Second Banana Syndrome: Members of a group that would have been the main attraction had s/he not had the misfortune of being in a group with a bonafide genius, visionary and / or natural-born star

I'll begin:

Elvin Bishop
Dickey Betts
McCoy Tyner
Cannonball Adderley
Phife Dawg

ha, this post always stuck in my head re: Phife

Phife is totally one the best obviously-not-the-best-rapper-in-his-group rappers of all time

― ethnic slizzur (some dude), Friday, November 19, 2010 12:42 AM (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's true! But he totally could have led his own group and been successful, which is more than you can say about, say, MC Ren or PMD or 5ft Accelerator or...

oh yes, I don't disagree that he could have been successful even without Q-Tip

maybe Neil Innes in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band? though I think his and Vivian Stanshall's material complimented each other nicely. but definitely some of the "clever, talented craftsman" vs "one of a kind genius" factor

Ronnie Lane, second fiddle in both the Small Faces and Faces.

Stacy Sutherland, 13th Floor Elevators

Oates

Dave Davies.

Rowland S Howard
Richard Lloyd
Peter Tosh
Brian Eno

who all went solo after being eclipsed in the bands they first came to recognition with

Should have added John Cale to that too
& trying to think who got the most recognition in the MC5. Cos at least both guitarists did great solo stuff after leaving.

Richard Lloyd

― Stevolende, Sunday, September 4, 2016 3:45 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

I want to say Mick Jones, but I don't think the Clash would have gotten far without his songwriting.

Chris Bell, maybe, but I don't know that the early Big Star received enough attention for him to be eclipsed, exactly.

For years I avoided "Love" and Arthur Lee's genius, based on how the best known song of theirs was sung and written by Bryan MacLean. (OK, joint sung..)

Colin Moulding
James Honeyman-Scott
Paul Banks

that lesbian with the guitar in The Birthday Party

^^^
Kind of a weird and unnecessary way to describe Rowland

Alex Lifeson

Actually, come to think of it Lifeson is more of a third banana in Rush. If he'd been the lead guitarist in pretty much any other hard rock band, he'd easily be the star attraction, but in Rush he's outshone by not only Peart, but Geddy too.

Jim Glaser (of Tompall and the Glaser Brothers)--easily as good as Tompall, just not as much of a blowhard

Nobody else is gonna agree with me about Spiral Stairs but Spiral Stairs

John Gilmore. Fantastic tenor saxophonist who never got half the recognition he should have because he only made one or two albums outside of Sun Ra's band.

Mike Cooley seems to fit this well.

Nobody else is gonna agree with me about Spiral Stairs but Spiral Stairs

This was a long-held belief of mine until it was debunked by the Preston School albums.

Grant Hart

This was a long-held belief of mine until it was debunked by the Preston School albums.

Oh good point, I forgot this theory had actually been tested! (I haven't listened to those albums, perhaps it's best I remain bunked in this matter)

I sort of want to say McCartney

Jeff Tweedy in Uncle Tupelo

grant hart otm

Prince Po in Organized Konfusion.

Cannonball Adderly made many more solo records than records with Miles Davis, and even had a hit of sorts with Mercy Mercy. This thread doesn't work that well with jazzmen unless you're talking about really long running working groups , and I can't think of any that fit.

and Miles was reduced to sideman status on his Somethin' Else album.

big boi

Lloyd Banks

This is kind of why Jonathan Meiburg left Okkervil River and became the main focus of Shearwater (which had previously been a joint thing between him and Will Sheff)

John Gilmore. Fantastic tenor saxophonist who never got half the recognition he should have because he only made one or two albums outside of Sun Ra's band.

Gilmore made more than one or two albums away from Ra, but never as a band leader (Wiki credits him as co-leader w/ Clifford Jordan on the Blowing in from Chicago album.)

gilmore to me highlights the problems with this sort of thinking. some people just aren't _comfortable_ as leaders. sun ra's last recording, for instance, was supposed to be a john gilmore date with sun ra as a sideman, but john backed out of it.

vicki peterson

chris hillman

BYrds had several didn't they. Gene Clark , David Crosby, Gram Parsons.
THough not sure to what extent McGuinn eclipsed Clark. I think Gene was the one getting the songwriting royalties early on and driving around in a much better vehicle than his bandmates.

vicki peterson

― Thus Sang Freud, Monday, September 5, 2016 6:31 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. Ive been saying this for years! Not that she was overshadowed by Hoffs, necessarily (though she was), but that she is way underrated.

This thread doesn't work that well with jazzmen unless you're talking about really long running working groups , and I can't think of any that fit.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Monday, September 5, 2016 2:56 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you not agree that McCoy Tyner fits the bill? I don't know any of his albums as a leader, yet when I hear him play, I always think "goddamn, that guy's got it," you know? Guess I should eventually listen to one of his albums.

only tyner record i've heard is inner voices, and it is a JAM. i should probably listen to some of his others- he's got lots as a leader and they tend to be pretty acclaimed.

Lou Barlow

lou barlow in dinosaur jr

xpost lol

xpost
There are lots of very good Tyner albs under his own name - his first Blue Note rec as a leader, The Real McCoy, is a stone classic, and recognised as such.

John Gilmore. Fantastic tenor saxophonist who never got half the recognition he should have because he only made one or two albums outside of Sun Ra's band.

^^^^^^^^

Great McCoy Tyner albums:

The Real McCoy
Tender Moments (does NOT live up to its title - it's a nonet session, not a ballad date, and it rips)
Asante
Extensions (with Alice Coltrane!)
Sahara

i'm listening to "supertrios" right now. it's some hot shit, "consensus" in particular.

Inception! One of my favorite piano trio records.

why would anyone listen to solo beatles albums

bcz they rule

give my regards to broad street

why would anyone listen to solo beatles albums

Alex Lifeson is really the best example of this. How many others trios are there where the guitarist is the least recognizable/least acclaimed?

^^The Police, maybe.

In that Sting is STING and Stewart Copeland is a frequently cited influence by drummers of a certain age.

Huw 'Bunf' Bunford

Jon Venables

Simon Quinlank

xps Good call on The Police, exact same situation.

I'd argue The Meters have the same situation (the guitarist being the least acclaimed member). Certainly it's a rare case where the drummer is clearly the biggest star of the band; other such cases usually have the drummer singing too.

see also: gtr-bass-drums bands where the sole guitarist is the least visible and/or 'important' member

Benjamin Orr
also, I think either John Deacon or Roger Taylor from Queen might qualify

Eno was forced out of Roxy Music because he had essentially become the main attraction of Roxy Music by the release of For Your Pleasure (Ferry took the hump at punters chanting for Eno during gigs and laid down a 'him or me' ultimatum to the band). I don't believe in genius but if I did I've have no hesitation in calling Eno one. And he was clearly the premier visionary - in musical terms at least - in Roxy Music. Ferry being more of a great entertainer/conceptualist/singer. (Ferry may well be a natural born star I will concede though.)

Whoops, sorry about the double Roxy in the first sentence above. Past my bed time.

Don Cherry

Ferry being more of a great entertainer/conceptualist/singer.

... songwriter.

If he'd been the lead guitarist in pretty much any other hard rock band, he'd easily be the star attraction, but in Rush he's outshone by not only Peart, but Geddy too.

Agree that this is a great answer but, man, every solo on side 1 of Moving Pictures is a masterpiece.

xp... yeah, songwriter as well - you're right. Although his songs tended to be fleshed out quite heavily by an uncredited roxy music. I believe his song writing style on the piano involved playing chords of two notes. Still, a better songwriter than most.

But I wonder if it's another case where he was so good because of the group dynamic he was playing within. xp

Brad Delp?

lee ranaldo (kinda)

This one's kinda hard for me because I don't really think of his style as being extremely distinct from Moore's, except in that Ranaldo plays lead on the occasions where SY go for a lead/rhythm dynamic (which is not most of the time). SY's guitar sound is such a two-part thing for me, to the point where Spin gave them double-billing as the 'greatest guitarist of all time'.

xp Definitely Brad Delp.

Benjamin Orr

I was thinking about Orr, but idk - Ocasek wrote pretty much all of the Cars songs (though Orr co-wrote the songs on his one solo album, along with someone called Diane Grey Page), Easton was the virtuoso guitar hero
I guess Orr seems like a more natural frontman than Ocasek in some ways, I like the way that the Cars' straddling of classic rock and weirdo synthy new wave is kind of embodied in the appearance of their two singers. (it's also notable that on some songs Orr would sing in a more straightforward classic rock style, like "Let's Go". and on others he sings in a different style that sounds a lot more like Ocasek, like on "You Can't Hold On Too Long")

imo the best solo Cars record is Elliot Easton's Change No Change, all co-written with Jules Shear, but I don't think Easton would have been a massive star on his own

Delp's voice is so amazing, you could swap him into any random semi-competent band and elevate them to hitmaker status. Did he have any 'star' presence at all in their heyday? Just thinking that if a lead singer can't manage to be seen as the "star" of a band (even one so tied up in a 'one man mastermind' kind of narrative as Boston), they might manage to end up second banana no matter where you put them.

i don't want to diminish eno's contributions to roxy music, but it is true that ferry wrote all the songs on the first two albums, and eno wrote nothing- and also that roxy music got _better_, in terms of songwriting, after eno left, and eno agrees with this. ferry might well have been miffed that eno, a self-admitted non-musician, was getting all the credit for dressing outlandishly and playing little synthesizer whoops while ferry did all the actual work (though this is the sort of accusation that only ever seems to come out as unsourced rumours), but if true, it would at least be understandable.

John Entwistle was a fantastic bassist and you have to wonder if The Who would have given a bit more effort to some of his songs that they could have been a bit more popular. After Tommy's success, there really wasn't room for singles for Entwistle's tunes as things got centered LPs and the building of the next big concept album in 'Lifehouse'. Because of this one of Entwistle's best songs in the Who "Heaven and Hell" never really got a proper and great single recording, which if done right as a single in the late 60s, it perhaps could have been a hit. I don't think Entwistle would have been big as a lead singer as he really wasn't as distinctive as Daltrey or Townsend and his solo records he didn't have the rest of The Who to back him up either. I do think some of Entwistle's tunes on the later Who albums are some of the stronger songs on the records.

Lee Ranaldo kind of got a bit of a similar short straw as 'Heaven and Hell' in Sonic Youth as to me I can't figure why 'Genetic' was not on the Dirty album, let alone perhaps be considered as a single as it is pretty catchy in a pop way that most SY is not. Maybe too pop and the couple called the shots.

(the guitarist being the least acclaimed member)

Arguably, this was also the case with James Brown's most celebrated bands. We all know the drummers (Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield), a bassist (Bootsy), and a couple of horn players (saxophonist Maceo Parker, trombonist Fred Wesley). But guitarist Jimmy Nolen seems the least well-known, despite creating a new language for the electric guitar, starting with "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."

(I'm not arguing that Nolen would've been a star if it weren't for James; just that, as a guitarist, he doesn't seem to have garnered the same level of acclaim as some of Brown's other musicians.)

Lee Ranaldo kind of got a bit of a similar short straw as 'Heaven and Hell' in Sonic Youth as to me I can't figure why 'Genetic' was not on the Dirty album, let alone perhaps be considered as a single as it is pretty catchy in a pop way that most SY is not. Maybe too pop and the couple called the shots.

This sparked a major conflict within the band, actually, as discussed on pp 240-242 here and summarized here. The couple and their Geffen guy wanted to cut "Genetic", giving reasons such as that it didn't fit with the other songs or that in Thurston's opinion, the band wasn't a forum for Ranaldo to work out his personal issues (!). Ranaldo thought he was being George Harrison-ed and grew pretty resentful.

I don't love it as much as some fans do, being partial to "Wish Fulfilment" myself, but idk maybe they could have kept it instead of one of the songs in the back half. It did get a network TV spot via My So-Called Life back when people watched network TV.

you have to wonder if The Who would have given a bit more effort to some of his songs that they could have been a bit more popular.

Hendrix said that "Boris the Spider" was his favorite Who song. He may or may not have been trying to get a dig in at Townshend ("You know what my favorite Who song is? The one you didn't write!"), but that song was pretty much the heaviest thing anyone had done up to that point.

I don't know if "Heaven and Hell" could've been a hit, as it had so much solo space. But as a live piece, it showed that Entwistle understood as much as (or more than) anyone else in the Who what made them great. His solo recording of it, on Smash Your Head Against the Wall, was half the tempo and not particularly hit-seeming (though it's not without its charm).

I don't think Entwistle would have been big as a lead singer as he really wasn't as distinctive as Daltrey or Townsend and his solo records he didn't have the rest of The Who to back him up either.

His first solo tour, in 1975, lost $75,000. In the late '90s, he went out-of-pocket to keep his band on the road pretty much until he died. He just wanted to play Who songs (and some of his solo songs) live, and didn't care how much debt he went into (which was massive -- to settle his UK tax after he died, his son had to auction John's house along with his various collections of guitars, stuffed fish, medieval armor, and stage clothes).

MC Ren did in fact the group NWA through what many consider their best overall album without Ice Cube

carry the group

xxxxxxxp - Does anyone - bar Eno and Ferry of course - really think that Stranded is a better album than For Your Pleasure though, *all* things considered? I always felt Eno's professed preference for Stranded can be read in a lot of different ways. Plenty of musicians can't stand to listen to albums they've worked hard on after the fact. It also strikes me as a typically generous and placatory thing for him to say. And what kind of dobber would play the, 'The only two good albums Roxy did were the two I appeared on' card anyway? I like most of Roxy's post-Eno catalogue, genuinely (including Stranded), it's just that it all pales compared to Warm Jets, Tiger Mountain, Another Green World, Apollo, Ambient 4 etc. (and that's before we get to the collaborations)... for me at least. He sure went on to put those little synthesizer whoops to good use. Roxy without Ferry is unthinkable, Roxy without Eno, obviously not but it still doesn't really feel like Bry massively outshone Bri to any great degree or put any kind of crimp in him starting and ending the 70s as an incredibly important *and* still relatively popular musician.

xp You mean Efil4zaggin?? I think of the three MCs on that record -- Dre, Eazy, and Ren -- Ren is still the weakest (and Dre is no one's idea of a great MC). Not to say he isn't an important member of the group, it's just difficult to imagine anyone being all "Ren really killed it on 'Approach To Danger.'" He's functional, but not great imo. See also: Shock Of The Hour, Kizz My Black Azz, etc.

xp i remember sometime in the 90s ferry saying (in mojo iirc) that he considered for your pleasure their best album, that it was the "most complete" or something like that.

Wimmels Ren wrote the rhymes for all three on that record

Xp

Wimmels Ren wrote the rhymes for all three on that record

Xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, September 5, 2016 5:09 PM (one minute ago)

Nah, The DOC was the chief ghostwriter on EFIL4ZIGGAN

Ah couldnt recall if DOC was still around at that pt

nat adderley (or zawinul) probably a better example than cannonball

His first solo tour, in 1975, lost $75,000.

i saw that show! calderone concert hall. the internet tells me it was 3/26/75. there was, like, no one there. it was earthshakingly loud, is about all i remember.

You got to think The Who perhaps had other plans eventually for "Heaven and Hell" as they opened with it live for a couple years and it didn't end up on the original Live at Leeds. Never know if "Heaven and Hell" and "Naked Eye" would have been put out as a 2LP version of Live at Leeds in 1970 at the time they would have become classic rock nuggets like "Young Man Blues".

Another angle to take on this threads question would be to look at bands that lost a member to death that took a perhaps a different pathway because of their loss. I'd think Metallica's story would be quite a bit different if Cliff Burton didn't die in the wreck, if nothing else, there probably would have been bass on And Justice for All. I'd think Terry Kath's death probably took out the last of the rock guitar out of Chicago's music and left the mike for Peter Cetera to become the primary lead singer.

I'm sure getting the short shrift from guitarists in Sabbath and Rainbow definitely was the reason Ronnie James Dio named his band after himself...after all kinda hard to get fired from the band when it's named after you. And after Dio had success, he really did not let the sidemen share the cash and/or credit according to what I have read. Ozzy was even more mercenary in his solo career, which according to some started as a band and evolved to the singer's name prominent once the record came out. Same time period and David Coverdale probably needs to thank his bank book that he did the two albums with John Sykes, even though he fired him before touring the second album came out when he started to sell out stadiums. I'm sure this is of the same angst from earlier dealings with Blackmore etc.

But guitarist Jimmy Nolen seems the least well-known, despite creating a new language for the electric guitar, starting with "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.
n

--Nolen was with JB for only five years and died in 1983. Most Brown fans know him, but probably lower profile than Clyde or Fred or Maceo in the greater world. Shoulda been at least as big a solo star as Little Beaver...

Wimmels Ren wrote the rhymes for all three on that record

Xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, September 5, 2016 5:09 PM (one minute ago)

Nah, The DOC was the chief ghostwriter on EFIL4ZIGGAN

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, September 5, 2016 8:13 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post P

Didn't know this!

Ren and DOC always shared writing for Dre it's easy to tell who wrote what

In any case disagree strongly to me Efil is Ren's record, AND I think his stuff like If it Ain't Ruff is way undervalued on Compton

Also Shockm of the Hour is the super great

Godamnit this sucks I can't even believe someone would say Ren is bad

No one's saying that! But there's no way he could have carried a group any more than PMD or Sen Dog could have (ok that last one was a cheap shot)

And I really like Efil4zaggin, and want to go back to it now and try to figure out what Dre verses were written by DOC and which were written by Ren. I'm assuming DOC was still ghostwriting for Dre on The Chronic, since he appears on that album (which makes the "like my nigga DOC: No One Can Do It Better" line pretty funny, if DOC wrote it about himself)

i saw that show! calderone concert hall. the internet tells me it was 3/26/75. there was, like, no one there. it was earthshakingly loud, is about all i remember.

― Thus Sang Freud, Monday, September 5, 2016 8:37 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, no way! From what I've read, the tour was a mix of empty headlining venues and arena slots opening for Humble Pie. Also, the guitarist in Entwistle's band imitated Townshend's stage moves, upstaging John in his own band.