famous bands (or significant portions thereof) who backed up a solo artist or were absorbed into an existing band for a single album: the thread

Like this:

The Buggles on Yes's 90125
Pearl Jam on Neil Young's Mirrorball
The Dirty Two-Thirds on Cat Power's Moon Pix
Clover (aka most of the News, of 'Huey Lewis and the' fame) on Elvis Costello's My Aim is True

GO!

Okkervil River were Roky Erickson's backing band on True Love Cast Out All Evil.

The Band obv

Most of Slint backed up Will Oldham early on

A side-project, but REM backing Warren Zevon

I guess single songs might be acceptable here as well (eg REM on Liz Phair's 'Fantasize'). Although that might make things unwieldy mighty quick.

little feat on john cale's paris 1919

Grateful Dead on David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name
Dungen on Melody's Echo Chamber's Bon Voyage
Lots of Tropicalia/MPB, e.g. Os Mutantes on Gilberto Gil's 1968 self-titled ablum, and Marcos Valle's respective albums backed by O Terço and Azimuth

too bad no other VU members ever did an album with a famous band

I think Drama is the Yes album that was more Buggles-absorbent. 90125 had but one Buggle, Trevor Horn (as producer, not as a band member).

xpost also Little Feat on Akiko Yano's Japanese Girl

i see you president keyes

The Dirty Three have been a backing band for Nick Cave and Bonnie Prince Billy, among others

non-Stipe REM backed up Zevon iirc.

I think Drama is the Yes album that was more Buggles-absorbent. 90125 had but one Buggle, Trevor Horn (as producer, not as a band member).

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, June 5, 2019 11:00 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you. Just wanted to throw some half-remembered examples out there to get this thing rolling, secure in the knowledge that y'all would eventually correct my wild + irresponsible misstatements.

Speaking of Bonnie Prince Billy, The Brave and the Bold with Tortoise.

Labelle backing Laura Nyro

Jerry Lee Lewis backed by the Nashville Teens, Live at the Star Club Hamburg

Wonder if Nick Lowe and those masked surf rockers count.

I’m guessing President Keyes was referring to Loutallica, but didn’t the Blue Orchids play on a Nico album?

YMO all played on Akiko Yano's ごはんができたよ (Gohan ga Dekitayo) LP in 1980, I have the feeling there's several hundred more examples of them doing something like this but I'm not trawling all the way through Discogs to find out.

The whole soulquarians era has a whole bunch of The Roots on albums by D’Angelo, Badu, Common, etc

Toto on about half of Thriller

The Small Faces as the backing band for P.P. Arnold on "If You Think You're Groovy":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMuE5hAADRs

Dunno how/if this would count, but the then-Who (Townshend, Entwistle, Kenney Jones) as backing band for Roger Daltrey on most of the McVicar soundtrack, billed as a Daltrey solo album.

Linda Ronstadt backed by the Eagles on her 3rd album

Three Beatles backing up Jackie Lomax on "Sour Milk Sea."

Dunno how/if this would count, but the then-Who (Townshend, Entwistle, Kenney Jones) as backing band for Roger Daltrey on most of the McVicar soundtrack, billed as a Daltrey solo album.

Kinda similar to the Dead backing Bob Weir on his first solo alb?

Alternatively, all of Led Zeppelin before they became Led Zeppelin playing on PJ Proby's Three Week Hero?

Sleater-Kinney backing the Go-Betweens on The Friends of Rachel Worth.

Midlake on John Grant's solo debut.

Rockpile on that Charlene Carter album and Mickey Jupp's Juppanese.

The Heartbreakers w/Johnny Cash.

The Meters AND Little Feat on the first three Robert Palmer lps.

Nucleus graduually became the Soft machine

Soft machine backed Syd Barret on solo stuff

Gun Club/Fur Bible backed Legendary Stardust cowboy on a tour in the uk in 1985, sans jeffrey lee pierce of course.

I think the band on the live Foetus lp Rife was the band touring as the Swans at about the same time.

Kaleidoscope (US) back Leonard cohen on several tracks on his first lp

band backing Gordon Jackson on Thinking Back is a mix of all of Traffic and several of Family

The Heartbreakers on Roger McGuinn's Back From Rio.

P-Funk did this multiple times obviously -U.S. Soul, the JBs, Madhouse

Funkadelic backed the Temptations and Chairmen of the Board etc

I guess Henry Cow and Slapp Happy belong here, but I don't know the exact nature of how they crossed over.

Wilco backing Scott McCaughey on the Minus 5 Down with Wilco album, and backing Billy Bragg on many tracks of Mermaid Avenue (though sort of credited as the title artist)

Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit were on the first Eurythmics album plus some other records, although by that point Can were finished and they were kind of the Sly n' Robbie of Krautrock anyway.

Faust on Tony Conrad's Outside The Dream Syndicate

Can on the debut album by Alex (Wiska) - Czukay/Liebezeit, to be exact, with Karoli on one track.

... 1973?

Kaleidoscope (US) back Leonard cohen on several tracks on his first lp

!! I did not know this

Idiot Flesh/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum nucleus is also the backing band on early Charming Hostess material (which rules btw)

Love And Rockets as backup band for The Jazz Butcher

I guess since I started the thread I'm at liberty to broaden the purview and will do so now to include famous bands which morphed, in a more permanent way, into other famous bands (eg Joy Division > New Order, The Ants > Bow Wow Wow) if only because I know you boffins will come up with more archaic examples that will blow my mind.

Drive-By Truckers were the band for Bettye LaVette album The Scene of the Crime

Spoon backed up Sally Crewe on Drive it Like You Stole It.

I guess since I started the thread I'm at liberty to broaden the purview and will do so now to include famous bands which morphed, in a more permanent way, into other famous bands (eg Joy Division > New Order, The Ants > Bow Wow Wow)

Related: Bands sucking other entire bands into themselves

This thread

One of my favorite shows ever was Elliott Smith with Quasi. I want to say ...Quasi played first, as the usual duo, then he joined them on bass, then they backed him for his set?

Tony Levin wouldn't actually join King Crimson until 1981 or so, but both him and Fripp are on the Roches 1979 debut.

The Fripp/Levin connection probably started in 1978 on Peter Gabriel's 2nd album.

The Jayhawks back Joe Henry on 'Short Man's Room', also there's Vic Chestnutt's 'Salesman and Bernadette' where he's backed by Lambchop.

Thank you! I knew Lambchop did this but had totally forgotten about that (great) album. Yesterday I spend some time googling "did Lambchop back Yo La Tengo on tour" and "lambchop east river pipe" and other plausible combinations.

isn't there a david kilgour album with lambchop backing him? (have a vague memory from seeing them in the early 2000s with an encore consisting of tally ho! with kilgour taking the vocals)

Some of Lambchop appear on David Kilgour's Frozen Orange - both acts would have been on Merge at the time?

Coldcut were in contractual disguise as The Plastic Population on Yazz's The Only Way Is Up.

2/3s of Gone became half of the Rollins Band before one of them was replaced by Melvin Gibbs who is famous in his own right.

^ that Rollins Band lineup was later replaced wholesale by the young members of non-famous metal band Mother Superior

(before a brief and aggravating reunion tour of the prior lineup, that proved to be the end of his musical career, Rollins reissued all the albums by the third lineup, now on his own label, as Henry Rollins & Mother Superior)

all half

Speaking of half, can someone sort out the Moe Tucker Half Japanese thing for me? Sorry, it’s been a while.

I saw them in 88 or 89 . I think it was Moe, thae current line up of half japanese plus a guitarist who was putting things out through 50 Skidillion Watts which was the half japanese label. Charlie something I think. I'm picturing him as having a haircut like the guy in Lexx the sci fi show.

xpost There was once a Yo La Tengo tour with Lambchop opening, where Yo La Tengo featured Mac from Superchunk and David Kilgour as auxiliary members. I seem to recall seeing them here in 2000 or so and most of everyone encoring with Tally-ho!.

xp Thinking of Moe Tucker, I heard she was the original drummer for the band that became Sun City Girls back when the Bishop brothers were working under the name Paris 1942

Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. are, oddly enough, the rhythm section on some of Nanci Griffith's "Flyer." And all of U2 play on the first Robbie Robertson album, though that makes a little more sense.

Todd Rundgren & Utopia on Shaun Cassidy's Wasp.

The Cure backing up their postman (?) for the "I'm A Cult Hero/I Dig You" single.

This happened a fair bit in the '60s for British blues bands. Most of Fleetwood Mac backed up Otis Spann (Mick Fleetwood wasn't involved) on the fantastic "The Biggest Thing Since Colossus" LP. The Yardbirds backed up Sonny Boy Williamson II in '63. Along the same "British Invasion band backing up Americans", the Hollies backed up the Everly Brothers - and wrote most of the songs - on "Two Yanks in England" (also a fantastic record)

The Animals backed up Sonny Boy II, uh, too.

Clover & Elvis Costello

Believe that was mentioned upthread, as was Two Yanks in England.

can someone sort out the Moe Tucker Half Japanese thing for me? Sorry, it’s been a while.

they toured together with HJ as the backing band for Moe, also I think HJ is the band on Life In Exile?

The Cure backing up their postman (?)

Obscured by subsequent lineup changes in and famousness of the Cure, but this was a Crawley supergroup of various non-famous people, including Robert on guitar and Lol on drums. Bassist Michael Dempsey is relegated to keyboards, the keyboardist for the Magazine Spys also plays keyboards, the bassist for the Mag Spys plays bass, Robert’s sister’s boyfriend plays second guitar, Robert’s sister and Robert’s other sister and another local band are on backing vocals. It was, yes, a local postman on lead vocals.

Having checked that they could be drunk all night in a studio together, Robert fired Dempsey & hired the Mag Spys bassist, whose keyboardist pal came along for a six month stint. The bassist has spent most of the next forty years in The Cure, quitting for a year or three here and there. Smith’s sister’s boyfriend did some art and played some sax for the band five years later, then did two 6+ year stints on guitar, 13 years apart.

So while there are a lot of eventual Cure members on the single, it’s more of an audition for them to be in this indie band from the local town with one half-promising album, than global superstars The Cure backing someone.

(Most of the people involved were teenagers at the time; Robert & Lol were 20.)

(Details supplied as a curiosity, not a corrective.)

In the late 90s I saw Tom Ze with Tortoise as his backing band (not this show but a similar one):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYs2J_YHrik

i dig you was played a shit ton on lir 82-85 and always described then as by "cult hero" feat some cure folk

Another REM one: Backing the Troggs on Athens Andover

another one for the uk blues groups backing touring americans trend: a nascent groundhogs & john lee hooker

on lir 82-85 and always described then as by

yah by ‘85 the ppl involved were nearly 50% Cure members! but in ‘79 it was just some kids who’d booked a cheap night session in a studio

Sleater-Kinney backing the Go-Betweens on The Friends of Rachel Worth.

Orange Juice's rhythm section backed the Go-Betweens on "I Need Two Heads" I think.

Has the Smiths backing Sandie Shaw been mentioned?

Heh, Pet Shop Boys backing Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli ...

^^

Sandie Shaw did a 12" of three Smiths covers, backed by the Smiths in 1984

Pet Shop Boys wrote and produced Nothing Has Been Proved as a theme song for the 1989 Whalley / Hurt Profumo affair biopic Scandal; sung by & credited to Dusty.

(If we're going to count that, there's also them backing and producing Boy George on the cover of The Crying Game that was the theme to the 1993 Neil Jordan film. But if we're going to count that, then there's also the Carroll Thompson cover of Let The Music Play on the same soundtrack album (which PSB released on their own imprint). And if we're counting that, then the three versions of the Cicero song they produced on the album lead to the other singles and half an album that they produced for Cicero, their singles with Eighth Wonder and Sam Taylor-Wood and Robbie Williams and Absolutely Fabulous and cetera & cetera...)

The Liza album is this one.

ah Sandie Shaw is a good one !

The Monochrome Set on The Camera Loves Me (1988) by Would-Be-Goods.

The Gourds on Get A Life by Doug Sahm/Sir Douglas Quintet.

on the new strand of oaks album, lead singer Tim Showalter is backed by My Morning Jacket (minus Jim James)

I think a couple of PAVEMENT guys were on the first Silver Jews.

Jim O'Rourke and Sonic Youth.

― nicky lo-fi, Wednesday, June 5, 2019 7:56 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Malk & Nasty were in the Joos before both were in Pavement

― Theodor Adorno, perhaps the greatest philosopher alive today (morrisp), Wednesday, June 5, 2019 8:09 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

related, apparently the band Woods is the backing band for the new David Berman band Purple Mountains

Mae Moore & Margot Smith (RIP) each had albums produced by Steve Kilbey - so most/all of The Church show up.

The Smithereens have been Dave Davies’ backing band every so often.

Curve were part of Eurythmics’ touring band (it was how Toni & Dean Met)

Jason poached Julian Cope’s band for a Spiritualized line up.

Jason had already poached half his previous lineup from a previous Cope band too!

Curve were part of Eurythmics’ touring band (it was how Toni & Dean Met)

Garcia was a studio "member" of Eurythmics too, but I'm pretty sure Halliday didn't sing with them - they did meet through Dave Stewart though, and formed their first band in 1985 (also including the Eurythmics' long-time drummer Olle Romo), who flopped, split, and formed Curve a few years later after Halliday had another solo flop on Stewart's label. Eurythmics no longer existed by then, incidentally.

but! Feargal Sharkey's debut solo (the one with A Good Heart and You Little Thief as b2b openers) was produced by Stewart with himself on guitar and BVs, Garcia on bass, Romo on drums and a keyboard player who went on to be on various Eurythmics (after Garcia left) and DAS records in the following years. so not an actual lineup of Eurythmics that existed at any time, but close enough to note.

(Future hubby) Alan Moulder and Flood are all over the first Toni album, too, which further helps tie the story together.

Gawd... I forgot about that State Of Play album. Thanks for the details.

The Smithereens have been Dave Davies’ backing band every so often.

On occasion in the 80s, the Smithereens acted as the Beau Brummels, backing Sal Valentino and Ron Elliott.

The first Rainbow album was basically Elf w/Ritchie Blackmore.

R.E.M. sans Stipe throughout Zevon's "Sentimental Hygiene." Dylan and Neil Young on that record for a sec, too. Guess this was what gave us Hindu Love Gods.

Yup. Hindu Love Gods was stuff recorded during level checks and downtime during the SH sessions.

I guess in jazz it's more fungible but Norman Connors' 'Dance of Magic' is essentially all of Pharoah Sanders' band at the time minus Pharaoh but including most of the Headhunters

The Fabulous Thunderbirds are the backing band for most of Carlos Santana's Havana Moon.