This will be about classic rock songs – well, for the most part. But I want to begin with the inspiration for what follows, which is not classic rock. It’s kind of a jump blues/jazz song made famous by Louis Prima and his band in 1957.
The song “Next Time,” or as Prima redubbed it, “They’ll Be No Next Time,” was originally written and sung by Richard Berry. If you feel compelled to link this all back to classic rock, you can take comfort in the fact that Berry was also the original composer and singer of “Louie, Louie,” one of rock & roll’s seminal works.
“Next Time” was originally a type of strollin’ blues song when Berry did it in 1955. Prima shifted it into a more jump blues style, which was standard for him. What was not standard was his choice of singer. Louis Prima’s “They’ll Be No Next Time” was sung by the band’s saxophonist, Sam Butera.
Bands that let someone a little different sing a song or two
In its heyday, Louis Prima’s band featured two primary vocalists. Prima brought his wild, gruff, comic voice to many of the band’s numbers. His wife provided counterpoint at the time, the incomparable Keely Smith, whose calm voice could soar to the heavens.
On almost every song, Louis sang lead, backed by Smith and the rest of the Witnesses (his band), or Smith would take the lead, with Louis often adding background chatter.
Louis did, in fact, contribute that chatter on “They’ll Be No Next Time,” but it was Butera singing lead. Enough about that. It’s an awesome song that lets Butera run wild and showcases the banter that made Louis Prima shows so entertaining.
This got me thinking about all the rock songs that are not sung by one of the band’s primary singers.
In the early days of rock and roll, bands tended to have one primary singer, who usually stood out front. One of the countless influences the Beatles had on modern music was democratizing the vocals.
John and Paul sang most of the songs, but Ringo always got a number. As he began writing more, George began singing a lot more as well. Their clones, the Monkees, followed suit. Micky and Davy sang the most, but Mike and Peter sang enough to be noticed.
Some rock bands stayed with one primary vocalist, but in the ensuing decades, Kiss, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and plenty more started letting other voices take leads.
I’m not looking for that model today. I’m looking for rock songs that sounded very different because a member who almost never sang took the lead. It need not be a “one-time-only” thing. I won’t be quite that strict. But the vocal should be rare.
For instance, if Ace Frehley had only sung another song or two for Kiss after “Shock Me,” that song might be included here. But Frehley went on to sing at least a half dozen more songs before leaving the band. So maybe you should consider that songs on this list need to fall below the Ace Frehley threshold.
Then there are songs sung by a guest vocalist who wasn’t even part of the band. There may be one or two of those in here as well. We'll get more on them when we get there.
“After Hours” by the Velvet Underground (1969)
Lou Reed sang most of the Velvet Underground songs in the early days. Nico guest-fronted several numbers on the first album, and by the end, Doug Yule was singing more and more. But Reed’s New York monotone was the signature vocal sound of the band.
But on several occasions, drummer Maureen Tucker – even more atonal and more New York – took the lead. Her guileless charm was ideally suited for songs like the nursery-rhymey “I’m Sticking With You” and the sensational nihilism of “After Hours.” In Reed’s voice, that song would have been morbid. With Tucker singing, it became the sweetest ode to giving up.
“Midnite Cruiser” by Steely Dan (1972)
It took Donald Fagen a while to get comfortable as the primary singer in Steely Dan. On their first album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, he shared vocals with David Palmer, a pretty-voiced singer who took the lead on one of the first album’s minor hits, “Dirty Work,” and sang along with Fagen on a handful of others. Palmer and everyone else not named Fagen or Becker would soon depart.
Today, Palmer’s songs barely sound like what we would know as Steely Dan. But drummer Jim Hodder, who had a little bit more of Fagen’s whine, handled “Midnite Cruiser,” which sounds exactly like what we all came to love about the band. Hodder had sung one of the band’s earliest songs – “Dallas” – but I believe this is the only other Steely Dan song he sang lead.
“Have a Cigar” by Pink Floyd (1975)
In 2003, Blink-182 invited one of their inspirations, the Cure’s Robert Smith, to sing lead along with Tom DeLonge on the song “All of This.” It certainly wasn’t the first time an established band had invited someone to sing with them. Sometimes it doesn’t mean much. Sometimes, as with “All of This,” just a bit of wish fulfillment comes true.
The opposite was in play when Pink Floyd asked folk rocker Roy Harper to sing the opening song of side two on their sensational Wish You Were Here album. David Gilmour, who took the first crack at it, never bought into Roger Waters’ biting takedown of the music industry, and so didn’t feel his vocals were right.
Waters didn’t like the way he sounded singing it either. So Gilmour asked his friend Harper, who was doing some recording of his own at the time, to give it a go. The result was excellent. Well, to everyone but Waters, who in subsequent years was critical of just how biting Harper’s rendition was. Roger Waters was a very hard man to please.
“Cool For Cats” by Squeeze (1979)
Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford co-wrote almost all of Squeeze’s songs. But Tilbrook, who had a higher-pitched, sweeter voice, almost always handled the lead vocals. Difford would harmonize in a lower register. That signature sound is apparent from their first hit, “Take Me I’m Yours.”
The following year, Difford sang lead on the title track of their second album, Cool For Cats. With his gruff, exaggerated cockney, Difford eschews the sweetness of many of Squeeze’s other hits. Though he picked his spots to sing, it seemed to work here. “Cool For Cats” became the group’s biggest-selling song.
“Guns of Brixton” by the Clash (1979)
The Clash had a fairly typical arrangement. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones wrote most of the songs and played guitar. Strummer sang lead on about three-quarters of them and Jones sang the others.
Bassist Paul Simonon wrote a brutal, militaristic number for the massive London Calling. Simonon’s flat, haggard delivery fit it perfectly. He would sing an occasional song on each of the next few albums.
An even more outlandish example of letting someone else sing came on the following album when drummer Topper Headon sang “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe,” but that was a rather silly tune. “Guns of Brixton” was anything but.
“Texarkana” by R.E.M. (1991)
Though the entire band typically shared songwriting credit, R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe usually wrote the lyrics. And he sang those lyrics. When he was having trouble finding words for “Texarkana,” bassist Mike Mills stepped in from their major hit album Out of Time.
Usually, it was Mills providing harmony to Stipe’s leads, but on this one, they flipped it around. Mills carves out a lovely little song for himself on an album that saw other guest vocalists like the B-52’s Kate Pierson and rapper KRS-One.
“Jesus Built My Hotrod” by Ministry (1991)
This wasn’t exactly a lovely little song. But I suppose that’s what happens when you take one of the true thrasher bands of the 1990s and give them a vocal from a barely coherent Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes.
Somehow, usual singer Al Jourgensen fit it all together into a blast of propulsive energy that anyone else couldn’t have sung. It became one of Ministry’s biggest hits.