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Come in, sit down, my you’re looking well.

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As a Hall & Oates nut, this song will always be in my Top 5 H&O songs. Not only do you get Daryl & John but you have the amazing “Buy 2, get a 3rd free” special offer of the voice and sweet guitar of Todd Rundgren.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to post a video of your favourite guest appearance with a band or solo artist. Extra points for the guest not being named (as here) in the artist title.

Let’s have an old fashioned Word/Afterword Blog Friday night video-fest.

And, ah one………

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Comments

  4. I love that H&O track for all the reasons you give and the album it comes from, Do It For Love, is often overlooked I think and a late period goodie from them

  8. This is a bit of a cheat as the whole album is one giant collaboration, but here is a beautiful track from 1 Giant Leap, a couple of the collaborators are credited, others aren’t, some I recognise , but others I have no idea. However, they are all terrific and around 4.20 Eddi Reader makes an appearance and we all know her, right.

  9. Great idea for a thread,

    This is the first one that sprang to mind, ‘My Wife Thinks You’re Dead’ by the peerless Junior Brown. A guy who plays, sounds and dresses like it’s still 1958. He writes glorious tongue in cheek lyrics and is accompanied here by Jimmie Lee Vaughan.

      • That he is @Twang. ‘Highway Patrol’ was my in, many years ago.

        I can’t sing so I don’t sing. Almost ever. I will, though, drawl along to this one at a good volume when alone in the car.

        • When I was heavily into new country in the 90s there was a feature about new exciting artists in Time mag and Nick Lowe recommended him heavily so I checked him out. Big fan ever since. Who else has a song called “My baby don’t dance to nothin’ but Ernest Tubb”?

  10. Here’s Ol’ Tom Waits with a track from “Rain Dogs”.
    And who’s that on guitar? Why, tis none other than our old friend, Lord Keith Richards of Dartford!

    And let’s have a special hurrah for Anders Petersen’s brilliant cover photo for “Rain Dogs”. Hurrah!

  13. “Three artists one song” it says on the tin. Frank, Mick and Paul. Great song. “I’m a punk, I’m a black man” it goes- Which is fitting.

  14. Killing Joke’s Youth was very taken with Pink Floyd backing singer Durga McGroom & gave her the classic ‘I can make you a star’ line.
    Blue Pearl’s big hit was Naked in the Rain, but this song has David Gilmour & Richard Wright on it, in a video directed by Storm Thorgerson.

  15. My favourite Lou Reed song with a completely uncredited spoken word bit by Bruce Springsteen. I remember as a kid thinking “that sounds like Bruce”, then years later discovering it was. Go me!

      • I knew the Parker one but not the Lou Reed one (not surprisingly. I have avoided him since he turned up in London, at The Who’s Charlton gig, with his hair bleach blond and black swastikas dyed in it. I’m sure it was some existentialist protest but he just looked like a pretentious knob.)

  24. More guest appearances by Bruce –

    He joined Rosanne Cash for her cover of Sea Of Heartbreak on her album The List – it’s gorgeous and here it is –

    Years earlier he had joined John Prine on Take A Look At My Heart, form Prime’s album – Missing Years:

            • Here’s the late Vic Chesnutt singing his beautiful song “Guilty by Association”. And who’s that joining in at after 2:06? Why, ’tis our old friend Stipey again!

                  • It’s his best, I think, and contains some things (Cindy of a Thosand Lives for example) that are totally unlike anything else he’s done.

                    “Robin Hood and his merry men are never never coming home again”

                    • Found it on Spotify and gave it a whirl. Yep, still sounds fab and yes it is unlike anything he’s done before . Some lovely, moving and funny songs and a bit less of the ranting.

                    • Yes, I love “Don’t Try This At Home”. I think it’s a consistently strong album, musically and lyrically. Every time I see Billy Bragg live, I hope he’s going to do lots and lots of tracks from that record. But he never does. This is probably because most of the songs on it have a bigger, fuller, more produced sound with a band, and Bragg can’t really reproduce that, just thrashing away on a solo electric guitar. Pity.

                    • Funnily enough there’s a pretty good, and relatively recent, live version of Cindy on that there YT. I think BB is ambivalent about that period because his people were trying to turn him into a sort of pop star and he’s a bit embarrassed to have played along with that.

                      I think that, notwithstanding his words about bombs, we’re probably only 2-3 years out from there being a Billy Bragg Prom.

                      Everything happens eventually.

    • “Your Ghost” was my first thought. Last time I saw Kristin live she brought the singer who’d been the support for the evening back to do the Stipe part, and every now and then you could see him just break into a big grin as it dawned on him whose place he was filling.

      Anyway, let’s spin it round and have Kristin guesting (uncredited I think) on “The Ghost of the Girl in the Well” by the Willard Grant Conspiracy.

    • Here’s Stipey again and it’s another collaboration from the wonderful ‘1 Giant Leap’ album. This also features the fabulous Asha Bhosle and Whirimako Black [amongst others]. This is one of Stipes best, lyrically and vocally and the rest of the track is equally as good [although it’s a video/film version which is different from the album version]

  26. When Warren Zevon was on his last knockings, a cast of friends helped him record his final album “The Wind”.
    On this track Prison Grove we can hear Ry Cooder on slide guitar and a backing chorus featuring Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Springsteen, David Lindley, Jackson Brown and T-Bone Burnett.

  29. Here’s one from an album i’ve not listened to in a while (I shall change that tonight)…..

    ‘Til Tuesday / At The Other End Of The Telescope – featuring a certain Declan McManus on backing vocals (and I if I recall correctly a co-writing credit)

  31. For their return in 1997 Echo & The Bunnymen assured a Top 10 spot by enlisting Liam Gallagher on backing vocals. In truth he adds very little, but my god what a glorious comeback single it is:

  36. The backing vocals on Randy Newman’s Rider in the Rain were by the Eagles.

    Looking for that, I found this wonderfully laid-back treat from 1983. I love the way Randy calls Linda and Ry up on stage as though this was the most ordinary thing in the world. Perhaps it was for him?

  38. Nils Lofgren joined here by one of his two regular employers. Bruce Springsteen. Has anyone ever heard of him?

    ‘Valentine’. Sentimental as all get out. And all the better for it.

  39. Linda Ronstadt guests on loads of records, including Neil Young, Warren Zevon, The Eagles, Randy Newman.

    My favourite is the most understated track on Paul Simon’s Graceland, Under African Skies. She brings beauty and sunshine.

  44. How about veteran synth-pop cyborg and light-aircraft mangler Gary Numan guesting on “My Machines” from math-rock titans Battles.

    Saw them doing this live with big screens on either side of the stage that they were projecting Numan’s head onto, which – coupled with the ever-compelling John Stanier beating the spit out of his drumkit – made for a serious spectacle.

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