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List of musicians changed career with better success...

Hi I followed musicians from certain bands that were much higher class and caliber than the band they used to play and here’s my nominees:

1. Mike Stern -- Blood Sweat and Tears reached his prime as virtuoso fusion guitarist and set up quite a few interesting projects
2. John Paul Jones -- Led Zeppelin. He can play various instruments and created great projects especially one with Diamanda Galas which is far more creative than his carreer in Led Zeppelin.
3. Andy Summers -- Police became jazz guitarist and created great albums in 90’s
4. Gary Brooker -- Procol Harum -- pianist and vocal of Procol Harum. His solo albums are more interesting than ones with Procol Harum
5. Colin James Hay -- Men At Work -- multi-instrumentalist, bassist and vocal released very few albums that are definitely beyond the class of Man At Work
6. Steve Stevens -- guitarist who performed with Billy Idol created great solo albums...
7. Finally among the Beatles, I believe the most successful solo career that goes beyond the Beatles I believe belongs to George Harrison.

Welcome to chip-in...
czarivey
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,139 posts
 
I just can't agree with "that were much higher class and caliber than the band they used to play" for John Paul Jones, Gary Brooker or George Harrison.  They all did interesting work after their group efforts, but it wasn't of a different caliber, at least IMO.  The recordings of LZ, Procol Harum and the Beatles are hard to beat.

Along those line I would offer Robbie Robertson's solo catalog as at the same level of his work with The Band.

Neil Young's solo output is certainly far larger than his work with Steve Stills in Buffalo Springfield and CSN&Y, but it's at least equal in quality.

Richard Thompson's solo career is equal to his work in Fairport Convention.

Ditto Dave Alvin vs. The Blasters.
sevs
301 posts
 
Klaus Schulze became an icon of Electronic Music once he left Tangerine Dream, for me he is on the same level as Mike Oldfield in terms of never quite breaking into "mainstream" (thanks God!) but opening new ways for the youngsters who did.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,443 posts
 

Wow cz, that’s some bold assertions, for which I applaud you. To say that Harrison’s post-Beatles career surpasses McCartney’s or Lennon’s means you are speaking in artistic terms, not commercial ones. I agree about Harrison; though he put out some dreck, I like his best stuff more than Paul’s or John’s (especially The Wilbury’s).

I for some reason have never heard Brooker’s solo stuff, but I sure liked PH. I guess I need to check him out.

I detested Zeppelin from the instant I heard them, so Jones’ stuff HAS to be better!

onhwy61, taste being what it is, I agree with you on some of your examples, but for me Robertson’s albums are absolutely unlistenable. Unbelievably pretentious, and he can’t sing to save his life. But Richard Thompson is a different matter---a great solo career. Dave Alvin I have mixed feelings about. I like his brother Phil’s singing in The Blasters much more, but Dave wrote those songs.

Nick Lowe’s solo work is a LOT better than Brinsley Schwartz were. Same goes for his bandmate, Brinsley himself, whose work with Graham Parker is excellent. Also in BS was Ian Gomm, who made some cool solo albums.

The great Dave Edmunds was in a late-60’s band named Love Sculpture, who were sort of progressive. His ’71 solo album started him on an absolutely fantastic Rock ’n’ Roll career, before and after he and Nick Lowe joined forces for Rockpile, who put out one superb album, though all four members are on many of Dave's and Nick’s solo albums.

Peter Case is liked by a lot of my friends, but I prefer his Plimsouls stuff more than him solo. He was also in The Nerves prior to The Plimsouls, as was Paul Collins, whose post-Nerves band The Beat made a couple of great albums.

There are many examples in Country music, but I won’t subject ya’ll to that :-).

czarivey OP
5,691 posts
 
The recordings of LZ, Procol Harum and the Beatles are hard to beat.
That’s very general and trivial statement.
Hard to beat commercially -- true;
Hard to beat in terms of musical complexity and creativity -- not true at all.

Agree that Neil Young became better commercially than with CSNY, but in terms of music and creativity not. To me he's perfect rectangle with no curves or mis-shapes. Longer story short -- boring.
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