Mark Edwards | November 22, 2007
THE song Hold My Hand by UNKLE is unusual because it is sung by their main man, James Lavelle. UNKLE is one of those outfits that usually relies on a roster of guest vocalists.
In fact, this is the first UNKLE single on which Lavelle has sung. The album from which it is taken, War Stories, includes vocals by Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age, Ian Astbury of the Cult and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack.
All three have previous form when it comes to guest appearances: Astbury has spent time as a vocalist with the Doors, Homme is a serial collaborator and Del Naja's band has relied on guest singers such as Shara Nelson, Horace Andy, Tracey Thorn and Sinead O'Connor throughout their career.
The music industry has not always welcomed, or even condoned, such social gadabouts. In the 1960s, bands were self-sufficient, hermetically sealed units. And if some other musician did add a vocal here or a guitar solo there, they had the decency to keep quiet about it.
The guitar that gently wept on the Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps belonged not to George Harrison but to Eric Clapton, but he didn't get a credit on the album sleeve. When Harrison returned the favour, playing guitar on Cream's song Badge, he was credited only as L'Angelo Misterioso and, in those far-off days, you couldn't just Google it to find out who he really was; you had to know someone who knew.
Mick Jagger's backing vocals on Carly Simon's You're So Vain remained an unconfirmed rumour for decades, before Simon finally admitted he was on the track.
Not all guest appearances were such hush-hush affairs. Johnny Cash made a high-profile one on Bob Dylan's 1969 Nashville Skyline. As the star of a prime-time television series, Cash was well aware that he was doing more than singing a duet on Girl from the North Country: he was symbolically uniting the mainstream with the counterculture.
Twenty-four years later, Cash made an equally unexpected guest vocal appearance singing The Wanderer, the final track on U2's Zooropa, kick-starting the extraordinary 1990s resurgence of his career. Between Cash's two landmark guest slots, the status of the guest appearance had changed from an occasional and usually uncredited occurrence to a staple of the record industry, based as much on its commercial pulling power and PR value as its musical rationale.
There were several factors behind this change. First, the increased power of musicians, who negotiated more freedom in their contracts. Second, the realisation on the part of record companies that allowing musicians to mix and mingle would likely be a win-win situation, with everybody involved gaining a wider audience. Most important, though, was the rise of rap, a genre that quickly embraced the idea of multiple guest stars as a way of bringing dynamic range to a music that was heavy on repetition. If your rapper couldn't vary their flow, no problem: just bring in someone with a different style. Again, it's win-win: the swapping of guest slots allows emerging artists to benefit from the audience pull of the big names, while, in a fashion-led genre, the big guns stay hip by associating with new names.
Rap's guest-friendly attitude has influenced the way rock musicians behave and the way pop stars sustain their careers, while hip-hop's dependence on big-name producers has encouraged the rise of DJ and producer-led outfits such as UNKLE and Massive Attack, which rely on guests.
The hippest rock stars now like to mix and match. A central figure in this new musical chairs is Homme, whose Desert Sessions have featured P.J. Harvey, Mark Lanegan and Dean Ween, whose main band, QOTSA, has found room for Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl on drums from time to time, and whose last album included guest appearances by Julian Casablancas from the Strokes and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
Homme explains his fondness for inviting folks over to play: "Long ago I lost the opportunity to be in U2, where it's the same four guys. I respect that, but this is the search to try to take advantage of playing with certain people, even if they can't stay."
Homme's guests seem to pick up the bug from him. Since then Grohl has played with Killing Joke; Harvey invited Radiohead's Thom Yorke to sing on her career-peak Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea album; and Lanegan made a whole album with Isobel Campbell.
Yet the idea that a guest appearance by a star name will help a less familiar artist to reach a new audience does not seem to work in the rock world. Chris Martin, of Coldplay, collaborated with one of his songwriting heroes, Ron Sexsmith, but Sexsmith's albums didn't fly off the shelves; and when David Bowie provided a vocal for his then guitarist Adrian Belew's 1990 solo album, Young Lions, it didn't reinvent Belew's career, although Pretty Pink Rose was one of Bowie's best vocal performances of the 1990s.
The commercial aspect of the guest appearance is more obvious in pop where, just as in rap, a singer whose career may be on the wane can reignite things by teaming up with a hotter property. Nelly Furtado gained a new lease of life by working with producer Timbaland, then made doubly sure by dueting with Justin Timberlake on Give It to Me. Timberlake has also sprinkled fairy dust on a career slightly longer in the tooth by appearing on the new Duran Duran album.
The producer-led album, which by definition involves many guest stars, can sometimes be an embarrassing vanity project, with famous vocalists feeling obliged to turn up to ensure the producer will consider overseeing their next work; but Mark Ronson's Version was a decent stab at making a proper album with a host of guests, including his recent clients Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Robbie Williams.
Sometimes, a guest appearance is a chance to fulfil a long-held ambition, as when Jarvis Cocker collaborated with Nancy Sinatra and Marianne Faithfull. For other singers, guesting seems to become a way of life. O'Connor has shown little interest in maintaining the momentum of her own career but she has been busy through the years, building up a CV of guest slots that includes singing with the Chieftains, Shane MacGowan, Bomb the Bass, Peter Gabriel, Jah Wobble, The The, Christy Moore, Willie Nelson, Pink Floyd's Rick Wright and Massive Attack.
For other singers, a guest appearance is something best kept in the family: Bruce Springsteen has turned up on solo albums by his guitarists Nils Lofgren and Steve Van Zandt, his saxophone player Clarence Clemons and his back-up singer (and wife) Patti Scialfa. Although, oddly, he also appears on a Donna Summer track, Protection.
The most impressive guest list on any album must surely be the roll call of greats on Warren Zevon's Sentimental Hygiene: step forward Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eagle Don Henley, funk legend George Clinton, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a couple of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and three-quarters of REM. But Zevon's title may yet be usurped by Dan Zanes. Never heard of him? You would have if you had small children. Zanes has made a series of albums of children's songs augmented by an extraordinary array of guest stars. The latest, Catch That Train, includes the Blind Boys of Alabama, Natalie Merchant, Nick Cave and the Kronos Quartet. Zanes's previous records have featured Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Aimee Mann and that renowned cheery children's entertainer Lou Reed.
Which goes to prove that bigger than any other motivation to turn up for a guest slot - more important than money or adulation or career enhancement - is the thought that it may make your kids think you're cool.
The Sunday Times
