This is a thread in which each post will have one (1) fact about one of your favorite musicians or songs.
I’ll start.
The incomparable Bill Withers held a note for 18 seconds near the end of “Lovely Day”, setting the current record for a sustained note in an American Top 40 song.
Neil Young’s father is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
mmm
In 1981, George Thorogood played 50 shows, in 50 days, in 50 states.
Quite the feat, considering there was no internet, cellphones, or GPS.
Styx’s Paradise Theater album had the tracks “A.D. 1928”, which was a prelude to “Rockin’ the Paradise”, and “A.D. 1958”, which was a postlude to “Half-Penny, Two-Penny”. The two dates were the opening and closing dates of the album’s titular theater.
Mason Williams, composer of Classical Gas, was also the chief writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and gave Steve Martin his start.
Alexander Courage composed the instrumental piece, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (aka "Theme from Star Trek) for Star Trek. Without his knowledge, show creator Gene Roddenberry added lyrics so that he could be officially registered as the lyricist of the theme and hence claim half the performance royalties. Roddenberry never intended the lyrics to be sung or made publicly available, and Courage considered this conduct unethical. Courage was also responsible for creating the “whoosh” sound effects heard during the opening titles.
Big Neil Young fan, and I did not know that!
There’s a sad story behind maybe my favorite song by The Rolling Stones, ‘Gimme Shelter’. The Stones were working late into the night recording, and decided they needed a female backup singer for the song. So their producer Jack Nitzsche calls up Merry Clayton around midnight, after she’s already in bed, but she agrees to come in, and shows up in curlers and PJs (and 4 months pregnant). She records her legendary backup vocals to the song, just totally giving it her all to the point her voice is cracking, and the next day she has a miscarriage, thought to likely be due to her exertions the night before.
In 1965, Frank Zappa was the target of a police sting operation. An undercover cop commissioned him to produce an audio sex tape for $100, on the pretense that it was for a stag party. When Zappa delivered the tape, which he had recorded with the help of a female friend, he was arrested and charged with “conspiracy to commit pornography,” and he spent ten days in jail.
Bob Dylan nearly got arrested in New Jersey in 2009 mistaken for a suspect hobo when taking a walk alone before a gig. He couldn’t convince the officers who he was and had to be taken to his hotel where his identity could finally be confirmed. Dylan is known to take incognito walks in towns where he plays, most times wearing hoodies and normal street clothes.
Another Zappa trivia:
The first time Zappa appeared on TV, he played a bicycle, in suit and tie, beardless.
ETA: an anecdote about one of my favorite songs, the Kinks’ “Lola”. The original recording had the line “and it tasted like Coca-Cola”. When the label took the single to the BBC, the Beep refused to play the song because of covert advertising. The solution was to rerecord the line with “Cherry Cola” substituting the offensive word, but the problem was that the Kinks at the time already were in New York to start their US tour. So Ray Davis had to make an impromptu round tour from NY to London and back, just to record one word.
In the end, it was worth it since it became one of their biggest hits.
The song “Africa” by Toto very nearly didn’t make it onto the album “Toto IV”. It had been worked and reworked so much that the band got tired of it and strongly considered cutting it from the album. It was added as the tenth and final track at the last minute. It became the group’s only Billboard #1 hit.
Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” contains the lyric “the next sixty seconds could be like an eternity.”
The song ends exactly sixty seconds after that line.
mmm
Barry Manilow wrote the jingle I am stuck on band aids, cause band aids stuck on me.
[off-topic]
I’m trying to figure out why internet, cellphones, or GPS would be necessary for a touring music artist.
Edited: I didn’t realize solost had already posted the Gimme Shelter story.
Before he was a star, Glen Campbell was a studio musician, and one of the members of the legendary Wrecking Crew. He played on many well-known recordings in the 60s, including a number of Beach Boys songs.
Another member of the Wrecking Crew, bassist Carol Kaye, was the guitarist on the Richie Valens hit, “La Bamba” and the bassist on the Beach Boys hit, “Good Vibrations.”
Country artist Tim McGraw is the son of NY Mets and Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Tug McGraw. The elder McGraw was pitching for the Phillies when they won the 1980 World Series.
Sadly, Tug McGraw’s life was cut short by a brain tumour, and he died in 2004, at age 59. His son Tim paid tribute to him in the video to his song “Live Like You Were Dyin’,” which features clips of Tug McGraw playing baseball.
While traveling back in that time period, the only phones available would be public phone booths and hotels. The only means of navigation were paper maps. If transport broke down, you’d have to hitch a ride to the nearest phone or garage and hope they could fit you in their schedule. Modern technology makes it easier to get directions, contact venues, get help when things break down, book flights, etc. The US is a really big country area-wise, and Alaska and Hawaii require thousands of additional miles to travel.
I’m sure most Dopers are aware of this, but the reason rock bands like Van Halen and others specified weird or strange demands like “No Green M&Ms in the bowl” in their dressing rooms at venues actually make sense, they bury certain requests on the assumption that it means the promoters actually read the contract and have attention to detail, and likely will adhere to other more important details particularly with regard to safety. Does it work, I don’t know, but that’s the “why”.
Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” was originally written and recorded by Jake Holmes, who went on to create such commercial jingles as “Be All That You Can Be” for the US Army and “The Best A Man Can Get” for Gillette, and was briefly part of a vocal trio with Joan Rivers.
In 1976, ZZ Top went on their World Wide Texas Tour, complete with a 35-ton stage in the shape of the Lone Star State. They also took along a veritable menagerie of Texan critters including a buffalo, a Longhorn steer, several venomous rattlesnakes, some tarantulas, and six vultures all called Oscar. Originally scheduled to take one month, the tour morphed into a record-breaking 18-month behemoth.