# Musicians who play all/most of the parts on their albums?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 29, 2007, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025 "2007-04-29T05:05:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/1 "2007-04-29T05:05:42Z")
The only one I know of is Elliott Smith, who wrote, sang, and played guitar, piano, and drums for his albums. When he signed with Dreamworks, I think he also did a majority of the production work, as well.
Are there any others like him?
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/2 "2007-04-29T05:12:39Z")
[QUOTE=Windwalker]
The only one I know of is Elliott Smith, who wrote, sang, and played guitar, piano, and drums for his albums. When he signed with Dreamworks, I think he also did a majority of the production work, as well.
Are there any others like him?
[/QUOTE]
Trent Reznor. He _is_ Nine Inch Nails.
I think Aldo Nova played everything but the drums on his albums, but I’m not positive about that.
Paul McCartney played bass, lead guitar, and drums, as well as backup vocals, on _The Ballad of John and Yoko_.
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/3 "2007-04-29T05:13:50Z")
Prince.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/4 "2007-04-29T05:14:47Z")
Todd Rundgren played all the parts on most of _Something/Anything_. Side 4 (the second half of the second CD, if you have the album on CD) features other players, though.
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/5 "2007-04-29T05:20:55Z")
Happy Rhodes’ first 4 albums are 100% her, though often it sounds like a full choir behind her.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/6 "2007-04-29T05:22:03Z")
One of my current favourite albums is **Beirut** ’s _Gulag Orkestar_, a weird, cheerful mix of mariachi music, eastern european gypsy music, pop music, **Decemberist** leaning folk sounds with no guitars.
**Beirut** is really Albuquerque teenager Zach Condon who plays accordion, keyboards, saxophone, clarinet, mandolin, ukulele, horns, glockenspiel, and percussion. He has a drummer and a cellist sit in but the rest is him.
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### Author:  [@AlwaysFresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlwaysFresh)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/7 "2007-04-29T05:34:17Z")
Lenny Kravitz.
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### Author:  [@AlwaysFresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlwaysFresh)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/8 "2007-04-29T05:40:31Z")
Ack, that 5 minute rule!
I just wanted to add that I don’t think Lenny’s much of a songwriter but he’s a good musician. His earlier albums were all done analog (when everyone else was going digital) and played every instrument on every track. He’s gotten far too “maintstream” for me, I liked him much better in his Are You Gonna Go My Way days.
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### Author:  [@Ellef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellef)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/9 "2007-04-29T05:53:20Z")
I think Moby does this kind of thing.
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### Author:  [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/10 "2007-04-29T05:58:26Z")
McCartney plays all the instruments on his first solo record. Unfortunately, it’s an abysmal record.
Much of John Fogerty’s solo catalog has him playing everything.
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### Author:  [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/11 "2007-04-29T06:03:00Z")
Sufjan Stevens
On his album _Michigan_, he played everything except trumpet and trombone.
And by everything I mean oboe, English horn, piano, electric organ, electric piano, banjo, acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, recorder, wood flute and various percussion.
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### Author:  [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/12 "2007-04-29T06:44:53Z")
Emitt Rhodes played and sang everything on his debut album. Not sure about the others, but it’s definitely all him on the first one. He wrote, engineered and produced it, too. It’s a '70s classic that everyone should hear.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/13 "2007-04-29T06:52:38Z")
Mike Oldfield famously played pretty much everything on Tubular Bells, and pretty much everything but the drums on TBII. (And the bagpipes, played by the LA Police Dept. Band.) On TB they nearly wore out the tape from the number of overdubs they did. He played nearly everything on Ommadawn and Amarok also.
And another vote for the suckiness of the McCartney solo album.
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### Author:  [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/14 "2007-04-29T07:13:28Z")
[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
Prince.
[/QUOTE]
The artist formerly known as ‘the artist formerly known as prince’. I used to call him TAFKAP. Now I call him TAFKA-TAFKAP.
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/15 "2007-04-29T07:43:15Z")
I believe Sidney Bechet was the first musician to do this. On April 18, 1941 he recorded two sides of a Victor 78 on which he played clarinet, soprano sax, tenor sax, piano, string bass and drums. The two sides were _The Sheik of Araby_ (of which there were two takes) and _Blues of Bechet_, and the label credited the performance to “Sidney Bechet’s One-Man Band.”
There were no tape recorders or multi-track mixers in those days, so for each instrument they made a new master, with Bechet playing along with the previous record. Needless to say, the sound wasn’t very good - there was a lot of generational loss, especially with the first instruments recorded.
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### Author:  [@Gentle\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gentle_Robot)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/16 "2007-04-29T07:49:11Z")
[QUOTE=Windwalker]
The only one I know of is Elliott Smith, who wrote, sang, and played guitar, piano, and drums for his albums. When he signed with Dreamworks, I think he also did a majority of the production work, as well.
Are there any others like him?
[/QUOTE]
Me!
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### Author:  [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/17 "2007-04-29T08:03:17Z")
The (really obscure, I think) musician [Loney, Dear](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loney%2C_Dear) appeared for the Canadian iTunes free music of the week with the song “I am John”. It’s incredible that it’s entirely written, performed, and mixed by him. With very basic equipment, no less.
…and on edit, you can listen to some of his songs [here](http://www.loneydear.com/songs.html).
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### Author:  [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/18 "2007-04-29T08:08:53Z")
I vaguely recall Eddie Corgan playing everything but the drums on a Smashing Pumpkins album.
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### Author:  [@LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/19 "2007-04-29T13:56:44Z")
[QUOTE=Gentle Robot]
Me!
[/QUOTE]
Me too, Gentle Robot … but my songs all suck.
Steve Vai does that on his solo albums. Also the early Joe Satriani stuff.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-who-play-all-most-of-the-parts-on-their-albums/402025/20 "2007-04-29T14:59:05Z")
[QUOTE=Subterraneanus]
McCartney plays all the instruments on his first solo record.
[/QUOTE]
Also on _McCartney II_, and on at least one or two Beatles tracks (including, IIRC, “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?”).
**Adrian Belew** plays all the instruments on at least some of his solo albums. (And, speaking of Belew, he’s co-produced and contributed guitar parts to a couple of albums by multi-instrumentalist Rick Altizer, who otherwise plays almost everything on them.)
Former Replacements drummer **Chris Mars** has released solo albums on which he plays most of the instruments.
I’m fond of the albums of power-pop multi-instrumentalist **Richard X. Heyman**.
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