Best Impromptu/ odd member bands to record a great track . I.e Harper/ Pink Floyd "Have a Cigar"

Everyone knows the story of how Roy Harper was just basically hanging around the studio and ended up singing lead on one of Pink Floyd's best tracks.

I recently learned that Brian Jones played vibraslap on "All Along the Watchtower". I already knew that Dave Mason played the 12 string acoustic guitar but it got me thinking....what an interesting band that would have been...Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Dave Mason, Mitch Mitchell !

Can anyone think of any more of these little "one time" super groups that made a great song?

This list should not include paid studio musicians such as Hal Blaine...we all know he saved the day on hundreds of tracks. Looking more for the guys that were probably just hanging out or were casually asked to record on a track.

 

For the obligatory Beatles reference, there's Clapton's performance on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Sandy Denny turned in a strong vocal on Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore." And Bowie wrote and sang "Under Pressure" with Queen.

Are those the kind of collaborations you're talking about?

 

I can cite many "Southern Rock " pairings, because those musicians were all like brothers from different mothers, but you said "supergroups," so...

 

Joe Walsh slide guitar and "scat vocals" on ELP's 'L.A. Nights.'

 

Clapton/Beatles and Sandy Denny/Led Zeppelin are both fine examples. Bowie/Queen however seemed more like a deliberate collaboration.

 

Donovan guesting on Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies is my favorite example.

Always thought Donovan sounded great singing on this track and could have maybe had a second career as a Hard Rock frontman if he wanted to.

 

That's a great example ! Always loved that Donovan part

 

Billy Preston on Get Back with The Beatles

 

Flo & Eddie's immortal comment after Todd Rundgren played them "Love My Way": "Hey, you know what this song needs? Us!"

 

Herbie Hancock on "Right Off" from Miles Davis's Jack Johnson. Herb was passing through the building on unrelated business (even carrying groceries, as the story goes), when Miles pulled him in and told him to sit in on the Farfisa organ, which he had never played before. Despite his reluctance (his container of ice cream was probably melting), he played the session.

 

Lennon/McCartney backing vocals from Wiki
Allen Ginsberg was in London for a pro-marijuana rally in Hyde Park. He met Jagger at McCartney's house, and Jagger invited the Beat poet to that night's session with McCartney and Lennon to record uncredited backing vocals for "We Love You". Ginsberg, waving his Shiva beads and a Tibetan oracle ring, conducted the singers from the other side of the studio glass to the tempo of the stuttering Mellotron track.[4][copyright violation] Ginsberg later wrote of the Stones and the two Beatles: "They looked like little angels, like Botticelli Graces singing together for the first time."[5]

Written in the aftermath of the drugs arrests faced by Jagger and Keith Richards at the Redlands country home of the latter in Sussex that year, "We Love You" opens with the sounds of entry into jail, and a cell door clanging shut. The draconian nature of the sentences handed down to the two Stones relative to the charges prompted a stern editorial in The Times on 1 July 1967, titled "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?", in protest.[6] The song's lyrics appear to be "a spoof" of the Lennon–McCartney song "All You Need Is Love",[7] which the Beatles performed on the Our World satellite broadcast on 25 June. Alternatively, as Lennon insisted was the case, in his famous 1970 Rolling Stone interview, the lyrics can be seen as echoing the message of the Beatles song, on which Jagger and Richards were among the many chorus singers. On close examination, "We Love You" espouses a strong anti-establishment stance, proclaiming "we don't care if you hound we and lock the doors around we" and "you will never win we, your uniforms don't fit well

 

Jimmy Page guitar solo on Rolling Stones "One Hit To The Body"

"Page's contribution was the result of a short studio session between him and Wood after Page's request to hear what the band was working on"

 

I guess Sting's cameo on Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" would be among the more remunerative. His agent demanded and got half the songwriting royalties!

 

Chuck D on Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing”

Amazing that Fear of a Black Planet and Goo, two of the most epochal albums of the 90’s, were recorded next door to each other

 

Uncredited Steve Vai delivering a phenomenal solo

 

I had fun with a random sit in on a Lon & Derek Van Eaton track a few weeks ago. I was at Lon's home studio (he produced the CD I am releasing this summer) where he played me a great new track he was working on that was in part a tribute to George, and I suggested he changed the line "George Harrison, he live a life of compassion" to "George Harrison, he lived a life beyond comparison" he said he liked it but it had too many syllables to fit, so I sang him a new melody that would make it fit. He liked it and asked if I would get in his vocal booth and sing that line as much like Derek as I could, which I did. He sent me the recording. Not yet released.

 

"I want my MoneTaryValue"

 

Bruce springsteen on lou reeds street hassle

 

Pete townshend and robert fripp on David bowies scary monsters.

 

Herbie Hancock’s synth solo on Hunter And The Hunted from Simple Minds. Starts at 3:49:



dream giver redux | songs | released | hunter and the hunted

 

How about Prince playing most of the instruments on Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back"?

The night she and her band were recording the song, Prince was in Los Angeles. (Based on Prince's touring schedule, it was probably around March 28, 1983.) Stevie called him on a lark to tell him how the song was inspired by "Little Red Corvette." She played him a piece of it, and he liked it. Twenty minutes later, Prince was at the Sunset Sound studio laying down the funkiest synthesizer riffs ever to appear on a Stevie Nicks song. Less than an hour later, Prince was gone again.

 

How does the story end...did they sing on it?

 

Well, to be fair to Sting, the "I want my MTV" bit was inspired by the real life MTV promos Sting did, and the melody snippet was his for "Don't Stand So Close to Me."

 

"Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock:
Two band members (Mark Weitz and Ed King) originally wrote and recorded the song as an instrumental. Sensing it had potential beyond that, their manager got an outside songwriting team to write some lyrics, and then brought it back to the band to add vocals. Each member of the band made an attempt at singing the lead vocal, but none of them "sounded right." Visiting the studio that day was Greg Munford, a 16-year-old guitarist who was a friend of the band. On a whim they decided to ask him to take a crack at the lead vocal, and they wound up liking his work better than any of the other attempts. So they kept his vocal and released the song that way, and it wound up going to #1. Probably a good way to end up a one-hit wonder... have your debut single sung by a guy who's not even in the band.