Jim Morrison… You can hear their 1965 demo on YouTube, and even 1966 at the London Fog… Jim was great in the studio, and had GREAT vibrato, as well as being able to sing a ballad, or to sing something with more teeth. He also had good rhythm with the phrasing, and certain pauses/halts, as well as using more tracks to even have a dialogue/conversation, say, on the song, “The Soft Parade” (probably best to read the lyrics), or even the whisper (last thing he did with The Doors) track on top of the regular vocal on “Riders On The Storm”.
I’ve never seen a non-singer turn into one of the best in 18 months like that.
To my ears, Ray Davies improved substantially as a vocalist after the Kinks’ early hits like “You Really Got Me.”
For that matter, it’s probably safe to say that Ray and Dave both improved as guitarists. On those early hits, a session guitarist was used because Ray couldn’t sing and play rhythm guitar at the same time. And Dave’s primitive style worked well on “You Really Got Me,” but at age 17 I doubt he had the chops to come up wth all the guitar parts of all the Kinks’ later work.
I think the majority of musicians I listen to got noticeable better as players after they got famous. But I listen to lots of Prog and Art Rock. Almost every band and artist in those genres I know got much more inventive, groundbreaking, complex, and technically proficient after the start of their career (and regressed again, with enough time and albums under their belt). From basic blues rock etc. into something that real musos need to woodshed to replicate.
Even guys like Freddie Mercury were much better singers some distance into their famous career.
Then there’s the masses of veteran musicians who state strongly in interviews that they think they play better now than ever before, subjective as it is.
So, I guess I completely disagree with the premise.
One of the things that really opened my eyes to how good Ringo was, was listening to this recording of “I Saw Her Standing There” with Pete Best on drums:
The song itself is much more raw in this recording (they were obviously still working it out, and there’s one point where they mess up the words), so maybe it’s not quite a fair comparison. But if you listen to this alongside the more familiar single version, with Ringo’s drumming, there’s a huge difference. Pete really does nothing with it. He keeps the beat, and adds one little fill right before the guitar solo, and that’s about it.
Ringo’s drumming is much more active and exciting, with a strong, driving beat that propels the song forward. He throws in fills almost every time there’s a break in the vocals, and it helps keep up the energy and make the song more engaging.
Listening to this was the first time that I understood how much Ringo added to the band.
Agree on the drumming, but I really dig that version with (I assume) John playing the lead guitar parts on harmonica. Like a lot of predominantly rhythm guitarists, John Lennon is really underrated as an instrumentalist.
How about Pete Townshend? I haven’t listened to him or The Who all that much, but I had to take notice when I first heard his playing on Eminence Front.
That’s something I’ve seen argued before. The best evidence I’ve seen that someone else played the solo on the record was a claim that Dave played the same solo every night, and it wasn’t the one on the record. Though, I haven’t looked up live performances to find out if the claim is true…looks up a couple of live versions…nope, that claim doesn’t hold up. He doesn’t play the solo from the record - it’s usually in the same style, but it’s also definitely not the same solo every night.
And really, since that solo isn’t too hard to do a version of, I’m kind of inclined to think he probably played the one on the record himself and doesn’t want to do the same solo every night.
I remember watching a documentary about Prince that early in his career, a producer (?) told him that he had everything to be a star but the guitar skills. So Prince went away for 2 years and came back a virtuoso.
David Gilmour’s early playing for Pink Floyd was pretty simplistic. Just common major chords and simple scale runs. I’d put it around Meddle where he really accelerated his technical chops and range, though that was still mostly effects-driven the seeds of his mind melting solos and expressive playing we’re taking off.
