Five legendary artists who started out as tribute acts
Everyone has to start somewhere – be it The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, or The Who, they can’t just begin by bashing out the bangers.
The majority of bands usually start by playing covers or acting as tribute bands for the people who originally inspired them to make music. This is just the natural way of things, as people need to work out what works best for them.
By simulating their favourite artist for a while, they are suddenly able to tap into what sounds good and what doesn’t, which then helps them carve their own creative path.
Most of your favourite bands got their start playing in a tribute or a cover band – regardless of whether they went on to make rock, punk, prog, soul or indie music, the first notes they strummed or words they uttered through a microphone will have been somebody else’s.
So, who are some of the legendary artists who got their start playing in a tribute band?
Five amazing artists who started in tribute bands:
The Rolling Stones
The majority of the original line-up of The Rolling Stones were at the same concert, as they watched in awe while Muddy Waters took to the stage in London and blew the minds of anyone in earshot – it was that gig that inspired The Rolling Stones to start making music, as they began by playing covers of famous American R&B artists, and getting a pretty good following in the process.
It was their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, who eventually convinced the band that they needed to start writing original music, which is when Keith Richards and Mick Jagger put together ‘As Tears Go By’. Despite its success, Richards hated it, as it sounded too far removed from the songs that the band had been covering.
“We had a number one hit with Marianne Faithfull,” said Richards. ”So suddenly, ‘Oh, we’re songwriters’, with the most anti-Stones sort of song you could think of at the time, while we’re trying to make a good version of [Muddy Waters] ‘Still A Fool’.”
Rush
Many people call Cream one of the first bands to ever champion prog rock, as they were always happy blending different genres of music in a bid to give rise to something truly unique. Geddy Lee can attest to that theory, as he said that he originally started making prog rock because of Cream, and admitted that a lot of his trio’s first gigs were spent mainly covering Cream songs.
“[Cream] was far and away my favourite band when I got old enough to appreciate rock music, and I was getting more and more into rock,” said Lee. “Cream was such an influence on early Rush and me as a bass player.”
Paramore
Most of the time, when people first start getting into bands, they join forces with musicians in their local area who have the same music taste. You can’t just jump into a band together and start churning out hits, it doesn’t work like that. That’s what Paramore realised when they initially started playing together, as attempts to write music fell by the wayside as the band decided to focus on playing covers that people could dance to.
“We covered Doobie Brothers, and Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder,” said Hayley Williams when talking about the early days of her band, “Party music basically… We just like all kinds of music. Even Josh and Zac were really into the stuff we played in the cover band.”
Haim
A lot of people make music to rebel against their parents, but then you have other people who make music as a reflection of their parents. For the Haim sisters, they were the latter, as their parents encouraged them to make music and would have them all perform together playing different covers and tributes to legendary artists.
Some of the classics that their makeshift cover band would play together included ‘Get Back’ and ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ – they were never performing at huge events, mainly just local charity fundraisers, but the shows were enough for the sisters to realise how much they loved playing music and, more importantly, playing music together.
Charles Bradley
James Brown was notoriously one of the greatest live performers of all time, and so a lot of people could learn a lot about stage presence and live vocals by trying to perform as a tribute to him… That’s exactly what Charles Bradley did when he first started playing music, and it helped him find his own unique voice and style.
Bradley performed as Brown in the 1990s and was inspired when he got to see the singer live at the Apollo Theatre in New York in 1962 – his renditions of ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ and ‘Cold Sweat’ captivated audiences, as Bradley found a home in the kind of music he would continue making for years to come.
