Sunday
afternoon, I took Daughter and Lollipop to local live music venue Schuba's for
their first ever rock and roll concert.
Last
year, they had 15 musicians or groups contribute songs to the album, which was
called We Are
The Music. This year, that number
grew to 23 (with a few repeats from last year), and the album is called This Is
Amateur. Sunday was the album
release party for This Is Amateur, with most (if not all) groups and musicians
in attendance, performing two songs each.
I
hadn't listened to the album before going to the show, so I didn't know what to
expect. I gotta say that I was blown
away at how talented these kids were.
They were all really damn good.
I
was also amazed at the diversity of the songs.
On the album, there are songs that I would classify as rock, folk,
ukulele folk, Andrews Sisters-esque harmonic pop, garage rock, indie rock,
punk, Nick Lowe-esque power pop, grunge, a capella doo wop, alternative rock,
gypsy jazz, electric blues, singer-songwriter ballads, pop, acoustic
instrumental, acoustic pop, EDM, and songs that could be in a Disney princess
movie. They are all really well-crafted
songs, even the songs in genres I wouldn't normally
We
were listening to the album yesterday at dinner, and I made a comment about how
the musicians were really good. Daughter
looked at me and said, incensed, "They're not just good, Dad; they're
awesome." Touché.
So,
if you want to support a very cool project, I encourage you to download the
albums using the links above. This Is
Amateur is $10, and We Are The Music is $5.
Seeing
all of these high schoolers who have more musical talent than I will ever have
got me thinking about rock and rollers who found success as teenagers. So that was a long introduction to this
week's Tuesday Top Ten: teenage rock
stars. For this list, I am going to give
you what I think are the eleven best examples of musicians age 18 or under who
made a mark on music or had crazy success before they were of legal drinking
age in Canada. I'm limiting the list to
musicians who played their own instruments (sorry Kyla, that means no Britney).
Here
are my top eleven (in alphabetical order).
1. Rick Allen
Allen
is, for better or worse, known for the fact that he is a one-armed
drummer. A lot of idiots believe that he
always had one arm when, in fact, he his left arm was amputated after a
horrific car accident in 1984. Anyway,
Allen joined Def Leppard in 1978, on his 15th birthday. He didn't turn 18 until after the band
released their first two albums, On Through the Night and High 'n' Dry.
2. Dave Davies
Along
with his older brother Ray, Dave Davies founded The Kinks in 1963, when he was
16. When he was 17, Dave Davies invented
the power chord with his iconic distorted riff on "You Really Got Me,"
which topped the charts in the UK and went to #7 on the Billboard charts. When he was 17 and 18, The Kinks had 7 Top 20
hits in the UK (including 6 Top 10s and 2 #1s) and 6 Top 40 hits in the US
(including 3 Top 10s).
3. Hanson
There
are two kinds of people in the world:
people who like "MMMBop" and dead people. It was the feel-good song of the summer of
1997, topping the Billboard charts for three weeks in May and June that year
(and topping the charts in a ridiculous 26 other countries as well). At the time, the brothers Hanson -- Isaac, Taylor, and Zac -- were 16, 13, and 11,
respectively. Of course, Pete Gregerson
will tell you that "Where's The Love" is a better song than
"MMMBop," and that's a debate I'd rather not have sober. What's not debatable is that, by the time Isaac
turned 18, the band had three platinum albums.
4. The Jackson 5
When
The Jackson 5 released what would become their first #1 hit, "I Want You
Back," in October 1969, Jackie Jackson had just turned 18 five months
earlier, while most of his younger brothers Tito (16), Jermaine (14), Marlon
(12), and Michael (11) were still going through (or had not yet started)
puberty. Not only could they sing and
dance, but they could also play their own instruments (although they didn't
always play the instruments on the recorded versions of the songs).
5. The Runaways
The
all-female Runaways were pioneers in the mid '70s, melding punk and hard rock
to inspire generations of female rockers after them and kickstarting the
careers of Joan Jett and Lita Ford. In
June 1976, when the band's debut album -- featuring arguably their biggest
song, "Cherry Bomb" -- was released, Jett and Ford were both 17,
while the rest of the band, Cherie Currie, Jackie Fox, and Sandy West, were all
16.
6. Silverchair
I
remember when Silverchair's debut single, "Tomorrow," was released
because all of the guys in the band were younger than my friends and me –- and
still are, for that matter. When
"Tomorrow" came out in September 1994, Daniel Johns (lead vocals and
guitar) was 15, while Ben Gillies (drums) and Chris Joannou (bass) were only
14. "Tomorrow" topped both the
Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts, and helped
propel their debut album Frogstomp into the Top 10 of the Billboard album
charts. That's pretty impressive for
three Aussie kids who couldn't even get drivers licenses yet.
7. Tommy Stinson
I
saw The Replacements last year and I thought, "Man, Tommy Stinson looks
great for his age," figuring he had to be in his mid 50s. Then I looked him up, and it turns out he was
only 48. And then I did the math in my
head about when The Replacements released their first couple albums and thought
"that can't be right." It
was. The guy was 11 when he and his older brother Bob formed the band's predecessor
in 1978, and 14 when the band released their first full-length album in August
1981. By the time he turned 18, the band
had already released three albums and an EP, and he wasn't even 18 yet on that iconic
photo on the cover of the Let It Be album, taken on his parents' roof.
8. Ritchie Valens
When
Ritchie Valens died tragically on February 3, 1959, along with Buddy Holly and
The Big Bopper, he was three months shy of his 18th birthday. His first single, 1958's "Come On, Let's
Go," charted just outside the Top 40 at #42, but then his next single
"Donna" got all the way to #2 and its B-side, "La Bamba," got
to #22, but has endured as one of the most recognizable songs in rock history
and, of course, was the name of the 1987 biopic about Valens's life. (Lou Diamond Phillips, by the way, was 25
when he portrayed Valens in the film.)
9. Carl Wilson
As
a founding member of The Beach Boys, along with his older brothers Brian and
Dennis, cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine, Carl Wilson was the lead
guitarist, responsible for that Chuck-Berry-meets-surf-rock guitar sound that is
as much of a staple of The Beach Boys' sound as those delightful
harmonies. The Beach Boys' first single,
"Surfin'," was released a month before Carl turned 15. The first album The Beach Boys released after
Carl turned 19 was Pet Sounds. So, when
Carl was 15 to 18 years old, he was a member of a band with 9 Top 10 albums and
17 Top 40 songs on the Billboard charts, including 10 Top 10s and 2 #1s.
10. Steve Winwood
If
you're a Gen Xer or younger, you probably associate Steve Winwood with his '80s
hits, like "Valerie," "Roll With It," and "Back in the
High Life." But long before that,
and before he was in Traffic, and before he was in Blind Faith, he was the lead
singer of the Spencer Davis Group, which he joined when he was 14. As the lead singer and organist of the group,
Winwood sang and played on two #1 hits in the UK, "Keep On Running"
and "Somebody Help Me," before he turned 18. And that Ray Charles-esque voice you hear on
"Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man" was that of an
18-year-old Winwood.
11. Stevie Wonder
In
1963, at age 13, Wonder became the youngest artist to top the Billboard Hot
100, with his song "Fingertips –- Part 1 & 2." When he was 15, he recorded and released his
second Top 5 song, "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" (which peaked at
#3). He recorded his second #1,
"For Once in My Life," when he was 17. All in all, before he turned 18, he had
released 13 Top 40 hits, including 6 that made it into the Top 10.
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