner notes it said that, aside from one or two guest appearances on some tracks, he played every instrument himself. I could be wrong.
Also, same goes for Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses; on his first (and so far only) solo recording, he played all instruments (again, except for a few ‘guest’ spots) and produced the album himself.
