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

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

didn't he break some beatles records?

Yes, but only because sales of a box set are counted as the individual CDs in the box. So if his box had 5 discs in it, each disc counted as an individual sale, which artificially raised his sales totals (as was his and his managers' intention, or so I've heard).

Kenny Rogers

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

He had a big piece on him in Mojo a couple of months ago.

The Wonder Stuff is the right answer. Same with the Waterboys, Hothouse Flowers, James - it's like an entire genre written out of history.

Garth is the C&W Wonder Stuff. Give 'em time.

The Wonder Stuff is the right answer

Not in the USA. They were totally obscure even in their heyday.

the Stuffies weren't that obscure in the States...Spin magazine loved 'em...

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)