On a related note, You Are My Sunshine is not only Louisiana’s official song, but the tune helped composer Jimmie Davis win two gubernatorial elections (1944 and 1960) in the state.
To continue with the Blue Oyster Cult trivia: One account of the origin of the band’s name is that it’s an anagram of the Cully Stout Beer that one of the members found himself drinking at a bar one night.
Picture it, 1977, it’s New Year’s Eve, and two young black musicians are excited because not only are they to spend the evening with cool diva Grace Jones (who likes their current dance hits and wants to work with them on an album) but they’re spending it with her at the innest of the in spots, Studio 54. On a regular Tuesday night it’s nex to impossible to get in and on NYE, get outta heah, fuhgeddabout it, you ain’t gettin’ in unless you know someone WELL, so for up and coming musicians this is one hell of a place to mingle. They’d had a couple of hits as I said, but they were still in debt to their label and far from rich, but they spent $2000 for the hippest threads they could find and headed down.
Where Grace Jones, either on accident or not knowing it was necessary or whatever, forgot to leave their name on the guest list, and they were very snootily turned away by the coked up doorman. They were pissed- they went from spending NYE at the most exciting club in the most exciting city in America to spending it at home with cheap champagne from a convenience store. They were fuckin’ pissed (sorry for the language, but it’s relevant).
They went back to the guitarist’s apartment, which happened to be 1 block from Studio 54, within earshot if you opened the windows and turned on the amps to your electric guitars. They had some cheap champagne, started jamming, and blasted the sound to the Studio 54 doorman, doing a long riff and screaming “Heyyyyy FUCK YOU!” (or “Awww FUCK OFF!”- I’ve heard accounts from both men and they vary) at the doorman. Soon there was a crowd dancing underneath them and they realized they had something here.
As much as they wanted to record it with the “original lyrics”, no major label would release it, so they changed them from “FUCK OFF!” (or “FUCK YOU!”) to “Aaahh FREAK OUT! Le Freak, c’est chic… FREAK OUT!” and it sold 6 million copies over the next few months, making Bernard Edwards and Niles Rodgers very wealthy (at least for a while- I didn’t see the end of Behind the Music [though I’m sure Rodgers, who’s still alive, was walking on a beach like everybody in BtM] so I don’t know if they kept the money or wound up blowing it on the usual things rockers blow fortunes on).
Blues legend Pinetop Perkins is best known as a keyboard player, but he started out as a guitar player. What most people don’t know is that the switch was made when a jealous woman hacked up his one arm with a knife. Unable to play guitar, he taught himself keyboards. (I met him a few years ago and he told me the story)
When the definitive one-hit-wonder Taco had his big moment with Puttin’ on the Ritz in 1982, 94 year old writer Irving Berlin became the oldest man ever to have his name on the biggest selling pop record in the country.
The first man to knock the Beatles from the Number 1 spot during their invasion was 63 year old Louis Armstrong and he did it with a showtune (Hello Dolly!).
Speaking of the Beatles: the hysterical crowd of girls screaming at the airport was staged by press agents to build a fan base. It worked- the ones screaming at the Sullivan show were real. The Beatles first appearance on American TV was on The Jack Paar Show- they weren’t live but he showed a clip of one of their performances. Every single person in entertainment who was alive in 1963 turned down 1/4 of the Beatles to help promote them, at least to hear them tell it (those I’ve heard this of include Elvis, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett and Jerry Lee Lewis- I think Elvis may be legit but the others I think are trumped up).
In 1965, the height of the first year of Beatlemania, they were outsold by The Monkees (though they soon caught up, and of course they were selling in the millions after they broke up which the Monkees wouldn’t do again for 20 years after their breakup).
The Beatles made Let it Be for two reasons: contractual obligation and George and Paul were both broke due to bad investments, the incredibly not good horrible very bad management decisions of Brian Epstein and the disaster that was Apple Corps. Needless to say, neither ended up on food stamps.
Stephen Stills auditioned for The Monkees but was rejected. Charles Manson, contrary to myth, did not audition.
Neil Sedaka is the only person to have a number one hit, twice with the same song: “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”.
Well, some of the Beatles later re-recorded Beatles songs as solo artists. (For example, Paul redid some of his Beatles songs for his movie Give My Regards To Broad Street, and Ringo has “covered” “Love Me Do.”)
While we’re on the subject of covers on which the original artists worked, IIRC Carl Wilson sang backing vocals on David Lee Roth’s cover of “California Girls.”
Eric Woolfson, actually. Parsons released some “solo” albums with many of the same musicians, credited simply to “Alan Parsons,” after Woolfson left the “group.”
Napoleon Dynamite is one of the many stage names for Elvis Costello.
Which, of course, is also a stage name: he was born Declan MacManus.
The Knack’s lead singer, Doug Fieger, is the brother of well-known defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger. (Dr. Kevorkian’s atty.)
Chubby Shecker did this too, with the same version of “The Twist” which went to #1 in September 1960, and again in January 1962. (It fell off the charts in between.)
The Champs, who recorded the smash instrumental hit “Tequila,” were named after Gene Autry’s horse - Champion. (Autrey owned the record label - I think it was Challenge).
Ed Sullivan? Is that you?
That one’s got to be wrong, at least about the year, because The Monkees’ first single, “Last Train To Clarksville”, wasn’t released until '66.
My favorite bit of Beatles trivia: when trying to come up with a name for what would eventually be Revolver, Ringo suggested “Before Geography” (a play on the Stones’ recent album Aftermath).
I have no great ones…
Virgin 00001, i.e. the very first record put out by Richard Branson’s new record company, was Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Nice start.
Before Yes, Rick Wakeman played piano on Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken.
Little Feat founder Lowell George used to play in Frank Zappa’s band.
The first record to have “fuck” printed on the album cover as part of the lyrics was Love Chronicles by Al Stewart, which also featured Jimmy Page on guitar.
Another one I just remembered.
The lead guitar on the Beatles track Taxman (written by George Harrison), from the Revolver album, was played by Paul McCartney.
When “Weird Al” wanted to cover Money for Nothing by Dire Straits and turn it into a song about the Beverly Hillbillies, he called lead singer Mark Knopfler to ask if he could use the song. Apparently Knopfler said he could use it on one condition, that Knopfler could record the guitar solo.
Mr. Body, the guy that gets killed in the movie Clue was played by Lee Ving, singer for the punk band Fear.
John Simon Ritchie was a founding member of Siouxsie and the Banshees. He later became famous as Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols.
After George Harrison wrote “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the other Beatles had little to no interest in it. I believe Lennon actually refused to play on it - so Harrison brought in his good friend Eric Clapton to play lead guitar on the track.
<Linda Richman> The colored girls on “Walk on the Wild Side” were neither colored nor girls </Linda Richman>
They were Lou Reed, David Bowie and Mick Ronson.
A semi-blues band in late 60’s England(Blackpool) were so mediocre that they had to change their name between gigs in order to get back into venues in which they had flopped before. The one time they were invited back for a second show stuck them with the name “Jethro Tull” (and their first single went out under the name “Jethro Toe”)
The credit for Aqualung went to Ian Anderson’s wife, Jenny.
:smack: My bad (look before you post, look it up before you post…)
It was 1967, the year of SGT PEPPER. By some accounts they outsold the Beatles and the Stones combined that year.
The guy who composed the music for “Onward Christian Soldiers” was Arthur Sullivan.
As in Gilbert and Sullivan.
Now we know why it’s so catchy.