Have you ever wondered where some of the rock bands got their names? I guess “Chicago” and “Alabama” might be self explanatory. But what about “Lynyrd Skynyrd,” “Marshall Tucker Band” or even the “Beatles?” Last night on our way to Dayton, I did a little research.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Does the name, “My Back Yard” ring a bell? This group of guys from a high school in Jacksonville, FL decided to rename their group after their gym teacher, Leonard Skinner. Apparently Mr. Skinner was not keen on long hair so they sort of thought they would “show him” by using a rendition of his name.
MARSHALL TUCKER BAND
While practicing in an old warehouse in Spartanburg, South Carolina the band started brainstorming about potential band names. Someone found a key in the warehouse with the name, “Marshall Tucker,” inscribed on it. They had no idea that Marshall Tucker was the name of a local piano tuner who, by the way, was blind and had tuned a piano in the warehouse. They just liked the sound of it. And Mr. Tucker said as long as the boys behaved and made good music, he didn’t mind their using his name.
BACHMAN TURNER OVERDRIVE
So… with three Bachmans and one Turner, it’s easy to see where that part of their name came from. But actually this Canadian band first came on the scene as “Brave Belt” in the early seventies. For various reasons they decided to change their name to incorporate their last names. It was in a diner in Canada that they noticed a trucker magazine called, “Overdrive” and the rest is history. They have several songs about the highway and they used gears in many of their videos and in their logo. And did you know that their avid followers call themselves “gearheads?”
JEFFERSON STARSHIP
This band started as “Jefferson Airplane” which has its own somewhat silly story. Back in the day, a used match splint was apparently handy to hold a marijuana joint. This little thing became known as a “Jefferson Airplane.” Simultaneously there was a jazz musician who went by the name, “Blind Lemon Jefferson.” For some reason a friend of one of the band’s guitarists developed a nickname for him incorporating these two terms — “Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane.” Did you follow all of that? And so “Jefferson Airplane” was born.
Later the band became known as the “Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra,” producing an album called “Blows Against the Empire.” One of the songs talks about some people who escape from planet earth on some kind of “starship” and somehow “airplane” morphed into “starship” and “Jefferson Starship” took flight in rock and roll history.
CHICAGO
Initially named, “The Big Thing,” the group changed its name to “The Chicago Transit Authority” after the cities public transportation company. Later, in order to avoid a lawsuit, they shortened it to “Chicago.”
BEATLES
The band liked Buddy Holly and the Crickets so thought they might use a different insect for themselves. John Lennon suggested that they use the spelling “BeAtles” as a nod to musical style. But did you know that they were known as the “Silver Beatles” for a spell?
And there you have it — all the research I care to do on band names. Hope you enjoyed the various stories. Maybe tomorrow I’ll write about something a little more serious. We’ll see.
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