The line of connections from the show:
The Rolling Stones → Ronnie Wood (member) → The Faces → Rod Steward (member) → The Jeff Beck Group (Wood and Steward both members) → Jeff Beck → Yardbirds (Jeff Beck member) → Yardbirds (Eric Clapton member) → The Beatles (Eric Clapton playing on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”) → Billy Preston (played with the Beatles on final album) → The Rolling Stones (Preston member 1970-1977).
Eric Clapton → Blind Faith (Clapton member) → Steve Winwood (member) → David Gilmour (Winwood played on solo album) → Supertramp (Gilmour guitar solos on “Brother Where You Bound”) → Thin Lizzy/Pink Floyd: Scott Gorham (guitar on “BWYB”) and Scott Page (Flute on “BWYB” and sax on “The Dogs of War”) → Jeff Porcaro (drums on “Mother”) → Toto (Porcaro member) → Jim Horn (woodwinds on album Toto IV) → Canned Heat (Horn on flute)/The Beach Boys (Horn on baritone sax) → Ringo Starr (drums on “California Calling”) → Paul McCartney (Starr drums on album Give My Regards to Broad Street) → Dave Edmunds (guitars on GMRtBS and playing with McCartney on the tour). And we’ll pick up with Edmunds for the next Connections show.
There are quite a few side notes there, too: Clapton left Yardbirds to join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, was replaced by Jeff Beck, who was joined in Yardbirds by Jimmy Page. After Beck left, the Yardbirds name could no longer be used (legal reasons) and Page and Plant wanted to go Hard Rock anyway, so renamed the leftovers of the Group Led Zeppelin.
Clapton left Bluesbreakers to form Cream, and was replaced with Peter Green, who went on to form Fleetwood Mac.
Cream broke up, and Clapton formed Blind Faith with Peter Baker. Clapton left Blind Faith to play with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, who ended up playing on Clapton’s first solo album as the band before breaking up, leaving Clapton to pursue his solo career.
Jim Horn is a bit of a deus ex machina: Having been part of the group of L.A. session musicians who were informally called “The Wrecking Crew” in the mid-1960s, he has played on just about everything and with just about every group that anybody can remember. So… that’s a bunch of connections I may come back to in case I run into a dead end during research.
Also, on McCartney’s album “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” we can hear Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Steve Lukather (Toto) as well as Chris Spedding on guitars alongside Dave Edmunds and McCartney himself.
There are a lot more connections going sideways from the ones we explored in this show, but there is only so much one can cover in two hours of air time, and I believe what we did cover was already convoluted enough.
See you in the Cavern,
Malaclypse
