Overshadowed by bandmates

What a great topic! Lots of great answers, too. Most of my examples have already been mentioned, the most significant being Johnnie Johnson (Chuck Berry's pianist. Someone interviewed in the movie Hail, Hail, Rock n' Roll, noted that a lot of Chucks songs are in "piano keys", not those written on guitar. Get it?), John Entwistle (you can't tell how good he was from The Who's recordings, but live he was astounding), and Mick Taylor (also in the movie is a scene in which Chuck and Keith are rehearsing "Oh Carol", and Chuck notices Keith is incorrectly playing the guitar figure that precedes a couple sections of the song. He shows Keith that the first note is played with the strings bent up (sharp), the second note played with the strings unbent. Those two notes, back and forth between bent and unbent, in that order, several times. Try as he might, Keith just can not play it! Any 16-year old should be able to, and Keith cites Chuck as his main influence. Lame!).

Being overshadowed varies by degree, and though well known amongst this crowd, there are a couple of guys I can add:

Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum. His organ playing was very much responsible for their original sound (including his infamous J.S. Bach quote in "A Whiter Shade of Pale"), which changed quite a bit after he left (the A Salty Dog album was his last). He subsequently made a few good solo albums on RCA, fairly easy to find on LP for cheap.

James Jamerson of "The Funk Brothers", the Motown house band. Yes, he's well known, but his contribution to not only recordings, but the very playing of electric bass itself is inestimable, and still under-acknowledged (though not by McCartney, who has said that hearing James' playing changed his conception of what bass playing could be). The bass part in Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" (one of the handful of greatest songs ever written, by the way) sends shivers up my spine!

Let me second Audiofeil's listing of Chris Hillman. His Byrd's songs were some of their best, and his post-Byrds output is just amazing. He made a bunch of great solo albums (on Bluegrass-label Sugar Hill), and was the leader of The Desert Rose Band, who made some real good music.

I recently picked up a copy of the SHF album Marty, but haven't heard it yet. The Little Village album was a little disappointing to me, considering how great they were on John Hiatt's Bring The Family album. I think it may have been because the ground rules were that no one was allowed to bring in any already written songs, the songs they recorded were written on the spot. Not necessarily the best way to write! Plus, it was too democratic---drummer Jim Keltner got to provide material, and it sucks!

I saw them live, and the contrast between their solo-written songs and those collaboratively-written was stark. But their playing was just what you would expect---world class. Cooder's solo on Hiatt's "Lipstick Sunset" was the best I've seen/heard live! He had a pile of about a half-a-dozen little combo amps and as many guitars, but, as usual, played mostly his pale-blue Strat.

Agree again Marty---Mick Taylor's playing is excellent on the Stones albums, but not quite in the same spirit as everybody else---too sober!

Nick Lowe is a long-time favorite of mine as well (and Rockpile the only "Super Group" I really like, though The Traveling Wilburys would be were it not for Tom Petty, who seems oddly out-of-place), and I just got some news on him. He's going to be doing a U.S. tour, and his backing band will be Los Straitjackets, the Instrumental Band on the same label as Nick, Yep Rock. What makes this of particular interest to me is that I used to be in a Band (The Hillbilly Soul Surfers) with their bassist, Pete Curry. We've known each other since the first day of 7th grade!

Here's a Ry Cooder/Keith Richards/Stones story ya'll may find interesting: Brian Jones had died, and he had yet to be replaced (by the way, one of those who auditioned for his job was none other than...Dave Edmunds!). Cooder got a call to come over to England to do some jamming with them. He went in and played along on some new songs they had ready, finding it odd that Keith wasn't around. One day he showed up early, only to discover Keith playing along with the tapes that had been recorded with Ry playing, learning Ry's parts! He packed his bags and returned home. I'm tellin' ya, Keith has been coasting for a long time, trading on his legend and image.

I attended the tribute show for Gram Parsons at The Universal Amphitheater in 2004. Unbelievably, Chris Hillman was not there (though Emmylou was), but Keith closed the show. He also performed "Love Hurts", a song associated with Gram though his version was merely a rather weak imitation of the great Everly Brothers original, as a duet with Norah Jones. Keith was kind of pre-occupied with Norah, doing his whole "lascivious Uncle" shtick on her. VERY leeringly, too. Really creepy.