• The Rolling Stones were originally called The Brian Jones Blues Band
  • Bachman-Turner Overdrive's only number-one hit was originally intended as a joke for a member's brother
  • Some members of the Swedish group ABBA didn't know English and sang their songs phonetically using Swedish syllables

Rock & Roll's Most Wanted includes these stories and many more from nearly fifty years of rock lore, legend, and legerdemain. Author Stuart Shea unearths facts that will leave you laughing in surprise or shaking your head in disbelief at this well-researched, irreverent romp through rock & roll history.

Rock & Roll's Most Wanted features twenty-five lists chronicling groups with the oddest names, haircuts, deaths, hit songs, and more. Fans looking for information and entertainment from the world of rock won't be left singing "I can't get no satisfaction."

Excerpt

Ever since Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, then BOB DYLAN, in the mid-'60s, the industry has been searching for the next one. And the next one. And the one after that. Often against the will of the poor artist stuck with the tag, "the new Bob Dylan."

1. PHIL OCHS

Fellow New York folkie Phil Ochs didn't follow Dylan's mid-'60s path of love songs, rock instrumentation, and mainstream success. In fact, he criticized Dylan's movement from political folk into rock, which led to a rift between them.

Ochs, the author of classic protests such as "Too Many Martyrs," "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," and "The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of Santo Domingo," made his mark with several LPs of topical political songs played on acoustic guitar. A journalist by trade, Ochs wrote intensely urgent lyrics using metaphors and raw symbolism.

His beautiful personal songs, "Changes" and "When I'm Gone," were especially poignant because they were unexpected.

When he did abandon the solitary acoustic guitar, he went to full-blown baroque-style orchestral accompaniment on 1967's Pleasures of the Harbor LP. His commercial appeal waned as his songs became more insular. Ochs suffered bouts of depression and drank too much, and an odd 1970 revival as an Elvis Presley-style rocker didn't slow his decline.

Ochs's last major public appearance, coming two years before his 1976 suicide, was at a benefit concert to oppose the military government in Chile. He and Dylan shared the stage.