Barbara Mandrell is mostly known as a singer, but she can play a lot of instruments. The one I’m most impressed with is her ability on the pedal steel. I own a couple I can barely play. She rocks it hard.
My pleasure.
Sauron?
Sauron?!
I thought we’d gotten rid of that ring years ago.
I’ll be amazed if anyone recognizes this artist, standing next to one of his paintings, but dopers of a certain age will have heard of him.
That’s Vinko Bogataj, Immortalized as the “agony of defeat” ski jumper on Wide World of Sports.
A better video of Roy playing Ghost Riders that truly shows what a monster he was.
I kinda missed The Stones as a kid (I was a bit too young); so things others may know very well can take me by surprise. Harmonica on Gimme Shelter? Wiki says it was Mick. I had no idea he could do that.
Save the wail!
j
There seem to be a lot of lead singers who play harmonica on just a small handful of songs (e.g. John Lennon, Ray Davies). George Harrison played the Dylanesque harmonica on “Apple Scruffs.”
Mick has always played harmonica. I have no idea if he’s technically accomplished but I really like some of his solos.
My favorite is MIck’s closing at 3:05 in “Spider And The Fly”
He also blows a mean harp on “Stop Breaking Down”. On top of that, he also plays guitar more often (especially in the studio) than most people think.
Almost all of those British frontmen had harmonica chops back in the Sixties. Check out Roger Daltrey’s solo at 4:00.
Not sure if this counts, because she’s a professional singer to begin with, but Melanie Chisholm – better known as Mel C. of the Spice Girls. I had put the Spice Girls down as just a bubblegum pop group, fun but nothing special.
But in 2010, Mel C. sang Mary Magdalene in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. I came across her performance of “I Don’t Know How To Love Him”, and holy moly – she killed it.
A blues or rock harmonica is not hard to play. They are typically diatonic instruments that will only play notes in one key. If you play the harmonica of the same key as the song, you can’t play a wrong note. You might not be able to play the exact pattern you want, but if you miss the note you want the one you actually play will still sound okay. Really easy to improvise as well, for the same reason.
That’s probably why so,many singers pick up the harmonica.
Blues harp is generally ‘cross harp,’ i.e. you would play a C harp for a blues in G. The wrong notes are there, all right.
In fact, the guitars in that very song are Mick Taylor and Mick Jagger. Keith doesn’t play anything in “Stop Breaking Down.”
You got me there! I didn’t know or remember this fact, respectively, but I checked my copy of “The Rolling Stones-All The Songs” and this confirmed that Jagger played the rhythm guitar on this track. It just sounds so much like a typical rhythm Keith would play that I wouldn’t have given it to Mick. Shows that they learned from each other.
I was shocked when I found out, just a couple of years ago. SBD has long been one of my favorite Stones songs and I had always taken it for granted that it was Keith.
IIRC, sometime in the last 1-3 years a Doper posted quite a long and informative story about her life and the injustices she suffered. Was that you? It was a real eye-opener and completely changed how I felt about her as an artist, as well as providing an instructive and tragic tale about how familial, social and economic forces can interact in destructive ways.
Nat King Cole is undoubtedly known for his velvet voice, but he was a fantastic jazz pianist. As he fame grew he highlighted his singing more and more, but he was pretty amazing on the ivories.
Charlie Chaplin was quite good as a music composer. He wrote the music for all his sound films. Since he didn’t read music or play an instrument, he hummed the tunes for others to take down. One piece from Modern Times was “Smile.” Lyrics were added and it became a standard after Nat King Cole recorded it.
As beautiful as his voice was, I much prefer his earlier piano recordings. I think he was one of the greatest jazz pianists.
Favorite recording: “What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry”
