The only guy in ZZ Top who doesn’t have a beard is drummer Frank Beard.
John Lennon wrote Good morning, good morning after hearing a Corn Flakes commercial.
The first CD that was pressed in the U.S. was Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA.
Duran Duran was named after a mad scientist from the Jane Fonda movie Barbarella.
Termites will eat wood two times faster when listening to heavy metal.
In 1976 Barry Manilow sang a chart topping song named I write the songs. The song wasn’t written by him.
Suzanne Vega is considered the “mother” of the mp3 format. The creators of the mp3 used her voice from the song Tom’s Diner for analyzing the different sound spectrums when creating the compression algorithm.
The mighty final chord of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" was played by ten hands in three pianos simultaneously: Lennon's, Mc Cartney's, Starr's, Martin's (their manager?) and Evan's (their roadie).
Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" is named after the route that goes through Bob's home state, Minesota, and enters the Mississippi delta.
The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album was titled because of an insult between bandmates. When Brian Wilson showed Mike Love the new material, he said "Who the hell is going to listen to this?...the ears of a dog?".
"London Calling" was part of a catch phrase ("Good morning America, this is the London Calling!") of a BBC show during World War II, of which the The Clash's guitarists Joe Strummer was a fan.
The night of Jimi Hendrix's first gig, Jeff Beck was coming out of the club and outside he ran into Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend. With a frightened expression he told them "I think we're in trouble here!".
"Layla" was written by Eric Clapton to steal George Harrison's wife, Patty Boyd. Layla was the nickname Eric had given her.
AC/DC: The Young brothers's sister was the one who recommended the school uniform to Angus for their first gig.
The Yardbirds were the ones who gave Clapton the nickname "Slowhand".
Jimi Hendrix got the inspiration for "Purple Haze" after having a dream where he could walk underwater.
The Nirvana hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was named after a deodorant brand.
"Freebird" is dedicated to Duane Allman of The Allman brother's band.
Axl Rose's "Sweet Child of Mine" was Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly, from the Everly Brothers. Axl and Erin got married, but their marriage only lasted a month
The guitar solo in The Beatle's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is played by Clapton
Elton John's real name is Reg Dwight.
U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" originally started with the phrase "Don't talk to me about the rights of the IRA" but was ultimately changed to "I can't believe the news today" because U2 was afraid that their peace calling would be misunderstood.
Black Sabbath's guitarist, Tony Iommi, lost part of two fingers in an accident, and it seemed the band was over. However, he managed to continue playing using a device which made his two stump fingers "longer", and tuning the guitar three steps down in order to loosen the strings and bend them more easily. His first song with his new "style" was "Iron Man".
Paul Simon named a song after a dish he spotted on the menu at a Chinese restaurant: "Mother and Child Reunion."
Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is dedicated to the band's former leader Syd Barret. Syd used to be the leader...until his schizophrenia and the LSD started to catch up with him, and he became rather insane. The band called David Gilmour, who had given Syd guitar lessons during high shool, and would cover for Syd during concerts, correcting his mistakes and filling in when he started playing along to a different tune. Syd eventually got more and more distanced of the band and David got to be the lead guitarist, but lots of the insanity themes they sing about is related to their former bandmate.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant is said to be buried with a Neil Young t-shirt, the same he uses on his last cd cover. The admiration between these two musicians was mutual: Young said he'd rather play "Sweet Home Alabama" than "Southern Man" (his own southern anthem).
"Smoke On The Water" refers to a Frank Zappa show in Montreux in 1971, where someone lit a flaregun and "burned the place to the ground".
If Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon" is started at the precise moment the MGM lion roars for the second time in the movie "The Wizard Of Oz", the cd is perfectly synchronized with the movie.
Before recording "That's All Right, Mama," Elvis auditioned to be a singer in a local band in Memphis and was told by the bandleader, "Stick to driving a truck because you'll never make it as a singer!"
Jimi Hendrix created "Little Wing" in only 145 seconds! that's only two minutes and a half! pretty much the same as the song's length.
Malcom Young used to play the solos in AC/DC, until one day he told his brother "You do them...cuz they keep busy the hand I use for drinking!"
Pink Floyd's original name was Sigma 6. The band included Roger Waters on bass, Nick Mason on drums, Richard Wright on keyboard, Bob Close on guitar, and Syd Barret also on guitar. With Syd’s influence, the band changed their name to The Pink Floyd Sound, named after Pink Anderson and Floyd Council (two bluesmen).
Eric Clapton popularized a setting for lead called "Woman Tone", which basically consists of the neck pickup with tone control rolled back, and is also used by Slash.
One night at a gig, when The Who had just begun, Pete Townshend was experimenting with the feedback he got when he put his guitar near his amp. He accidentally hit the ceiling with the guitar, which caused an awesome sound that was cheered by the small audience. Pete tried to repeat that sound with such bad luck that he broke the guitar's neck. "No one cheered, in fact there was a terrible silence, so i finished breaking the guitar acting as if that had been my true intention". On The Who's next performance there were twice as many people.
Prince is a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix. The song "Purple Rain" is an tribute to "Purple Haze".
B.B. King's beatiful guitar is a Gibson ES-355, but is known as Lucille. Actually, King has quite a few of these guitars (and a custom series), all named Lucille. He even dedicated her a song, in which he tells her how much she means to him and the adventures they had together.
Slash's real name is Saul Hudson.
In the 50's, Little Richard kicked Jimi Hendrix out of his band for stealing the spotlight.
The Beatles' "Yesterday" first released in 1965. By 1967, there were 466 versions of the song. Nowadays there are more than 4000 versions.
The Boomtown Rats song, "I Don't Like Mondays" was inspired by a deadly school shooting.
Guitarist Steve Vai's hobby is beekeeping.
During the recording of "The Dark Side Of The Moon", the guys from Pink Floyd wrote on little papers questions like "Are you afraid of death?" and gave them to everybody that was working at Abbey Road studio at the time. This included all the roadies, sound technicians, the Irish doorman, and even Paul McCartney. The answers to the questions were recorded, and the best ones were put on the disc. However, Paul's answers weren't put on the disc because "he tried to be funny".
At age 47, the Rolling Stones' bassist, Bill Wyman, began a relationship with 13-year old Mandy Smith, with her mother's blessing. Six years later, they were married, but the marriage only lasted a year. Not long after, Bill's 30-year-old son Stephen married Mandy's mother, age 46. That made Stephen a stepfather to his former stepmother. If Bill and Mandy had remained married, Stephen would have been his father's father-in-law and his own grandpa.
Lynyrd Skynyrd took their name from a high school teacher named Leonard Skinner who had suspended several students for having long hair.
Jim Morrison found the name "The Doors" for his rock band in the title of Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors Of Perception", which extolls the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
The name AC/DC was suggested by Angus and Malcolm's sister Margaret Young, who saw a label that read AC/DC on the back of a vacuum cleaner. The Young brothers thought it was a good name for their band, because "it had something to do with electricity, so it seemed to fit"
Bob Dylan said on his school yearbook that his ultimate dream was being in Little Richard's band.
Waylon Jennings was Buddy Holly's bass player. Once, they were deciding how they were going to travel, he lost a coin toss, and took the bus instead of the plane. According to Jennings before his death, Buddy Holly said something to the extent of "I hope you freeze on the bus," and Jennings replied, "I hope your plane crashes."
Two songs were recorded by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Elvis: "That's Alright, Mama" and "Yesterday".
Pete Townshend thought he was lifting his now-famous Windmill move from Keith Richards, because Pete saw Keith doing it as the curtain was rising at a Stones show. Later, after Pete had made it his big move, he talked with Keith about it and realized Keith was just stretching out his arm before starting to play.
Drummer Nick Mason the only member to appear on every Pink Floyd album.
Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of The Mamas & Papas) and Keith Moon of The Who died in the apartment of the same singer/songwriter: Harry Nilsson.
MTV execs came up with the idea of the "Unplugged" series after seeing Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull do a brief, live acoustic set. But when Anderson later asked about having Jethro Tull appear on "Unplugged," MTV turned him down flat, on the grounds that the band was too old and didn't have enough appeal among the desired teen demographic.
Axl Rose's real name is William Bailey.
The Van Halen brothers were born in the Netherlands and trained as concert pianists. The name of the band was originally Mammoth.
According to Paul McCartney, the "you" in "Got to Get You Into My Life" was marijuana.
Before Clapton became known for playing Stratocasters (largely, it is thought, because Hendrix played Strats), he played a 1959 Gibson Les Paul - largely because electric blues guitarists like Mike Bloomfield played one. But when Clapton's famous "Beano" Les Paul was stolen, he never went back.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was the guitarist on David Bowie's "Let's Dance" album
Al Kooper, who played organ on Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone," had never played organ before the session. He had turned up to the studio hoping to play guitar and, finding an excellent guitarist (Mike Bloomfield) already on hand, sat down at the organ instead. After the first take the session producer told Dylan to lose the organ part; Dylan replied that he wanted it louder.
ABBA got their name by taking the first letter from each of their first names (Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-frid.)
The Beatles song "Dear Prudence" was written about Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, when she wouldn't come out and play with Mia and the Beatles at a religious retreat in India.
Ozzy Osborne saved his wife Sharon’s Pomeranian from a coyote by tackling and wresting the coyote until it released the dog
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