Beech Tree News Network

Every artist had to start somewhere.  Sometimes the idea is solid.  The name? Not so much.  Here are a few examples of what I mean.  I believe you’ll recognize these bands, if not at first.

Two 15-year-old kids start shopping around their songs at the Brill Building in 1956.  Realizing they didn’t have the most marketable names in the world, Paul Simon became John Landis(after a girl he had a crush on, Sue Landis) and his partner Arthur became Tom Graph(because he loved to graph the progress of hit records on paper-really).  Apparently not fearing a lawsuit from Hanna-Barbera, they called themselves Tom & Jerry.  They had a hit with “Hey Schoolgirl.  They played that on American Bandstand right after Jerry Lee Lewis played “Great Balls of Fire-too bad there’s no video! In 1964, the duo decided to use their real names-Simon & Garfunkel. 

Smile doesn’t exactly sound like the name of a band that’s going to be big, does it? It’s not offensive.  It’s simply forgettable.  Brian May and Roger Taylor formed the group in college.  When bassist and vocalist Tim Staffell quit the group, May and Taylor formed a new group with Freddie Mercury, who gave them the name Queen.  He once told Circus magazine “The concept of Queen is to be regal and majestic.  Glamour is a part of us and we want to be dandy.  We want to shock and be outrageous”.  I believe they accomplished their goal.  I’m not sure Smile would’ve been as huge as Queen.

A suit-clad ‘90’s alternative group called Kara’s Flowers sounds like a one hit wonder. If that.  There were plenty of those in that decade.  This name referenced a groupie who had a crush on all of them but sounds like a Lilith Fair group.  The bad released two albums under that misguided moniker called We Like Digging (who calls anything that?) and the major label flop(shocker), The Fourth World before dubbing themselves Maroon 5 for 2002’s funky Songs About Jane.  I believe they made the right choice changing names.

Ever heard of the Pendeltons? No? When Brian Wilson began writing songs about surfing in 1961, he'd hardly ever even touched a surfboard, so to get some credibility he called his new group the Pendeltons after the plaid, wool shirts favored by the surf community. Just three months later, Los Angeles–based independent label Candix Records agreed to release their debut single "Surfin'." But they hated the stuffy-sounding name and changed it to Beach Boys (after almost going with the Surfers) without even telling the band. It's as generic as it comes, but the group had no choice but to go with it. In the early 1970s, tired of being known as aBeach Boy, Wilson suggested they change their name to Beach. The others didn't go for it. They knew they were destined to be Beach Boys for life. https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/25-worst-original-names-of-famous-bands/ar-AAGzHL7?ocid=spartandhp#page=2I’ll circle back to this topic in future columns.