If a rockstar could come back to life who would it be?

Zoolooter · July 2023

I dearly miss Stuart Adamson , Big Country Live at the BBC album is pitch perfect. My wife is a away for a month and I’m going through all this stuff.. really loud. The first Robbie Robinson album is also 10/10 with Crazy River and Broken Arrow,

Who’s yours?

RocknRollDave · July 2023

Stuart Adamson is one of the best frontmen I ever got to see live.

DrCornelius · July 2023

Jimi because I think he would have carried on branching out into funk and jazz and been bloody good at it too

vasselmeyer · July 2023

Stevie Ray. I'd love to hear how his playing evolved.

digitalkettle · July 2023

Robertson!..and he's still alive

Good call on Stuart though!

Philly_Q · July 2023

Are we talking at the height of their powers, in good health, or a straightforward resurrection at the age or state of health when they died?

If the former, Ronnie James Dio. Tommy Bolin. Randy Rhoads. Bon Scott. Cliff Burton.

Oh god, there's loads. All those guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd. The entire original lineup of Molly Hatchet. David Byron. Gary Thain. Leslie West. Ronnie Montrose. James Dewar. EVH. Paul Kossoff. Gary Moore. Phil Lynott...

I'd better stop.

Philly_Q · July 2023

Keith Moon.

fastonebaz · July 2023

Adam.

The first guitar player.

Kebabkid · August 2023

Phil Lynott
Eddie Van Halen
Gary Moore
Neil Peart
Freddie

Kilgore · August 2023

John Lennon

guitars4you · August 2023

Easy to say some obvious big names - Bowie, Prince, Elvis, Lennon and even Jimi H - But 'd pick Buddy Holly - Not because I'm his biggest fan - But 'pop music' as we now know it, that is guitar based, was only a couple of years old when Buddy was around - He created many great songs in such a sort time - Massive influence on The Beatles - It would have been great to see what more he could have come up with and how he'd have changed his own career/writing when the Brit Pop explosion arrived

digitalscream · August 2023

Keith Richards.

Pretty sure he has form for this.

bloodandtears · August 2023

digitalscream said:

Keith Richards.

Pretty sure he has form for this.

came here to suggest the same!!

Whitecat · August 2023

Yeah it depends what you mean by "come back" - I often think about what some of these incredibly famous/talented cats would be like if they were still alive today - playing the heritage circuit? Appearing on panel shows on TV? Probably not making records that the masses would buy, that's for sure, but people would still talk about their current work.

Freddie's a definite for me - he would be turning 77 this year, hard to believe he was only three years younger than Mick.

Of others not mentioned, I think Walter Becker was taken from us too early and I think the Steely Dan renaissance that's happened in the ensuing years since he passed would make him smile.

Neilybob · August 2023

DrCornelius said:

Jimi because I think he would have carried on branching out into funk and jazz and been bloody good at it too

Him

Bod · August 2023

The antithesis of rockstar really, but I really miss Tim Smith of Cardiacs. l only discovered them after his stroke in 2008 so never got to see them live, but they're now one of my favourite bands. I sometimes try to imagine the sort of stuff he'd be writing now...

EricTheWeary · August 2023

guitars4you said:

Easy to say some obvious big names - Bowie, Prince, Elvis, Lennon and even Jimi H - But 'd pick Buddy Holly - Not because I'm his biggest fan - But 'pop music' as we now know it, that is guitar based, was only a couple of years old when Buddy was around - He created many great songs in such a sort time - Massive influence on The Beatles - It would have been great to see what more he could have come up with and how he'd have changed his own career/writing when the Brit Pop explosion arrived

I was thinking about this last night and of the rock stars who died young who might have had the most impact on popular music had they lived longer and I thought Buddy Holly.

Otherwise I’d probably say Terry Hall as he passed away on my birthday which seems an unfortunate association (for me)and could have made the album he had just started. Although, admittedly, he at least outlived quite a few of the others mentioned here.

LastMantra · August 2023

The only thing about the likes of Hendrix, Jim Morrison etc. is they became legends partly because they died young.

I reckon, with a bit of therapy, Kurt Cobain could still be writing good songs. Even if his voice was knackered.

rlw · August 2023

I'm just pondering a band comprising Jimi Hendris, Jack Bruce and Keith Moon.....................

DrCornelius · August 2023

LastMantra said:

The only thing about the likes of Hendrix, Jim Morrison etc. is they became legends partly because they died young.

I reckon, with a bit of therapy, Kurt Cobain could still be writing good songs. Even if his voice was knackered.

Not so sure tbh - they were both groundbreaking. Jimi reinvented rock playing and blew the (high quality competition) out of the water and Morrison to me came along and combined the beat poets approach with jazz rock and the whole wild tortured rock star cliche to a tee.

mikeyrob73 · August 2023

Cliff Burton for sure
would be interesting to see the direction Metallica took had he remained undead

munckee · August 2023

I think they should all stay dead to preserve their legacy as per @LastMantra otherwise they'd all bring out a frog song at some point.

axisus · August 2023

munckee said:

I think they should all stay dead to preserve their legacy as per @LastMantra otherwise they'd all bring out a frog song at some point.

You mean before they croaked again?

axisus · August 2023

Hmmnnn ... difficult question.

1 I'd feel reluctant to bring someone back who died of drugs, as they wasted their talent
2 I wouldn't go for someone who had creatively dried up
3 I wouldn't pick someone who doesn't work/release much music

Off the top of my head I'd probably go Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was my fave guitarist for years and I think he'd have got into some interesting music going forward, digressing a bit from pure blues.

roberty · August 2023

For me it would have to be a songwriter, Lennon, Cobain, Winehouse

LastMantra · August 2023

DrCornelius said:

LastMantra said:

The only thing about the likes of Hendrix, Jim Morrison etc. is they became legends partly because they died young.

I reckon, with a bit of therapy, Kurt Cobain could still be writing good songs. Even if his voice was knackered.

Not so sure tbh - they were both groundbreaking. Jimi reinvented rock playing and blew the (high quality competition) out of the water and Morrison to me came along and combined the beat poets approach with jazz rock and the whole wild tortured rock star cliche to a tee.

I agree. Note the word "partly".

Philly_Q · August 2023

mikeyrob73 said:

Cliff Burton for sure
would be interesting to see the direction Metallica took had he remained undead

I think of all the names mentioned, even though many are far more famous, that's the one which would interest me the most.

With most of these it would've been "more of the same", but I really don't know where Metallica might have gone (musically speaking) had Cliff lived.

Sporky · August 2023

Dolores O'Riordan.

She'd come back as a zombie.

Blueingreen · August 2023

I think Lennon could still have done something astonishing. His problem post Beatles (in fact even before the band broke up) was lack of motivation. He’d got all the fame, money, and respect from peers and critics that he could ever want and found it didn’t solve any of his problems. He went from the most driven Beatle to the really can't be arsed Beatle.

But occasionally there were flashes that the magic was still there when he really applied himself - like Watching the Wheels, released posthumously, ironically a song about his lack of interest in being relevant. Tom Bukovac does an instrumental version on one of his Homeskoolin' videos that really brings out the melodic greatness and originality of the song, and you can see that Bukovac is in awe of it.

I like to think if he'd been given the chance that at some point Lennon would have recovered the desire to prove he could still do great work, even if it was only for one album - his Blackstar equivalent, if you like.

wesker123 · August 2023

Jeff Buckley

or Clapton

mudslide73 · August 2023

Marriott or Bonzo for me. I don't think Stevie got the recognition he deserved while he was alive. He's the singer I'd like to have seen the most, no question.

Bonzo would have meant Zeppelin could have had a break while Jimmy straightened himself out.. I think their mythical "return to rock" follow up to ITTOD would have been worth a listen.

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If a rockstar could come back to life who would it be?

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