Wow! Great.
Coming up by Paul McCartney has Linda McCartney singing back up.
The video is really fun-
For a music video made in 1980 - pre-MTV - the production on “Coming Up” is amazing.
The exercise involved extensive pre-planning for Phil and director Keith McMillan. It also involved the efforts of seventeen people for four days creating both the set and an exact replica of the set for the superimpositions, seven other involved with costumes, make-up and hairdressing and a studio crew of 32 people. …
Paul’s contribution was equally involved and exhausting. Filming lasted 25 hours over two days, a gruelling schedule of rehearsal, costume and make-up changes, singing and playing for Paul. When one of the Pauls turns to another on screen the action had to be synchronised exactly. In fact the sax player who is constantly out of step with his colleagues was a masterpiece of McCartney timing.
Just as amazing is that Paul inhabits every one of his doubles with its own personality. Compare this to the video of “Hey Ya!”, in which Andre 3000 also doubles as each band member. He’s play-acting, not creating a separate individual.
All that wonderfulness for a song that is unlistenable to unless the video is there to pull attention from the actual music.
I’ve always loved this early track by Bryan Adams. I never knew until a few years ago that the harmony is sung by Lou Gramm. You can’t unhear that here either.
Huey Lewis’s The News backed Nick Lowe’s I Knew the Bride.
Olivia Newton-John was the female singer on John Denver’s Fly Away.
ETA Toni Tennille did quite a bit of back up singing as well, including Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.
Before her acting career took off Katey Segal worked extensively as a back up singer. Lots of work on stage but Wikipedia lists her being on Gene Simmons solo album, a Molly Hatchet album and backing up Olivia Newton-John on her album.
The Ramones’ penultimate album, Acid Eaters, was all covers. They did The Who’s Substitute. Pete Townshend OK’d on the condition he got to sing backup on the track.
Joey Ramone said this in a Rolling Stone interview.
“For ‘Substitute,’ Pete Townshend came down and sang background vocals, which was a real highlight for me, because I was always a big Who fan from the first time they came to America, and Townshend had always been kind of an unseen mentor for me. He was in town doing finetuning on [the stage play] Tommy, and when he heard we were doing the song, he came down, heard the track and got all excited. He did a great job, he was really into it. I was very nervous, because the day he came down was the day I was laying down my lead vocal for the song. I had never met him before.”
Kate Bush sang backup on Peter Gabriel’s song “Games Without Frontiers”. Anybody who’s heard her songs would recognize her voice immediately.
Ronstadt also provided some exquisite harmonizing on “Under African Skies” from Paul Simon’s Graceland.
Hey, no closeups of the robotic keyboard player?
Does the song itself have to be notable?
Most of you have probably never encountered the song “Lily the Pink,” by the Liverpool-based comedy/music group The Scaffold (although it did make number 1 on the UK music charts in 1968). It’s a modernized version of an old folk song about a patent medicine and the many things it supposedly cured.
The guy in the green jacket in the video is Mike McGear (real name, Mike McCartney, Paul’s younger brother). Backing vocalists include Graham Nash, Elton John (so young that he was still being credited as Reg Dwight), and Tim Rice. The bass is played by Jack Bruce.
You HAVE heard her backup vocals on Hey, Jude isolated, haven’t you?
If not, find your own link. I can’t be held liable for that degree of suffering.
Hey, everyone has a bad day at work; I do feel sorry for her that it’s preserved forever…
Paul’s wife is a dulcet angel compared to John’s wife.
Wiki appears to confirm a rumor I’ve long heard: that three of the Beach Boys (Al Jardine, and the upright Wilson brothers**) sang backup on Chicago’s “Wishing You Were Here”.
** Band name!
He’s got us there.
I like it—and so did John Lennon.
Agreed. Linda’s background vocals feature prominently in some Wings songs (and the Ram album, which is credited to Paul & Linda McCartney), and she even sings lead on one song (“Cook of the House”). She’s not a particularly strong or skillful singer, but I don’t mind her, and I at least sometimes like the way her voice blends with Paul’s.
My response has already been posted.
Guitarist Joe Satriani was one of several backup singers on Crowded House’s " Don’t Dream It’s Over". It was a novel piece of trivia when he broke through and before he did his own lead vocals.
Mary J. Blige and D’Angelo were guests on Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Never mind, spotted him.
Notable mentions off the mainstream path…
Sisters of Mercy had Terri Nunn (from Berlin) on Under the Gun
Laurie Anderson had Peter Gabriel on Excellent Birds