Classic Rock Bands with No Original Members

What makes a band? Is it the band members? The songs? Some combination? The Who's famous lyric: "I hope I die before I get old" came true for many rockers from the so-called Classic Rock Era, but many more of them are still out on the road filling arenas, or perhaps the wooden benches at various state fairs. For the purpose of this discussion I'm dividing those old bands into two categories. The first is the "solo artist". Typically the solo artist is the "star". Whether or not he or she wrote the songs that are being performed, that person is the one thing that doesn't change. The star hires sidemen, musicians who work for the star. Sidemen may work with a star for years, or they may change with every album or tour. Bill Joel can get rid of a guitarist on a whim, but only Billy Joel is Billy Joel.

The second category is "the band". A band may consist of 3, 4, or more, equal members or there may be a core membership with auxiliary members who be fired by the core. Some bands, like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, once they settled on a stable membership (post Pete Best for the Beatles and post New Yardbirds for Led Zeppelin) they existed only as the familiar incarnation; Plant, Paige and Jones did not hire another drummer and the members of The Beatles never performed as The Beatles once they broke up. Other bands had no problem replacing members, nor did it appear that their fans had any problem. Deep Purple's most well-known and commercially successful incarnation did not include the original singer or bassist. Occasionally there are disagreements about who has the rights to use the band's name when the original members have gone separate ways. There were once briefly two versions of the progressive rock band Yes, each consisting of original members, and members from the not-original-but-most-well-known version. Eventually the courts decided who had the rights to use the name.

The rock groups that originated in the sixties and seventies are typically in their late sixties to late seventies. It's a regular occurrence to hear of some famous rocker dying of heart disease or some other malady associated with old age. Some of them are still touring, often with one original member! I recently made a comment about the Yardbirds that was not well-received by their current guitarist. The Yardbirds, if you are unfamiliar with them, were a short-lived blues-rock band in the late sixties. They are most well-known for the artists and bands that had their origins with the Yardbirds: Eric Clapton, The Jeff Beck Group, Led Zeppelin and Renaissance. Sometime in the nineties The Yardbirds reformed with drummer/songwriter Jim McCarty and guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja, who were original members joined by some younger musicians. A few years ago Dreja retired; the Yardbirds continued with McCarty the only tie to the Yardbirds' heyday. I made the comment that the Yardbirds were basically a Yardbirds tribute band. Now technically they're not a tribute band, due to the presence of that one original member, but what about them, other than the presence of one man, makes them The Yardbirds?

There are various things that make a band unique, that makes their sound stand out from everyone else. Often it's the singer. A frontman (or woman) in many cases defines a band. Can you imagine Aerosmith without Steven Tyler? Other times it's the guitarist. Rarely, however, does the uniqueness extend to the bassist and drummer, at least in the eyes of the run-of-the-mill fan. The heart, the core of a band is going to vary from band to band. But in my opinion, The Who ceases to be The Who after Keith Moon died, and even less so when John Entwistle passed. For me, John's bass and Keith's manic drumming were indispensable parts of the band.

I can understand why the lone survivor of a popular classic rock band might feel that the band name might draw more fans than their own name. Paul McCartney might be able to fill arenas without calling his band "The Beatles", but "Foreigner" surely has a better draw than "The Mick Jones Group" or "The Yardbirds" than "The Jim McCarty Band".

The bottom line regarding whether a band is the band from back "in the day" is whether it is accepted by the fans. For me, the decision to see a band that was popular in my youth where there is a dearth of original members would hinge on my own subjective views. Everyone else is welcome to their subjective views. Whatever works!