HERE is our third and final installment on bands that carried on after losing their lead singers.
As with the previous entries, some of the groups on this list have been successful in their efforts to keep their audience, but some have found it difficult to replace their iconic front-people - a problem many bands have struggled with over the years.
Little Feat
THIS cult Americana-fusion band began in 1969 when Lowell George was kicked out of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention (for being either too talented as a songwriter or for writing a song about drugs, depending on who you ask). For a decade they recorded influential records that blended rock 'n' roll, blues, funk, jazz, and country but after a number of critically acclaimed albums and a line-up change, the band was brought to a halt when singer-songwriter/frontman George died of a heart attack in 1979. Eight years later, guitarist Paul Barrere, percussionist Sam Clayton, bassist Kenny Gradney, drummer Richie Hayward and keyboardist Billy Payne reformed the band with Pure Prairie League singer Craig Fuller out front. The move alienated some fans, who felt Little Feat weren't the same without George's skewed songwriting sensibilities, but they were still successful, earning a gold record for the Fuller-era album Let It Roll. In 1993, Fuller was replaced by female vocalist Shaun Murphy and continued to attract fans, some of whom attended annual "Featfan Excursions" to Jamaica to see the members play a handful of band, duo and solo shows.
The Doors
AFTER six amazing albums, this incendiary psychedelic blues-rock band lost their mojo when Jim Morrison died a drug-related death in a Paris bathtub in July 1971. At the time of his death, keyboardist Ray Manzerak, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore had been working on a proposed seventh album, which included material they had already jammed on with Morrison. In October 1971, they completed and released Other Voices as a trio, with Manzarek and Krieger taking vocal duties. The album received surprisingly strong reviews and yielded a successful tour but sold poorly compared with their previous efforts. The trio returned with the jazz-influenced Full Circle in 1972, but the album failed to chart and The Doors seemed truly closed. They reopened in 1978 to provide music for a series of spoken word recordings made by Morrison in the years prior to his death, resulting in the divisive American Prayer, which sold well but seemed to prove the band didn't work without Morrison. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction (1993) and a box-set recording (1997) were their final performances together, although Manzarek and Krieger re-united as the much-derided Doors Of The 21st Century, with The Cult's Ian Astbury out front, followed by Fuel's Brett Scallion when Astbury quit. A lawsuit from Densmore soon stopped them using The Doors name and they now tour as Manzarek-Krieger.
Quee n
AS with The Doors, the music of Queen was a band effort, but the lasting imagery and uniqueness stems from the frontman, in this case Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991. Four years later, remaining members Brian May (guitar), John Deacon (bass) and Roger Taylor (drums) scraped together an album of off-cuts, re-recordings and innovative sampling to make Made In Heaven, their 14th and final studio album. In the years that followed, May and Taylor (Deacon retired in 1997) played a number of times as Queen +, working with the likes of Wyclef Jean, Robbie Williams and Britney Spears before forming Queen + Paul Rodgers with the singer of Bad Company. A number of tours and a couple of live albums resulted, before the group entered the studio and released the album The Cosmos Rocks. Although charting well in Europe, the album took a critical caning and barely bothered the charts in Australia and the US, although some Queen fans apparently liked it. The Rodgers-May-Taylor experiment came to an end last year.
Rogue Traders
AFTER starting as a dance duo in 2002 and enjoying some success with their INXS-reworking One Of My Kind, Rogue Traders added Neighbours star Natalie Bassingthwaite for their second album Here Come The Drums in 2005. The record yielded a number of hit singles (including Voodoo Child, Way To Go!, and Watching You) and ARIA nominations, had some success in the UK and sold more than 280,000 copies in Australia alone. They followed it with the less successful Better In The Dark (which only sold 70,000+) and Bassingthwaite left in 2008 to focus on her acting and a solo career. Their forthcoming album Night Of The Living Drums boasts a new singer - Mindi Jackson - and "a bit more of a club feel", according to the vocalist. The record is expected out soon and will no doubt feature their official theme song for the Socceroos Hearts Beat As One as well as poorly charting recent singles Love Is A War and Would You Raise Your Hands?.
Little River Band
BELIEVED to be the first Aussie act to have a prolonged impact on the US charts and music scene, the saga of LRB is a messy one. Forming in 1975 with Glenn Shorrock out front, the band released six albums in seven years, including three that went top 25 in the US (five were top 10s in Australia). But Shorrock left in 1982, unable to handle the touring anymore, paving the way for a pre-Whispering Jack John Farnham to make a comeback after his post-teen-idol wilderness years. During Farnsy's tenure, LRB released three albums (which included the awesome single Playing To Win) before the singer quit to go solo. At the urging of MCA Records, Shorrock returned for two more albums (yielding their last hit single Love Is A Bridge). The band went on hiatus and somehow the band name fell to Stephen Housden, who was the group's third guitarist and who joined in 1981, at the tail-end of their initial success. Housden put together a new line-up around him and got a court order to stop founding members Shorrock, Graeham Goble and Beeb Birtles from using the name of the group they started. It certainly didn't win Housden any friends, and the recent non-SGB albums have been sales failures.
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