• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Unusual Rock Trivia?

Back in 1963, Johnny Rivers most requested live song became a cover of Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee", which reached #2 in July 1964. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. However, according to Elvis Presley's friend and employee, Alan Fortas, Presley played a test pressing of his rendition of "Memphis, Tennessee" for Rivers that Presley had made but not released. Rivers liked it and, much to Presley's dismay, Rivers recorded and released it, even copying the arrangement (Fortas writes: "After that, Johnny was on Elvis's s**t list" and was persona non grata from then on). Rivers' version far outsold the Chuck Berry original.



 
The Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel," (written by Gene Pitney) was their only chart-topping hit. It went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Nov. 3, 1962 -- but the group didn't actually perform the track. The Crystals were unavailable for the "He's a Rebel" recording session, so the Phil Spector-produced song was actually performed by the Darlene Love-led girl group the Blossoms, even though Spector released it under the Crystals' name.



Here is a video of The Crystals lip-synching to The Blossoms track.

 
Before forming Three Dog Night, Irish born singer/guitarist Danny Hutton had a minor hit with "Roses and Rainbows" in 1965. He was a recording artist for Hanna-Barbera Records (yes, the cartoon people) where he also sang on cartoon themed records. Hutton also sang background vocals with the power trio Beck, Bogert, & Appice on their eponymous album released in 1973. Hutton is the father of Dash Hutton, the drummer in the American rock band Haim.





 
Will Ferrell's father, Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., was a keyboardist and saxophonist for The Righteous Brothers. He toured with the band for almost 20 years. He also did his own country album that started to get play on the radio when it came out that the record label that signed him was really just set up as a tax evasion front unbeknownst to him. The record was never released.









 
Which album? I couldn't find that credit on AllMusic.com.

It's uncredited, but I have heard him mention it in an interview once, maybe that big Eagles doc that came out a few years ago. I remember him saying it when he was talking about what he did in between the end the first time and that time when Hell froze over when they reunited.

BnB
 
  • Like
Reactions: the harp unstrung
Pink Floyd fans were first treated to Dark Side of the Moon in concert more than a year before the album was actually released.

Though the lush textures and spacious arrangements of Dark Side of the Moonmake it sound like a purely "studio" project, the band actually aired out all of the songs in concert – in the exact same sequence that they would appear on the album – more than a year before the album's official release. The band premiered Dark Side of the Moon: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics (as it was provisionally known at the time) at the Brighton Dome on January 20th, 1972; and though it was inadvertently cut short that night by what Waters called "severe mechanical and electric horror," the band went on to perform the song cycle in its entirety in during the rest of their 1972 live dates, further refining the songs (and the transitions between them) as they went. The band would eventually record all 10 of the album's songs onto the same reel of 16-track master tape at Abbey Road, an unusual approach that nonetheless paid considerable artistic dividends.

"The way one track flowed into another was an extremely important part of the overall feel," Alan Parsons told Rolling Stone in 2011. "So we could work on the transitions as part of the recording process rather than just part of the mixing process."

 
More from that Rolling Stone article on Dark Side of the Moon. :)
"Money" was influenced by Booker T and the MGs.
Pink Floyd's first Top 20 hit in the U.S. (it reached Number 13 on the BillboardHot 100 in July 1973), "Money" is Dark Side's most aggressively rocking track. With its tricky 7/4 time signature (except for during the guitar-solo segment, when the song switches to 4/4), Waters' indelible bass riff, Gilmour's wailing guitar lead, a squalling solo from saxophonist Dick Parry, and a distinctive sound collage loop made up of ringing cash registers and rattling coins, the recording all but obscures its roots in the Memphis R&B of Booker T and the MGs – but they're definitely in there, according to Gilmour.
"Getting specific about how and what influenced what is always difficult," he told Rolling Stone in 2003, but I was a big Booker T fan. I had the Green Onions album when I was a teenager. And in my previous band, we were going for two or three years, and we went through Beatles and Beach Boys, on to all the Stax and soul stuff. We played 'Green Onions' onstage. I'd done a fair bit of that stuff; it was something I thought we could incorporate into our sound without anyone spotting where the influence had come from. And to me, it worked. Nice white English architecture students getting funky is a bit of an odd thought ... and isn't as funky as all that [laughs]".
 
Last edited:
Original Animals bassist Chas Chandler (born Brian James Chandler) became a talent scout, artist manager, and record producer for Jimi Hendrix and Slade. During his final tour with The Animals, Chandler saw a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix play in Cafe Wha? a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. At the time, Hendrix was performing under the name "Jimmy James". Chandler convinced James to accompany him to Britain, and he started to use his actual name and named the band The Jimi Hendrix Experience. In Britain, Chandler recruited bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell as the other members of the Experience. Chandler was a key figure in Hendrix's rise to critical and commercial success. Chandler provided the young musician with living accommodations and financed the Experience's first single "Hey Joe", before they had a recording contract. It was Chandler's idea for Hendrix to set his guitar on fire, which made national news when this idea was used at concerts. Chandler then managed and produced the British rock band Slade for twelve years, during which they achieved six number one chart hits in the UK.
 
The group called The Essex were all active U.S. Marines when they had a couple hit songs in the early 1960s including "Easier Said Than Done" (#1 U.S.) and "A Walkin' Miracle" (#12 U.S.). They also released the singles "She's Got Everything" and "What Did I Do" that did not do as well. After they were all transferred to Camp LeJune, N.C., they formed the group. Being U.S. Marines made it hard for the group to take advantage of their hits and one member quit, another was posted to Okinawa, Japan, and a third member was killed a few years after their hits.







 
Before striking it big with "Electric Avenue", "Romancing The Stone", and a string of European hits, Eddy Grant was a member of The Equals with a number of U.K. hits.













800px-The_Equals_%281968%29.jpg


latest?cb=20140416205956.jpg


Fanclub1967TheEquals.jpg