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Is Benjamin Orr the least appreciated singer in pop music?


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Tonight I was browsing videos of some of my favorite songs. When I got to The Cars Moving in Stereo/All Mixed Up I watched it and thought "Oh yea. The bass player sang that song. What's his name?" ... ... ... If you Google The Cars the instant information mentions Ric Ocasek as lead singer. You have to dig, and know to dig, to find that Benjamin Orr was also lead singer. More than that, he sang their biggest US hits, Just What I Needed, Let's Go, and Drive. It is so strange that in an era when so many lead singers grab all of the attention and frequently go solo, he is almost an unknown. Can you think of anyone else that has sang so many hits and is lesser known?

 

Side note: I was surprised tonight when watching a live performance of All Mixed Up to see keyboardist Greg Hawke playing the sax solo.

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Playing great bass and singing at the same time is not easy. I can squeak out a few harmonies when I'm playing bass but somehow I totally lose it trying to sing lead.

 

Benjamin Orr and Dusty Hill are both great choices. The Cars and ZZ Top were both great bands. We may hear more from 2/3rds of ZZ Top but both lead vocalists from The Cars are gone now, they're done.

 

I haven't got anybody else in mind. I've seen Greg Lake, John Wetton and Sting, they could all hold their own and then some but none of them are exactly unheralded. I was in a great band i n Fresno with a female bassist who could play bass and sing and nail them both every time but nobody has ever heard of her so that fails too.

 

Fun topic!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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We may hear more from 2/3rds of ZZ Top

 

The "Dustyless" version of ZZ Top will be downtown here on Wednesday night but it's also the close date on our house here and we'll already be halfway across the country. It's quite possible that I've seen ZZ Top more times than any other group already.

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We may hear more from 2/3rds of ZZ Top

 

The "Dustyless" version of ZZ Top will be downtown here on Wednesday night but it's also the close date on our house here and we'll already be halfway across the country. It's quite possible that I've seen ZZ Top more times than any other group already.

 

 

I stupidly did not go when they played Fresno, they were on the tour with the live buffalo and rattlesnakes on stage. I've missed a few "don't miss" shows but I've seen many as well.

 

Cheap Trick and then Jethro Tull are probably my most seen bands. One show Cheap Trick opened for Jethro Tull, that kicked them both up a notch.

 

FWIW, John Entwhistle of the Who sang lead on a few tunes on stage. Not sure if that counts, he was a pretty OK singer and a fantastic bassist.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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The "Dustyless" version of ZZ Top will be downtown here on Wednesday night

 

General consensus is they haven't missed a step.

 

As to Benjamin Orr, yes, he was underrated. I think Ric Ocasek was simply more camera-friendly because he didn't look like, uh, a normal person :), so he got more attention.

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Can you think of anyone else that has sang so many hits and is lesser known?

 

Side note: I was surprised tonight when watching a live performance of All Mixed Up to see keyboardist Greg Hawke playing the sax solo.

 

Not a singer, but Billy Strayhorn worked with and for Duke Ellington from around 1939 till his death in 1967. Ellington once called him his "right arm". Strayhorn mostly, but not always stayed in NYC writing arrangements and composing for Duke. Sometimes Billy got credited and sometimes he didn't. And there was reportedly sometimes murkiness in songwriting royalties. In 1950 Ellington's 1st LP album "Masterpieces By Ellington" was released. It has reverb or echo effect that I don't fancy. It must have been high tech in 1950. Anyway it features concert length versions of many of his favorites, Solitude, Sophisticated Lady, Solitute... The arrangements are masterful with advanced jazz harmony for 1950 - but I read that Strayhorn wasn't credited - for doing the heavy lifting. He kept getting frustrated when things like this happened. A couple of times maybe, he quit. Ellington would sweet talk him and tell him to go to Paris for a few weeks. And buy whatever clothes he wanted...a blank check. He did. Also, Strayhorn was gay back when many people were fired if they were found out. Ellington couldn't give a $hit. So Strayhorn lived openly gay in New York. But it's been suggested that his frustrations fed his increased drinking.

 

Some of this stuff helped support the myth that Ellington was some sort of super-genius. He was great of course. But so was Strayhorn.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpieces_by_Ellington

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Harmonizer's post of the Live Aid clip sums it up for me - I was a huge Cars fan from about a year before Live Aid but had never seen much of them on video. So for me it was always obvious Benjamin Orr was the lead singer and that Ric sang a lot of songs as well. So it depends on perspective :)
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