Oh, just listened to one of my Floating Bridges hash-ups: Clarence Clemmons really shreds the sax in the bridge to Jungleland.
Parker & Stone’s “Hang the Bastard” from the musical “Cannibal”. Cowbell solo at 1.20: Cannibal the Musical - Hang the Bastard - YouTube
There’s the whole “cello metal” genre. Apocalyptica is probably the most famous band in that style. They started out playing surprisingly convincing Metallica covers. Their first album Plays Metallica by Four Cellos can be found on youtube.
There’s also 2CELLOS who specialize in pop-rock covers like Smooth Criminal or Thunderstruck.
The kazoo in the Rolling Stones’ “Something Happened to me Yesterday.”
(Some claim it’s some other instrument, but if so, it’s certainly meant to sound like a kazoo.)
Harmonica here. Kick ass song.
MANDOLIN! (from 18:00…but it is all worth watching as I think this was the only time is was performed in this way and it is rather lovely and sooooooooooooooo 1973)
OK, pretty much take your pick of multiple weird instrument solo’s from the above and I not sure it actually counts but hey…who needs a valid excuse to hear Tubular Bells again?
For a moment there I thought I heard Viv Stanshall! Silly me.
Dueling Banjos, anyone?
And the beginning of Billy Joel’s Piano Man, with the piano solo and then the harmonica solo. Probably the easiest song to identify that early in.
Talking about Billy Joel, there’s The Stranger’s whistling intro and outro. It works really well, by the way. Very atmospheric.
That’s definitely one of the classic blues rock harmonica songs.
I’m trying to think if there’s any good examples of Howard Levy playing in a rock/pop context and showing off his harmonica skills, but I can’t think of any. The dude’s an absolute beast on the diatonic harmonica (the standard 10-hole kind–he makes it sound like a chromatic, one of the pioneers in developing that instrument and technique.) But if instrumental bands were considered, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones has banjo solos, harmonica solos, bass solos, and the occasional “drumitar” solo. (Oh, and sax in other formations of the band.) But none of those are really weird in a jazz/fusion context except for the banjo (and, well, I guess the unique “drumitar.”)
Radiohead has a bunch of songs that use the ondes martenot, a rather rare electronic instrument that has a theramin-type of sound. While it has a keyboard, it’s often played just with a rang that has a ribbon attached to it that you slide below the keyboard. “National Anthem” has the closest to what I would call a “solo.” In most cases, it’s just background instrumentation in the arrangement, but here it takes a forward, melodic role, although it’s still not quite your typical extemporaneous solo in the middle of a song.
Incidentally, the instrument in “Good Vibrations” isn’t a standard theremin, which is played with no physical contact at all with the instrument. It’s something called an electro-theremin, or Tannerin, and is played by moving a slide across across a rod with the right hand, and using the left hand on a knob to control volume.
Similar sounding instruments, significantly different manner of playing.
I thought earlier of the cellos in the Drifters 1959 hit “There Goes My Baby”.
Electric Light Orchestra used violins and cellos quite a bit, but Livin’ Thing is one of their songs in which Mik Kaminski’s violin has more of a leading part, including solos at the beginning and after the first chorus.
Ok, not a solo per se, but along the lines of unconventional instrumentation, in the riff for Tears of a Clown there’s a bassoon going at it and it keeps time throughout the rest of the song. BTW what a great bass line! Great song.
I’m a little surprised no one’s mentioned the Beatles so far—solos like the piccolo trumpet solo in “Penny Lane,” the penny whistle solo in “Fool on the Hill,” the sax solo in “Lady Madonna”…
Saxophone solos aren’t really that unusual per se, but they are for the Beatles. If the OP’s really interested, I’m sure we could come up with many more examples of sax solos.
It seemed to me like the 80s were FULL of sax solos on pop/rock songs.
Or we can go to punk saxophone! (X-Ray Spex–sax starts at 1:20.)
There are a couple of bassoon solos in “Live at the Quick” by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and also a call-and-response between tabla and electric banjo.
The Kongos, Come With Me Now has an accordion solo.
Also, the mandolin solo in Rod Stewart’s Maggie May is pretty famous.
“Clair” by Gilbert O’Sullivan has two odd solos. It starts with a human whistling, then there is a harmonnica bridge.
There’s a nice banjo solo in The Who’s “Squeeze Box”