Rock n Roll replacements, stand-ins, and hired guns

Cafe Society
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Greg Lake was in King Crimson then was the “L” in ELP.

Adrian Belew is in King Crimson, but used to play with Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa is a hub of successful musicians, including Belew, Jack Bruce, and Steve Vai.

Bruce links to Eric Clapton via Cream, and Clapton provides another hub.

Clapton is linked to Jeff beck by “the guys who were in the Yardbirds and didn’t play guitar.”

Jethro Tull had an interesting family tree in one of their CD booklets. They’re linked to Procul Harum via Clive Bunker to Robin Trower, and Fairport Convention via David Pegg.

Dream Theater provides a hub for a lot of progressive modern bands. Several members of DT were in Liquid Tension Experiment, which also included Tony Levin. Portnoy was in OSI, which included Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree, James Maethos of Fates Warning, and Kevin Moore of Chroma Key.

Levin played with Bozzio Levin Stevens with Terry Bozzio of Zappa’s band and Steve Stevens, who was guitarist for Billy Idol. Levin also played with Peter Gabriel, formerly of Genesis.

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John Stamos played drums for the Beach Boys, and the Beach Boys appeared on Full House

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Oh, and David Coverdale did an album with Jimmy Page.

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He actually did play at least one live show with Derek and the Dominos in December 1970, and possibly a second.

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Going back a ways…

Original Drifters lead singer Clyde McPhatter left the group in 1954. After years with various replacements, the band’s manager, who owned the name, fired eveyone in 1959 and hired the band the Five Crowns, featuring lead singer Ben E. King, to become the new Drifters. After a year in which the Drifters recorded the hits “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “There Goes My Baby,” King left for a solo career. He was replaced by Rudy Lewis (“Up on the Roof,” etc.) who died in 1964 and was replaced by Johnny Moore (who had already been a Drifter back in 1955-57 before getting drafted) on “Under the Boardwalk.” After the hits in the US dried up, the band went to England, recording various hits (“Kissing in the Back Row at the Movies,” “My Little Red Book”) and undergoing still more line-up changes. Meanwhile, several members from the early incarnations of the group hit the oldies circuit as “The Original Drifters.”

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Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer Of KISS.

Micheal Sweet Is playing guitar in the band Boston.

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42Fish that was great.

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Another Beach Boy stand-in was Rikki Fataar, who played with the legendary (for a lunchtime) band, The Rutles.

Terry took Bill Bruford’s place playing drums in UK…with John Wetton, both veterans of the Crimso merry-go-round.

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You forgot Tom Constanten.

Daryll Jones has been the Rolling Stones’ bass player for 15 years now. You think they include him in their publicity photos? (But then they treated Ian Stewart just as shabbily, and he was a founding member.)

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Annie Halsam of Renaissance was not the group’s original female singer – that was Jane Relf, sister of Keith Relf of the Yardbirds. By the time Renaissance became known to the general public with Prelude, none of the musicians were in the original group.

People tend to forget that Grace Slick wasn’t on the first album of the Jefferson Airplane; she replaced Signe Anderson after Anderson had a baby.

And, of course, Ringo Starr was not the Beatles’s first drummer. They fired Pete Best (to a major uproar in Liverpool) just as they got a recording contract. Similarly, Keith Moon was not the original drummer for the Who, but had taken over before they started recording.

The Dixie Chicks recorded three albums before Natalie Maines joined them and they made their breakthrough.

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The prog-rock forums are currently all in a tizzy because Chris Squire, who is apparently doing something with Steve Hackett, referred to him as the “original” guitarist from Genesis.

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For those not familiar with Steve Hackett, check out his solo starting around 2:30 on this video of “Every Day”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G74woU-oVE

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Ah Nonsuch, so glad you mentioned XTC. I have a hard time listening to White Music or Go 2… Barry’s mad organist stuff is hard to hear for a whole album. Drums and Wires onward, I’m you’re guy.

XTC started using hired hands for drums when Terry Chambers went walkabout (literally. He ended up in Australia). I think this was during the sessions for Mummer. And the last real XTC albums (Apple Venus and Homegrown) had virtually no input from Dave Gregory.

I like the Heads’ track “Damage I’ve Done.” Had no idea that Partsy did a track with them, I’ll have to look it up!

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One of my favorite bands, Level 42, had this issue.

The classic lineup - Mark King on bass and vocals, Mike Lindup on keys and vocals, Phil Gould on drums, and Rowland “Boon” Gould on guitar.

An early incarnation of the band featured Dominic Miller on guitar, who later found fame as a session player and Sting’s axeman.

Level 42 rode the jazz-funk wave in the early to mid 80s in the UK and Europe, and even had a Top 10 hit stateside with “Something About You.” After the follow up album, Running in the Family, was released, the band earned an opening slot with Madonna on her American tour. Both of the Goulds left the band citing exhaustion.

Mid-tour they replaced Boon Gould with Steve Topping, I think. Phil Gould was replaced with Neil Conti (formerly of Prefab Sprout).

Their next album, Staring at the Sun, was recorded with Dominic Miller on guitar (who was supplanted by permanent replacement Alan Murphy, who played with Kate Bush and Go West) and Gary Husband on drums.

Sadly Alan Murphy died of AIDS in 1989, and the band disappeared for two years. They reappeared in 1991 with an album Guaranteed, with new guitarist Allan Holdsworth (yes, that Holdsworth, who was actually Alan Murphy’s hero). Holdsworth didn’t tour with the band more than a few dates - his replacement was Jakko Jakszyk, who appears on the album cover, uncredited, despite not playing a lick on the album.

The last “classic” album was 1995’s Forever Now that had Phil Gould returning on drums and the little guitar work by Danny Bloom.

They just released a new album. The only original member on it are King and Lindup, but Husband is back, who in truth has played with the band longer than Phil Gould, and the guitar seat is held by Mark King’s brother Nathan. (whew!)

INXS replaced Michael Hutchence with JD Fortune and didn’t do too badly - their commercial fortunes were faltering and the album did decently in Europe.

Joy Division lost their lead singer and rhythm guitarist when Ian Curtis committed suicide, and the three remaining bandmembers all took turns as lead vocalist. (Peter Hook is the lead vocalist on “Dreams Never End.”) Bernard Sumner emerged as the eventual singer, but had difficulty playing lead guitar and keyboards as he did in Joy Division. Drummer Stephen Morris recruited his girlfriend Gillian Gilbert to play Sumner’s parts (she knew most of the JD songs from following the band), and she became part of the band, rechristened New Order.

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Mickey Thomas, who sang “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” with the Elvin Bishop Group, became the lead vocalist of Jefferson Starship when Grace Slick and Marty Balin left the group in 1979. When Slick rejoined in 1981, he and Slick shared vocalist duties. After Paul Kantner left in 1984 and Slick left for good in 1988, Thomas was the leader of the band, which had been renamed Starship after Kantner left.

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Not sure if there is enough band-width (nice pun, huh?) to get into The Uriah Heep Saga.

The Black Crowes seem to grind up bass players.

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OTOH, if XTC hadn’t fired Barry Andrews there would have been no Shriekback, still the most underrated {and the least dated, except maybe the album Jam Science} of 80’s bands.

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and Mike d’Abo of Manfred Man sang the role of King Herod.

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I can make a chain from Nirvana to Jimmy Eat World, mostly with replacements, stand-ins and hired guns:

Nirvana to Foo Fighters is obvious.
Foo Fighters used members of Sunny Day Real Estate as recording and touring members in early albums.
A member of Sunny Day Real Estate joined Dashboard Confessional initially as a hired gun but later as a full fledged member.
Scott Schoenbeck tours with Dashboard Confessional as their bass player but is not officially a member (the last I heard at least.)
Scott Schoenbeck was also in the Promise Ring for one album which is almost like a stand-in :slight_smile:
And Davey van Bohlen of the Promise Ring sang part of A Praise Chorus by Jimmy Eat World.

Two more different modern rock bands could not be found, but there’s a “seven degrees of nirvana” for ya!

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The Greatfull Dead had a string of keyboardists including Bruce Hornsby.