Lead Singers with a huge solo career while still in a band?

Didn't both Ben Orr and Lou Gramm have hits solo while still with their bands Chaka Kahn may qualify, too.

And what about Barry Gibb, especially if you count writing and producing. He had the golden touch all around for a while.

 

Actually, if CSNY had gone on for 40 years (I mean really gone on, not very very intermittently gone on) alongside Neil's solo career, I would certainly think it qualified... but really it's been such a blip in his overall career I don't think it really stands as a good example of someone sustaining two things. It always felt like Neil was a guest star in their thing anyway.

I feel like people who are solo artists doing short term band projects like the Traveling Wilburys are somehow different from band members stepping outside their bands to make their own albums. I don't know why! Maybe because being in a band is a marriage-like commitment that makes breaking the routine more difficult.

 

Gregg Allman. Trey Anastasio. Not "Phil Collins" level, but still successful enough.

 

FWIW, I don't know how you treat CSNY. My "Carry On" box set lists stuff from CSN, CS&N, C&N, C, S, N, S & Manassas, but nothing from Y!!! Yet several songs on the album are from "Deja Vu" which last I checked was a CSN&Y (+T&R) record.

 

Does "The E Street Band" going into the R&RHOF make Bruce a candidate??? I thought that was the most bizarre induction ever!

 

Absolutely. CSNY only saw 1 studio album, 1 non-album single (2 if you count the Pushed It Over The End Italian vinyl), 1 live album and 1 compilation album released between 1970 and 1988. There wasn't much solo and CSNY crossover time.

 

As far as I can see, both the CSN box set from 1991 and the 2 disc "Carry On" version list "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young" on the cover as one of the performers. Is that what you're talking about?

 

Fair enough. But remember the Wilburys, that is to say, a band called Wilburys, was not the side project. The side project was the album.
period. They made the album and that's it. They decided to call it The Travelling Wilburys in the same spirit that the Beatles decided to call one of their albums Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now as it turns out, due to its popularity, they got back together
and did another one, but in between there was no band. The band title, Wilburys, was a conceptual gag, like sgt. Pepper. If you will allow that
there was a band called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club (consisting of the members of the Beatles) that made the album of the same name,
then I will stipulate there was a band called The Wilburys that did likewise. But I have a feeling you won't because that would be just...
silly.

 

Eddie Vedder was already mentioned....

I would add Jon Bon Jovi to the list

And especially Chris Cornell
his Solo work is amazing
The vinyl SONG BOOK is one of my fave RSD releases

Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple of the Dog, and solo

 

Chaka definitely counts, because her solo career blossomed while she still recorded intermittently with Rufus, all the way up to "Ain't Nobody" in 1983.

Both Orr and Gramm scored sizable solo hits while still members of their respective bands, but they weren't "huge" solo careers despite scoring hits. Orr never did another solo album after The Lace, Gramm did have one more big hit after "Midnight Blue," and another successful solo album, but it never dwarfed Foreigner. Chaka would be a truer example of what the OP is asking.

 

Jon Anderson had hits with Yes and with that guy from Aphrodite's Child at around the same time.

 

Sammy Hagar put out one album while a member of Van Halen "I Never Said Goodbye".

 

2 comps- so far and replay

 

Neil and Crazy Horse is a better example than CSN&Y

 

I stand corrected! Just looked at the liner notes and the songs from Deja Vu (and others) are accredited to CSN&Y. I wonder why Gracenote listed them otherwise when I ripped the CD's??? It got the others right. I'm correcting my metadata now!!!

(See, if it had been vinyl, I would have read the liner notes. Instead the CD gets ripped immediately to lossless and out on the shelf, never to be gazed upon again!!!)

 

Frankie Valli

 

I beg to differ on Gwen--no way her solo career could be described as huge, and I think it's been all downhill for No Doubt since Tragic Kingdom. This is my knee-jerk assessment however.

 

Replay is credited to CSN. Not CSNY.

 

Not HUGE huge, but Roger Daltrey

 

Rod Stewart had the no.1 album and single on both sides of the Atlantic in October of 1971. That's pretty huge. And the Faces released two albums that year so he definitely qualifies.

 

A great record. But the flip side was ****ing brilliant and the greatest unknown Kinks record of all time... Both billed to DD I guess. Man what a great great record. A and B.

 

You have a 12 disc solo collection and there's more you don't have?
I thought Freddie Mercury had only one solo album (Mr. Bad Guy) and a few other songs! It's a great album.

 

No, Bruce doesn't count because he was never a member of the ESB...

 

DLR is an interesting case because the vast majority of his solo career took place after he left VH.

That said, his first solo release - the "Crazy from the Heat" - was a big hit, so I guess he counts...

 

A big hit does not make for a huge solo career.
IMHO