I have their Nightmare Patrol on my car CD !
(although that’s not Phil Collins drumming, but Kenwood Dennard, who also
played with the “supergroup” on Jaco Pastorius’ Modern Electric Bass video
with John Schofield on guitar !)
I am a big fan of jazz piano, and while you’ve probably heard of Erroll Garner,
he has a couple of more recent protegés in Bram Wijnands and François Rilhac
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? Their songs got Top 40 radio airplay in the mid to late 60s when I was first listening to the radio. “Jenny Take a Ride” and “Devil With a Blue Dress On” immediately come to mind.
I’d heard of JJ Cale before this thread, but I couldn’t have told you where or why.
Other than those two, the names people have brought up in this thread are people I’ve never heard of.
All this talk of Mitch Ryder has reminded me of the original version of Devil With A Blue Dress On, which has more of a stroll feel to it.
How about Attila, the metal band Billy Joel played in before he became the Piano Man, or J. R. Flood, a quintet that cut a demo ca. 1970 but never went further than that, who are best known for their drummer, one Neil Ellwood Peart? Or Tanzplagen, who sounded a lot like R.E.M. because they had the same lead singer, Michael Stipe?
There was also a great alt-rock band in the mid 1980s called Dumptruck; their best known song was “Where I Belong.” The Three O’Clock (best known song: “Jet Fighter”) also had less commercial success than they really deserved.
He’s good stuff.
Everyone I knew when young knew who J.J. Cale is. He’s got a whole bunch of albums, and even a ‘best of’ collection. If you were into southern rock, or if you were a Clapton fan, you knew who Cale was. And I think he gets namechecked on a few hit live albums of other artists, but I can’t remember which ones.
I’ve got the “Product” album and swear I used to have “Unorthodox Behaviour” too but maybe my brother had that one.
Speaking of Genesis members, Mike Rutherford had a guy named Noel McCalla singing on his first solo album “Smallcreep’s Day”. I had never heard of him before, but he’s got a fantastic voice and I wonder why he was never more famous.
Okay, my nomination for “musician you probably (maybe?) never heard of (but should have)” is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, because for an embarrassingly long time I never heard of her.
I did a couple of sessions with Waddy years ago. A very nice man and monster of a player.
When Mike Rutherford recorded that album, Noel McCalla was coming off a big American hit, Sniff ‘n the Tears’ “Driver’s Seat” for which he sang backup vocals. (He’s in the video, and they take big measures to disguise the fact that he’s black.) He also did lead vocals for the Manfred Mann band, so this wasn’t his only recorded project.
Terry Kath
https://youtu.be/f7egJTtz10E
Too many people spread bad information online, and if they have a lot of followers, it spirals… Too many only know radio songs, or think Chicago only existed in the 80s, and assume “Searchin’ So Long” is another 80s song because the singer sounds the same. They were always a faceless nameless band in the 70s, but even with this documentary, I meet lifelong Chicago fans who haven’t seen it, or barely know a thing about them.
Great singer, great guitarist who could play any genre.
She’s known enough to be inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
How about Shirley Scott on the Hammond?
There’s the whole unofficial subgenre of Musicians’ Musicians, artists that wound up being a huge influence on much more successful performers, while selling bugger-all themselves. Big Star, Pere Ubu, and The Modern Lovers all spring to mind.
As Brian Eno allegedly said, “The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.”
The first Modern Lovers LP sold even less than that, but “Roadrunner” has been covered by everybody under the sun, and even David Bowie covered “Pablo Picasso” on one of his later albums. I’ve always hoped that Jonthan Richman made at least some royalties money off of the success of There’s Something About Mary, but I also heard he was working as a bricklayer between tours since then, so maybe not.
I’ll add another bassist to the list: Carol Kaye. You’ve probably heard a ton of music that she played on and didn’t realize it as she was a top pick for session work (or dates as she calls them) and plays on an estimated 10,000 recordings. Yes, 10,000.
Carol Kaye reminds me again of The Wrecking Crew and other session musicians, Most people into music of the 60’s and 70’s know about the The Wrecking Crew, but there was another group of session musicians called “The Swampers” (formally, The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section). Famously mentioned in “Sweet Home Alabama”, the members are pretty much unknown to most people.
The Swampers played on 75 gold and platinum hits.
That must have been awesome. I love Waddy’s guitar playing.
He must have a lot of good stories.
There’s a great documentary about the Swampers called “Muscle Shoals” I watched years ago on Netflix, IIRC. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth checking out. It doesn’t seem to be available on Netflix in the US, but it appears to be available from a number of other sources if you search. Oh, here’s a (legal) link to it on Pluto TV
A couple of artists I particularly like who probably are not “never heard of” but who are fairly obscure:
Laura Nyro. She wrote some great music but, unfortunately, a few of her songs were covered by pop/top-40 type artists and I think she got tagged as a pop artist light-weight. Her performances are much more compelling. She died young from ovarian cancer.
David LaFlame. A classically-trained violinist who led It’s a Beautiful Day (sorry - I can’t seem to italicize here).
And I second the kudos for Terry Kath - in my opinion the greatest R&R guitar player of his time (I understand Jimi Hendrix actually said that - can anyone confirm?)