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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
czarivey OP
5,946 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.
irish_tim
55 posts
 
Skunk Baxter - a cool guitar player with a very interesting change of career.  He's an expert in missile defense technology; works as a consultant and chairs a congressional advisory board.  
martykl
3,578 posts
 
The "better" or "worse" thing is not going to get anyone anywhere, so I'll go with both "different and interesting" after a change in bands.

Karl Wallinger made very different music after leaving The Waterboys to found World Party.

Jeff Tweedy did something very different with Wilco after leaving Uncle Tupelo.

Peter Gabriel took a pretty sharp left turn after leaving Genesis.

I'm probably a bigger fan of Lindsey Buckingham's solo material than his Fleetwood Mac stuff, tho I love both.

You could make a pretty good case for Neil Young (after leaving Buffalo Springfield and CSNY) and a quirkier one for Stephen Stills.

I'm sure that there are plenty of others that I'd need a little time to think of.

On a related note:  Many good choices here already.  I actually kinda agree with the selection of George Harrison.  It's not that his solo career was better than the Beatles, it's more a case of him finding his voice after leaving and producing more confident solo material than the Harrison material from his time with the Beatles.  Certainly debatable, tho.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
Peter Murphy (ex Bauhaus)
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
I would submit Natalie Merchant after leaving 10,000 Maniacs.
Diana Ross after she left The Supremes.
Rod Stewart after leaving The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces.
Eric Clapton after time with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers , The Yardbirds, and Cream.
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