On a similar note, the ironically named track on Janis Joplin's Pearl album called "Buried Alive in the Blues" became an instrumental when she died the day before she was supposed to do the vocal.
Couple of odd ones I remembered yesterday. I don't think these have been mentioned: The weird cover art for Steely Dan's The Royal Scam was originally created for a Van Morrison album. While making Scary Monsters, David Bowie had the lyrics to "It's No Game" translated into Japanese. However, nobody told the translator that they were song lyrics, so they were translated literally, with no attempt to retain the meter. So Bowie had vocalist Michi Hirota read them in a stern voice instead of singing them.
Don't know if this one has come up yet-Delia Smith baked the cake on the Stone's Let It Bleed album cover.
That's a very fun, pretty crazy pinball machine, and one that's available to play on consoles, by the way, as part of the Williams Pinball Hall of Fame collection, later incorporated into the Zen Pinball FX3 collection. (I'm a console pinball fanatic.)
The instrumentation on Jimmie Rodgers's classic "Blues Yodel #9" is provided by an uncredited Louis Armstrong and his wife Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano. It would be the last time Louis and Lil would record together. They separated a few months later.
Jimmy Page is a Crowley's fan. Crowley had this magick concept regarding a 'Scarlet Woman'. In 71 Page named his daughter Scarlet. After 50 years he's now sentimentally engaged with a young poetess named Scarlet and in 2020 the Stones launch their reissue of Goats Head Soup with a song titled Scarlet, featuring Jimmy Page.
Only three artists had Billboard Top 40 hits in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s: - Michael Jackson - Madonna - “Weird” Al Yankovic
The cover art for the albums by Penguin Cafe Orchestra were painted by Emily Young, an artist and sculptor who was Simon Jeffes' partner at the time. A few years earlier, Pink Floyd had seen Emily Young playing and wrote a song about her.
Agnetha and Frida couldn’t speak English when they recorded ABBA’s early singles. They eventually learned the language.
These incidents are referenced in Vince Gill’s “One More Last Chance.” Jones himself rides a lawn mower in the video.
I always thought the homeless guy on the front cover looks like it could be Donald Fagen, I could be wrong though
Charles Dawes is one of just two people who have written a #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, and won a Nobel Prize. Perhaps someone here will unearth the forgotten name of the other obscure figure to do so. Neither songwriter sung their own #1 hits... but the other one eventually sung on a #1 hit!
Michael Zilkha, co-founder of ZE Records (late 70s/early 80s New York based No Wave label) is the son of the founder of UK baby clothing store Mothercare. Absurd AND obscure. That's the way we like it.
The Damned tried to get Syd Barrett to produce their second album, but ended upon settling for Dave Mason.
And to square off: Morrissey wanted to get Joe Strummer to produce one of his albums (forget which, it may have been Vauxhall or thereabouts) but Joe was a heavy smoker and knew he wouldn't have been able to give up, whereas Moz knew he wouldn't be able to sing in a smokey atmosphere. Broke Joe's heart to say so, apparently.
Also, Malcolm McLaren tried to get Syd to produce the Sex Pistols, and even managed to meet him and get him a tape to hear.
I hadn't heard that, but I have read that in Japanese, very different word forms are used for male voice and female voice, and the the wording used for It's No Game are in a male voicing, so it was fairly unusual/vaguely controversial to have a woman read them. Also, Michi Hirota is one of the two women on the front of Sparks Kimono My House album.