"we just happened to be recording in the same studio at the same time" contributions/collaborations

Apparently Duran Duran were recording in the same studio as Unrest when the latter were making Perfect Teeth, popped his head in for about 2 minutes out of curiosity and thus received a producer credit on "Cath Carroll."

Er, forgot to mention that it was Simon LeBon popping his head in!

Stefan Grappelli was at Abbey Rd when Pink Floyd were recording WYWH, and before the box set came out nobody had heard his contribution, although there were stories that it was in the mix but imperceptibly quiet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p98UZxdlKRM

Beach Boys b-vox on Chicago "Wishing You Were Here"

xpost I always thought it was a bit hard that they didn't let Syd add something when he was up for doing it.

Maybe they thought he'd take it as being back in the band, or suchlike...

Bruce Springsteen's verse on "Street Hassle".

Good one! My brane is hurting because none of these will surface at the moment.

DONOVAN: I was working in Morgan Studios. Morgan Studios, by then in London, in Wellston, had become the place to record. I was making Cosmic Wheels upstairs and I'd heard that there was this American rock band down below, and I'd seen Alice Cooper on album covers but I'd never seen his show. And I was fascinated—I went down to introduce myself.

I walked in and there was a guitar player in the band at that time who really looked like a Keith Richards clone, like a kind of bedraggled Gypsy pirate, and he was playing these sort of Stonesy type riffs, and I liked that. So I introduced myself and I said, 'What are you doing?' and Alice said, 'We're doing this, it's called 'Billion Dollar Babies.' Now Alice actually was exhibiting a kind of a British mad humor in his songs, a kind of off-the-wall, bizarre, absurd sort of way of presenting his songs—totally tongue-in-cheek, but lots of people would take them serious, as if he was really dark and really evil and really moody. He was the sweetest guy. And when I heard 'Billion Dollar Babies,' it sounded very much like, very much like that Beatles cover, which was rejected—where the Beatles are on the cover with all these dolls with broken heads and broken arms—what you call Dada, surrealism, a very well-accepted-in-the-art-world form of expression. And here was 'Billion Dollar Babies' coming out, a sort of a horror story song. And then he said, 'Would you like to put a vocal on?' And I said, 'Sure.' 'Well, go on and get in there.' And I said, 'All right. I think I know the chorus.' And I went in and I realized the only place I could go was in falsetto. So I went straight into falsetto and sang: 'billion dollar babies.' And so I was getting off—loving it! And when it was recorded, Alice said, 'That's fantastic!' And then it was released, and then it became number one and nobody knew that I was half the vocal of Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Interview with Ian Hunter:

One rocker you wrote in 1970 was “Walking with A Mountain,” which ends with you guys singing the chorus from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” How did that come about?

We were in Olympic Studios in the big room, and the Stones were in the little room. Jagger just walked in one day and danced around to the song. They had a lot of down time because they would stay in the studio for weeks. We were in awe of that. We had to watch the clock.

xp: that's adorable.

One of Devo claimed that Jagger came into the studio "drunk" while they were recording "Satisfaction", but I highly doubt it (not the drunkness).

I feel like I know dozens of these, but can't think of any. The ones that come to mind I'd need to research to confirm the "just happened..." aspect, versus "the same person was producing both of our records and asked us to come by." Example: Phoebe Snow shows up on Billy Joe's "Everybody Has a Dream," but I don't really know if it just happened, or if Phil Ramone asked her to come in to punch up the track.

"My Dark Hour" by Steve Miller:

The track "My Dark Hour" featured Paul McCartney (credited as "Paul Ramon") on backing vocals, drums, guitar and bass guitar, and he performed additional backing vocals on "Celebration Song". "My Dark Hour" was recorded in a late-night session on May 9, 1969 after an acrimonious argument between McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr over signing a contract appointing Allen Klein as The Beatles' financial manager. Lennon, Harrison and Starr walked out, while McCartney remained at Olympic Studios. Miller was the only member of the band to attend the session, and the song emerged from him and McCartney jamming.

I think it was a similar situation with McCartney and Wings doing backing vocals on Roy Harper's "One of Those Days in England", but I can't find any stories about it.

Steve Howe:

Lou Reed, “Ride Into the Sun” (1972)
I remember very, very little about this. Yes was recording at Morgan Studios at the time. It was a brand new 24-track studio and, of course, it was always a hubbub of activity since there were other studios. Rick [ Wakeman ] and I just got invited to go play. I must say, from memory, what happened is we walked just to see and Lou was like, “We’re going to play you these three or four songs and then we’re going to go play them. Alright?”
They were clear enough demos to grasp the structure and things. Basically, we went out there and it was the old recording method where everybody played at once. My guitars were across the road, so I plugged in and it was an interesting day’s work. It didn’t have any follow-up. It was just a one-off, which was great. Lou was quite charming and he knew what he was doing.

Howe's solo on that is amazing.

I never listened to the album because I assumed it would be a big letdown from the VU versions of some of the songs. Just giving it a go and he changes “Shelley” to “Candy” in “I Can’t Stand It”!

wow I never knew that re: Howe

Yeah, he's a definite pro in adapting his playing so well to the kind of gig he was doing on such short notice (at the same time that he was recording Tales from Topographic Oceans!), while still managing to sound like himself.xps

Hmm, the dates on Wikipedia indicate that Yes was between albums:

Fragile: August and September 71
Lou Reed: December 71 and January 72
Close to the Edge: February to June 72

Hm, fwiw they don't give a source for the Lou Reed dates and they'd only have to be a month off to work - however both of those Yes albums were apparently recorded at Advision. I think only Tales was done at Morgan and that postdates the Reed sessions. Odd.

This was the source of the quote fwiw: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/steve-howe-interview-songs-without-yes-1028737/

Wakeman's Six Wives of Henry VIII WAS recorded at Morgan starting in early 72, though, and Howe also plays on that.

There's a bit of Roy Harper s "One of those days in England" the side-long suite that sounds like Paul McCartney and Wings rocking out - the "Mrs Space" bit

Circling back to Lou Reed... I forgot "Wild Child" is on this LP (I know the song well from the best-of tape I wore out as a kid). Such a great track!

"Guilty" backing vocals - Jesus & Mary Chain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gwiInUNf_s

Paul Weller on PGs 'And Through The Wire':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDHpbZ_0n6E

Steve Howe: “I was in Montreux, and Queen were recording at Mountain Studios—the same studio where we made Going For The One. I go in, and they played me the whole album, but they saved ‘Innuendo’ until last. I was incredibly blown away. They said, ‘We want you to play on that. Why don’t you race around like Paco de Lucía?’ Brian May had three Gibson Chet Atkins, which are Spanish guitars. I found one I liked, we started doing takes, we tried different approaches, and then we went to dinner. After dinner, we went back to the studio, listened through, and comped together what you hear today. It was just a lovely experience with a lovely bunch of guys.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2N0TkfrQhY

Huh, I don't think I've heard that song before. No one told me Queen did a Zeppelin pastiche with a classical guitar solo by Steve Howe.

Yup and Robert Plant kinda murdered it at the Freddie Tribute Concert

Oh the 1992 Wembley Stadium thing? I definitely watched that on TV at the time so I guess I have heard it before.

xpost yeah, straight to number one that one, first time for donkeys years I'd found a Queen song interesting.

Not heard it since, though. A bit like "Paranoid Android" iirc.

Think it knocked 'Bring You Daughter To The Slaughter' off number 1, so most likely a quiet January thing

I don't think it charted here.

I saw it a fair bit on MuchMusic, more than any of the other Innuendo singles.