Ever have any one famous or semi famous sit in at a gig?

mboogiemanusa · #1 08-04-2010, 02:20 AM

Another poster had a story about meeting the drummer of REO Speedwagon. I thought that having a thread about famous folks sitting in at your gigs may be interesting. My bar band Boogie Stew was playing a benefit concert at a biker poker run a while back. The charity hired character actor Mickey Jones to be the celebrity Master of Ceremonies. You may not know who Mickey Jones is but you have seen him playing bit parts in hundreds of movies and sitcoms. Always as the long haired comic biker. Back in the day Mickey was a respected rock drummer who played with Kenny Rogers and 1st Edition and Bob Dylan tour bands. He seems to make his living these days from appearance fees at these types of charities. Mickey no longer plays drums but always asks to sit in with the band and play a couple slow blues. Our lead player is a lefty so he borrowed the guitar from our rhythm guitar player. Mickey sang and we played 2 slow blues in E/A/B. One of the numbers he wrote for the Kevin Costner golf movie Tin Cup called Double Bogie Blues. Turns out that he does this song at every event with the house bands because he gets a fee everytime someone buys the Tin Cup DVD. You can do a search on You Tube a see a few performances with various local bands around the country. Mickey is not much of a guitar player - our resident shredder keep trying to get him to take a lead but no luck, however Mickey is a hell of a nice guy and had a lot of nice things to say about our band. We have a video posted in the vid section on our myspace page of that jam. http://myspace.com/boogiestewband. Any one else have any interesting stories regarding famous or semi famous celebrities sitting in with your band?

amimbari · #2 08-04-2010, 07:53 AM

yep...our band was playing last week at the HardRock here in PGH, and Alex Grossi ( the old guitarplayer from QuietRiot ) was waiting for his band to get into town and while we were all inside eating, he saw our songlist and asked if he could jam a couple songs since the rest of the members of the band took a later flight and he was sitting around doing nothing.

who would say no right?

no long detailed paragraph is necessary, when I have a ton of pics and videos

.

Gard · #3 08-04-2010, 08:16 AM

Sammy Hagar count? (I'm the guy directly behind him):

jady · #4 08-04-2010, 08:34 AM

We were doing a Jazz Festival in Modesto with the big concert on Sunday. Sat was a lot of local jazz groups playing and while we were doing a set we had John Faddis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Faddis) and Mike Vax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vax) sit in and trade choruses for a long time lol.

It was a trumpet wankfest!!!

skwee · #5 08-04-2010, 08:45 AM

nice.

bound'n'blocked · #6 08-04-2010, 09:25 AM

Gard--

PLEASE tell me you played "I Cant Drive 55"!

A band I work with but dont play in was playing several years ago in Huntington WV and
the comedian Soupy Sales came in. He asked to sit in and they did the blues tune "Stormy Monday". It was fricken hilarious.

BnB

JimmyM · #7 08-04-2010, 11:17 AM

i once had george thorogood sit in with us a long time ago, then he spent the rest of the night trying to pick up our chick singer, who was secretly dating our guitarist. so our guitarist was seething and he couldn't do anything about it because we weren't supposed to know they hooked up, even though we all did. the next night our guitarist threw a snit and refused to let him play his guitar. i thought it was childish on his part. he should have just manned up and admitted it. always felt bad about that one. sorry george.

nysbob · #8 08-04-2010, 11:22 AM

Geezer Butler sat in on my bass way back in the '70s - we were playing a club gig, they were in town...he wanted to play some blues IIRC.

Twnty1inRF · #9 08-04-2010, 11:29 AM

Nils Lofgren sat in with us during a break in Bruce's touring schedule in the mid 80's, he was a high school friend of our soundman.

Matt "Guitar" Murphy sat in for a tune with a band I was in in Boston in '90.

The oddest one was when Joe Frazier and his entourage walked in to the hotel bar we were playing in the mid 80's and he and one of the ladies with him came up and sang on Purple Rain.

guroove · #10 08-04-2010, 11:30 AM

Jerry Jemmott sat in for me at my wedding. That was probably one of the most momentous occasions of my life.

jmac · #11 08-04-2010, 11:35 AM

Back in the early 90's a "friend" of the band wanted her cousin from LA to sit it on drums. We said let him sit in. He was so-so, probably because of the alcohol. Afterwards he was telling us about his band and how they just signed a record deal and were filming a video. I was "yeah dude, whatever."

A couple of months later I was watching Mtv and there he was playing drums for a band called Warrant.

The first and only time that someone who I thought was BSing actually wasn't.

pasta4lnch · #12 08-04-2010, 11:35 AM

my buddy (who, at the time, led a killer funk band) said this bass player kept asking to sit in - reluctantly he agreed . . . turned out to be Sean Hurley. said he killed! (this was before the JM fame but after the VH fame - wish I coulda been there for that one . . .

Easy8 · #13 08-04-2010, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guroove

Jerry Jemmott sat in for me at my wedding. That was probably one of the most momentous occasions of my life.

Your wedding or Jerry sitting in

guroove · #14 08-04-2010, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Easy8

Your wedding or Jerry sitting in

I could answer that question honestly, but my soon to be ex-wife probably wouldn't appreciate me posting about it on the internet.

Lester4string · #15 08-04-2010, 01:01 PM

Drummer from Duke Jupiter sat in on a gig. He's so famous I've forgotten his name...

Easy8 · #16 08-04-2010, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guroove

I could answer that question honestly, but my soon to be ex-wife probably wouldn't appreciate me posting about it on the internet.

Fair enough

I'll play. There have been a few, but the one that really meant a lot to me was when T-Bone Walker sat in with my blues band a few weeks before he passed away in 1975.

Steve Clark · #17 08-04-2010, 01:05 PM

I did a gig with Emm Gryner in July which is cool all on it's own but Marc Jordan sat in along with Kalan Porter and sang duets with Emm. Made for a fun night.

Gard · #18 08-04-2010, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bound'n'blocked

Gard--

PLEASE tell me you played "I Cant Drive 55"!

Sorry, "Black & Blue" was the tune...we were a latin rock outfit (think Santana on steroids), so we stuck a 6/8 montuno on the back end of it. Sammy thought it was pretty killer....

....pretty much the high point of my career....

C47 · #19 08-04-2010, 05:22 PM

Was playing a musicians only benefit for the daughter of a local guitarist who'd been injured in a train accident. Gary Hoey (did a cover of Hocus Pocus in the 90's) stopped by
with his guitar and stepped in. He blew the doors off the place. Real friendly, nice guy.
Turns out he lived nearby and wanted to contribute.

modulusman · #20 08-04-2010, 05:25 PM

Bryan Adams band got up and jammed with my band back in the 80s when the album "Reckless" had just came out. We partied after the bar closed and the next day my Guitar player and I took Keith Scott fishing.