The frontman was named Davey Jones, actually, as was David Bowie.
Elton John’s real name is … Elton John, he’s had it legally changed.
“The Horse” by Cliff Nobles & Co. went to #2 in 1969 I think. It is an instrumental “B” side that became a smash after the “A” side flopped. As Cliff does not play an instrument, he had his name on a huge hit on which he does not
appear. Unless that is a UL.
Murray Head’s biggest hit was “One Night in Bangkok.” He doesn’t sing a note on it. He also was the first to sing “Superstar” from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” His younger brother is Anthony Stewart Head of “Buffy” fame.
I gotta ask - do you have a cite for this? That’s a very big deal…
Phil Collins, as a child, was an extra in the Beatles film Hard Day’s Night
Three of the founding members of the Turtles (treacly sweet “Happy Together”) joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. They were contractually prohibited from using the name “The Turtles” so they referred to themselves as “Flo and Eddie.”
On the Mother’s album, Fillmore East, June 1971, much of the album is an extended, debaucherous tale of having a hit record with a bullet (pow). It is also inspired by the famous tale of the Edgewater Inn in Seattle where members of Led Zeppelin or the Vanilla Fudge were fishing out of the window, caught a mudshark, and a groupie proceeded to have sex with said fish. (This is kind of repeating theme in Zappa’s music). “Would you like to come in my bus?” “Listen you chicks!now didn’ … didn’t you just say that you got off bein’ juked with a BABY OCTOPUS and spewed upon with cream corn? an’ that your hair-lipped dyke-o bass-playing girlfriend on the backseat had to have it with a YOO-HOO bottle or she went apeshit?!” Anyway, after this extended discussion, the groupies insist on hearing the hit record with a bullet (pow), and so Flo & Eddie break into “Happy Together” in its purest form. Kind of interesting to hear such a sweet song after 40 minutes of Zappa.
Zappa relates in his autobiography that he once met Simon and Garfunkel. They agreed to open for the Mothers as Tom & Jerry, their old act in which they had a small hit with “Hey Schoolgirl.” Nobody caught on, until Zappa brought them back after the show and they played “Sounds of Silence.”
When my wife was 16, she was drinking coffee at an all-night restaurant that was next to a small theater. She and her friend left at 2 AM for home, and were some what accosted by two drunk English men, one bald and one with long hair. She says they were asking her and her friend “Take us with you, we want to go with you wherever you go.” Of course they refused. They did the whole thing “Don’t you know who we are? We’re The The!!” and sure enough The The was on the theater marquee. A few weeks later, they were at a music shop and found Mind Bomb and sure enough, it was Matt Johnson. What my wife didn’t know till I told her years later was that the other dude was probably Johnny Marr (she has confirmed by online pictures) – my wife was a HUGE Smiths fan in those days, and she had no idea that one of the founders of The Smiths had hit on her.
The Mynah Birds, an early 60’s Toronto band including Rick James and Neil Young.
Jimi Hendrix opening for The Monkees.
The tritone was considered such a disturbing interval that from about the 9th century on many considered it literally Satanic (diabolus in musica). Though stories about the Roman Church officially banning the use of the tritone in all liturgical music are apocryphal, it was a standard among medieval composers for evoking a literally evil mood, and used sparingly as a result.
And Elton John is Sean Lennon’s godfather.
Billy Joel’s “This Night” is based on Beethoven’s “Pathetique.” Beethoven even got a songwriting credit for it.
Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” is based on Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor (Opus 28, No. 20).
does anyone know if the Mynah Birds recorded anything, and if it will be released?
Unfortunately I don’t. I read it in an interview with Paul Rodgers a long time ago. Having searched on the net I can’t find anything. The only think I can find is this (warning pdf).
So maybe I was mistaken. But I am fairly sure I remembered it correctly.
The Monty Python theme tune is The Liberty Bell by John Philip Sousa.
Great, great thread. My turn:
Who was the original singer of AC/DC?
Bon Scott? No! That would barely be trivia. Their lead singer was a guy named Dave Evans, who, one gig, refused to go on stage and the band turned to their chaffeur…Bon Scott. Nice move Dave Evans.
Alan Parsons, whose Project has done very well, does not sing or play an instrument on any of the Alan Parsons Project albums. He’s the producer.
After Jimi Hendrix played in the Isley Brothers, he was briefly part of Sam and Dave’s touring band. His psychedelic solos didn’t fit the tightly rehearsed Sam and Dave style, so Sam Moore fired him! He told him to unplug and leave the stage.
To expand, Elton John’s full legal name is “Elton Hercules John.” “Elton” comes from saxophone player Elton Dean, who played with Soft Machine and other British groups. “John” is from Long John Baldry, a British blues singer. “Hercules” is from Elton’s song by that name on Honkey Chateau.
Before he hit it big, Elton John played in Chuck Berry’s backup band on one gig. Not really a major honor: Berry tended to travel alone and hire local semipro musicians for next to nothing; they were delighted at the chance to play with him.
Led Zeppelin first performed as “The New Yardbirds”; Jimmy Page had a Yardbirds tour of Scandinavia contracted when he formed the group, so they went out under that name to fulfill the contract. And, of course, the name “Led Zeppelin” was coined by Keith Moon about a group he and John Entwistle were trying to set up when it looked like the Who was breaking up.
Little Eva was Carole King’s babysitter. King wrote “The Locomotion” after seeing her dance, and she was signed as an act after she did a demo of the song for the record company.
The group Steam – famous for “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” did not really exist. It was recorded as a throwaway to be the B side of a single for a solo act, Gary DeCarlo; the “Na na” was sung because there were no lyrics. When the record company wanted to release the song, but they disliked it so much that they used the name “Steam.” Once the song became a hit, a group called “Steam” was put together, but none of the musicians in it has played on the original single.
Well I don’t know if this qualifies as ‘trivia’ so much as catty gossip, but -
Tina Weymouth did an interview for a Toronto radio station (which I heard, from where I lived in Buffalo, NY at the time) and the DJ asked her about the show the Talking Heads did in the early 1980s. They were on a rock festival bill being headlined by the Police. According to Weymouth’s account, halfway through the Talking Heads’ set, there was a mysterious amp / fuse problem which put a halt to their performance. By the time the problem was fixed, too much time had elapsed and the event-planners had to move along with the next scheduled act.
After the incident, the Talking Heads heard through the grapevine that there was no power outage - that was just an excuse. What really happened? Apparently, Sting (of the Police) was watching the Heads, saw how well they were going over with the audience, and feared they would overshadow his own band’s set. He went straight to the event-coordinators and demanded they pull the plug on the Talking Heads immediately, or else he would refuse to perform. (at the time, TH was still considered a minor underground punk band while the Police were a THE band in rock music).
The distinctive “Da-dum” guitar in Radiohead’s Creep was an attempt by guitarist Johnny Greenwood to sabotage the song, which he did not really like.
Oh I think we can safely say that when the Beatles covered their own song Revolution they endorsed it.
Before the chorus? Really? That’s excellent. (Can I SDMB you and scream “cite!”)
Actually, not true, to my knowledge - when they would practice the song, Jonny knew he had to come in big and his Telecaster had noisy pickups, so he would leave the volume down somehow (twist the knob, switch to a silent pickup, whatever). Then, right before the big entrance of his part in the chorus, he would turn up the volume and do a quick dry strum of the strings to make sure that he had volume - they were just practicing so it didn’t matter - but the producer working with them (Nigel Godrich?) liked it and told him to keep it in…
Well here is a link that supports what I said.
But apart from an actual quote from one of the bandmembers, it is hard to say whther this is urban legend or not.