Just remembered seeing Andrew Bird open for Wilco years ago and I think he fits. He played multiple instruments simultaneously using loop machines, plus vocals and lots of whistling.
You win this thread.
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Pete Townshend does lead, rhythm and vocals on various Who songs and some of his solo songs.
Great example here
I’ve always wondered about artists like that. Do they not play well with others? Obviously they are talented, but why don’t they have a band?
There’s a guy who plays locally doing the self looping thing that I know other bands dislike.
I could see the appeal. Nobody to split the door with; no hassle working around everyone’s schedule to fit practices in; no worries about bandmates showing up late for gigs; no band drama and infighting; not a lot of gear to haul, etc.
I think it’s meant more for solo guitar singer-songwriters types who would normally just lug a guitar and themselves around from show to show, but now technology makes it easy to thicken up one’s sound a bit while remaining a solo act.
This guy does at least 8 things at once.
In all seriousness, I was under the impression that for studio albums, people like Hank Williams III play all the instruments and Billy Corgan does vocals and all the guitar work. But those are studio albums, not all at once.Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Prince are multi-instrumentalists who recorded albums (almost) all by themselves. But that’s a different animal than what the OP is looking for.
I agree, but those musicians could theoretically do at least 3 things at once if they had double neck guitars and did vocals.
Bluesman Bill Wharton plays guitar, vocals, percussion, and makes a big pot of gumbo that he eventually dishes out to the crowd.
Your three examples–Buckingham, Thompson, Geddy Lee–They record vocals and instrumentals on separate tracks, right? Or do you mean in concert?
I like the old Frank Zappa quote about how he doesn’t sing and play guitar at the same time for the same reason he doesn’t walk and chew gum.
Yeah, early Public Service Broadcasting, when they were just a duo, was basically one guy on drums and another guy doing everything else. Samples, keyboards, loops, guitars, banjo …
Wouldn’t that be performing to a pre-recorded accompaniment, even though the pre-recording was done just moments earlier?
I think he means live. Studio isn’t really that impressive.
And the winner, as stated above, is Geddy Lee in the mid-80s before technology made it easy.
During live shows in that era he would sometimes sing, play keyboards, handle bass on his Taurus pedals and play a double neck bass/six-string while using a second set of pedals to trigger effects. It was astonishing. He was, literally, the busiest man in show business for those two hour shows.
That was the period where they set a limit on themselves in the studio that for all but one song per record they couldn’t record anything theY couldn’t play live. That last song, though, they could cut loose on and do whatever they wanted knowing they’d never have to try to recreate it.
One of my favorite performers in the 60s and 70s was John Hartford. He appeared often on television, primarily on The Smothers Brothers, Glen Campbell, and Johnny Cash shows. One of the cool things he did was clog dance on an amplified piece of plywood while singing and playing the fiddle or banjo. That counts as three things to me.