I don’t know about successful, but these are ones that I kind of like:
Lou Reed- The Velvet Underground
Syd Barrett- The Pink Floyd
Ian McCulloch- Echo and the Bunnymen
Frank Black- The Pixies
Chris Bell and Alex Chilton- Big Star
Glen Phillips- Toad the Wet Sprocket
Paul Westerberg- The Replacements
Peter Murphy and Daniel Ash- Bauhaus
I don’t know if bands built around individuals should count.
Funkadelic begat Bootsy Collins - I doubt Bootsy has had any huge hit singles, but he’s Bootsy. He’s a name, and he’s a… whatever he is.
I think Mick Ronson was fairly successful too as a soloist. He was guitarist for David Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust days.
Get the rope.
[nitpick] Joe Walsh was in the James Gang before he went solo. His Eagles gig kinda overlapped his solo career (much like Phil Collins & Genesis).
Also, Sammy Hagar was in Montrose before he went solo, he joined up with Van Halen after a successful solo career. [/nitpick]
Stewart Copeland (of the Police) is another one that has had a fairly successful “soundtrack” career.
As for the OP:
Richard Thompson was in Fairport Convention.
Todd Rundgren was in The Nazz then had a solo career that overlapped with Utopia.
Has anyone mentioned David Byrne yet?
I don’t know about “successful” but I believe Jay Farrar is going solo now after being in Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt.
Joe Walsh was already quite well established when he was invited to join The Eagles.
Think Sammy Hagar and Van Halen.
If anything Joe Walsh was a product of The James Gang.
See www.joewalsh.com
Nick Cave - The Birthday Party
It’s not “The Eurythmics.” It’s just “Eurythmics.”
The Sugar Cubes begat Bjork.
Miami Sound Machine begat Gloria Estefan.
Freddie Mercury did quite a bit of solo work away from Queen but I don’t know how successful his solo efforts were.
In fact, he had more Number 1 hits than John Lennon!
The Pixies: Black Francis (now Frank Black), Kim Deal (The Breeders)
Amboy Dukes: Ted Nugent
Les Claypool has done okay as a solo artist since Primus took a break (nice if they’re back, though). Of course, he’s not sounding very different, but he was the brains behind Primus anyway. I don’t mean that he’s had any hits. However, he seems to have built a decent following for himself on the jam circuit.
It took a while down in the thread, but somebody did finally hit upon Aimee Mann from Til Tuesday. Glad I’m not the only one to think of her.
As for my own additions:
Whiskeytown begot Ryan Adams
CCR begot John Fogerty
not quite on topic, but Nirvana gave us Dave Grohl as a frontman for Foo Fighters
though he’s not been successful at it yet, Blues Traveler may give us a solo John Popper (his <b>Zygote</b> is not a bad album at all)
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young -
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
These aren’t on the same level as some, but David Usher has had at least some success up here in the Great White North and Gord Downy has had some critical success even accross the border.
-David Usher from Moist
-Gord Downy from The Tragically Hip
And was also the first (ex-)Beatle to score a #1 hit.
The Eagles - every one of them was reasonably or highly sucessful as a solo artist. Don Henley, Glenn Frey (“Smuggler’s Blues”, “The Heat is On”), Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner, even Timothy B. Schmit has a pretty good solo run for a few years.
Here’s a biggie I didn’t see yet - Kenny Rogers, who was first in the First Edition.
Waylon Jennings, who was in Buddy Holly’s band.
Frank Sinatra, who was a singer for Tommy Dorsey. In fact, he may be the prototype for the singer who breaks from his band and goes solo.
As for Ringo, He had EIGHT top ten hits, including two that went to #1. They were:
Back Off Boogaloo
It Don’t Come Easy
Oh My My
No No Song
Photograph
You’re Sixteen
Only You
Snookeroo (??) Allmusic says it went to #3 - I never heard of it
I think Ringo had the second-most successful solo career after Paul McCartney. And right after the Beatles broke up, Ringo became the star of the bunch, releasing two or three monster albums in the first four years after the Beatles packed it in.
Plus…if I am not mistaken, Ringo was mildly famous before the Beatles - I got that impression for their ‘Anthology’ anyway, when they talked about how he was invited into the band.
Now Pete Best, there’s an ex-Beatle who never quite made it.
This list could go on for miles.
A few that surprised me at one point or another…
Kenny Rogers from First Edition, I’ve heard “Something’s Burning” and “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” and the original “Elvira” for years before I knew it was Kenny Rogers.
Everlast from House of Pain. OK I knew he was in that rap group, but it was still a fairly big stylistic change,
Andrew Ridgely from Wham! He actually did a hard rock album once. I wonder what became of that other guy.
Peter Cetera broke off from Chicago in the 80s and went on to a solo career.
I swear I began my ramblings before I saw this post!
That jerk-off?
:eek: :rolleyes: 
(Hey, somebody had to say it!)