Artists/bands that were once quite popular, yet nowadays are mostly ignored in canonical history books

Impossible TO ignore, I mean

Went to Russia, didn't he?
Well, that'd do it. The Lloyd/Jarrett dynamic is kind of like the Spencer Davis/Steve Winwood situation, where the supposed sideman turned out to be the star.

Engelbert Humperdinck is a good example of a once-popular artist who is now ignored in the canonical history books, whatever those are. Even among comparable schlagers of the day, it's Tom Jones who continues to resonate. And rightly so -- please god call me home before the Humperdinckian reappraisal takes place.

Um, "Lesbian Seagull"?

(aargh, now posting from beyond the grave)

gay dad
terris

oh wait "popular" ;)

America

James Taylor

Acker Bilk

That's Mister Acker Bilk to you.

The Seekers

Jim Reeves

Anyone hailed as "the new Hendrix" after Hendrix died, viz. Alvin Lee, Robin Trower, Frank Marino.

Ditto, sundry new Dylans

Roy Harper doesn't get spoken of a lot these days - less than Nick Drake or John Martyn, f'rinstance

Three Dog Night

Herman's Hermits for the win.

Humble Pie, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Greenslade, Curved Air, Focus, Bad Company.

I was listening to Focus just this weekend!

The Judds

Three Dog Night

-- kornrulez6969, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:29 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^

first thing i thought of when i saw this thread

Lloyd Cole

The Commotions

Deacon Blue

The Judds Good one -- they're like notch-babies, slipping thru between the before and after. They weren't minor artists by any means -- I was reading some mid-80s Country Music mags recently that put their hugeness into perspective. Bet they scored high with Pazz & Jop types, too. Maybe Wynonna's inability to score equally huge solo chipped away at their retroactive cred.

Pie, Ash, Heep, et al -- those groups still get props from hard-heads. More of a cult for that than for comparable pub-rock acts, I'd say.

Paul Anka

Nazareth

Huh, I was listening to Charles Lloyd just last night!

The Kingston Trio were insanely popular from about 1958-62.

I hope the guy above was kidding about Bad Co. Just listen to NYC classic rock radio, and you'll hear them at least 5 times a day.

Mott The Hoople?

No way

Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine...

Gaye Bykers On Acid
Zodiac Mindwarp

BUT everyone loves Zodie!

Deacon Blue

Deacon Blue were popular, but they weren't popular with the people who write canonical history. kind of like Simply Red.

Suzanne Vega maybe?

Does anyone care about The KLF anymore?

George Michael will soon be an answer to this.

Outhere Brothers, a textbook example here.

Alabama

Moody Blues

everything Felix Pappalardi was involved in

someone mentioned Steve Winwood: Traffic

Dunno that they are ignored. His solo stuff is.

Alfred OTM on Alabama: I have their For The Record: 41 Number One Hits 2-cd set, and if that's right, that's a staggeringly successful run (the Judds had something like 13 straight number ones for comparison). Yet they don't come up much these days.

Lionel Richie also comes to mind here.

Gary Lewis and the Playboys. 17 top 40 hits!

If you listened to the radio, you would think BOC had at most three songs in their catalog, when in reality those songs are not representative of how great they were. So I nominate them.

barbara mandrell

also i think garth brooks has a suprisingly low profile even today considering that he was the most dominant commercial artist of the 1990s...didn't he break some beatles records? but even now it seems like dudes like alan jackson have more cred in country circles.

I think Alan Jackson's continuing productivity gives him more visibility right now than Garth, who mostly keeps putting out greatest hits collections. But still, yeah, Garth is a good pick. Although as we dig into the country crates, we're starting to run up against the fact that the canonical history books we're (sorta) talking about are pretty rock-focused. Because straight-up country canons give Garth a big place still.

The Wonder Stuff

Chris Thomas had produced for Procul Harum and Badfinger

And the peak Roxy Music albums, For Your Pleasure through Siren!

Wondered how Elton’s name got in there.

Meant to include Roxy Music as one of Thomas' repeat production clients, too.

xp!

Barack Obama has War’s “All Day Music” on his 2020 Summer Playlist. Case closed, I guess.

All this talk about The Alarm, and no mention of The Poppy Fields? Thought it was a pretty good stunt...

In an interview with BBC News Online, Mike Peters said "The Alarm, most famous for their 1983 hit '68 Guns', were not always taken seriously by DJs" because of a combination of the age of the band's members and a perception that their image was outdated. Peters said, "The Alarm as an entity have been going for 20-odd years and history can go against you – we wanted to break the barrier down." He continued by saying that "The Alarm members wanted to stir up the water a little bit, break the mould" and have the song judged on its own merits and musical value, instead of judgement being based on the perception of the band. Peters told The Guardian: "We noticed that a lot of bands suffer when they attempt comebacks because people generally don't believe they can ever be as good as they once were. We wanted to make sure we are judged purely on the strength of the music, and not by our old hairstyles."

With The Alarm's decision to perpetrate the hoax, Mike Peters gained the cooperation of a group of young musicians from Chester called the Wayriders to lip-sync The Alarm's material and pass it off as their own. The first release by the fictitious band was promoted as a cover of The Alarm's 1983 hit, "68 Guns". In fact it was The Alarm all along, and instead of a cover, it was a re-released version. The demo enticed executives in music production to record an album from the band called In The Poppy Fields which saw its advance release of the single, "45 RPM" entering Britain's top 30 chart. Critical reviews of the band echoed the promoters' official introduction of the band as a tribute to bands like Sex Pistols, and The Clash, with even more modern acts like Rancid being compared. The truth of the song's origin was not revealed until after the song entered the charts at number 24, a credit originally earned by The Poppy Fields from unsuspecting patrons who had accepted the act as fresh and new

True story: so I heard "Rain in the Summertime" a few times on the radio around 1987 and was mildly surprised when I got The Joshua Tree and it wasn't on there. Then I found out.

Meant to include Roxy Music as one of Thomas' repeat production clients, too.

And INXS!!

Not until a decade later, though.

Later on, The Alarm dude did this with a pop punk song no better or worse than his glory-ish days output.

In February 2004, Peters' new line-up of Alarm MM++ carried out a hoax on the British music industry by issuing "45 RPM" under the fictitious name The Poppy Fields. Peters, having garnered positive feedback for the song, decided to disassociate it from his veteran band to have it judged on its own merits, and recruited a young Welsh group called the Wayriders to lip-sync the song in the video.[4] The so-called Poppy Fields took "45 RPM" into the UK Top 30 before the hoax was revealed, setting the stage for the album In the Poppy Fields.

How many times did he successfully pull off this "45 RPM" by The Poppy Fields as played by The Wayriders hoax?!

you tell me...

Hearing good things about this new band on Yellow Kid Records tbh

Isn't that trick (a younger more photogenic band miming to a track by oldsters) used in the video for Blues Traveler's "Run-Around"?

also The Killers in the video for Crystal by New Order. actively pretending to be a non-existent band on the release is a different thing though

Isn't that trick (a younger more photogenic band miming to a track by oldsters) used in the video for Blues Traveler's "Run-Around"?

It's used quite often:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbrtS8E0kpY

Paul Revere and the Raiders

― Cunga, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:19 PM (twelve years ago)

Paul Revere & the Raiders

― dracula et son fils (morrisp), Monday, October 28, 2019 10:54 AM (ten months ago)

this too, if maybe mostly for sheer quantity

Manfred Mann

― dracula et son fils (morrisp), Monday, October 28, 2019 9:32 PM (ten months ago)