Gotta love the magic of the internet. With a little excavation, you can go back in time to see your favorite artists long before the world knew their names and faces. I find it fascinating to look at the old photos and absorb the more relatable, non-celebrityness of them.
Jerry Garcia performing with the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers in 1962. Jerry was a fixture on the Bay Area folk and bluegrass scene before he and some friends discovered LSD.
David Bowie at 17, when his name was still David Jones, right around the time he formed the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men." His band at the time was The Mannish Boys, which his record label misspelled on their only single release.
16-year-old Jimmy Page with his first electric guitar, a Grazioso Resonet Futurama. His name would make a bit more of an impact on rock music than the guitar-maker.
The Squires were a band formed in Winnipeg in 1963 who had a (very) regional hit called "The Sultan." The tall guitarist on the left is Neil Young, before he took off to Toronto, then L.A. This is the Squires' only known promo photo.
Willie Nelson and his sister Bobbie Lee, sometime in the 1940's, presumably before he discovered weed. Bobbie was a key member of Willie's Family Band for decades, until she passed away in March of this year.
The Quarrymen, playing a house party in Liverpool in 1957. No Beatles on the horizon yet, George is only 14 years old in the photo. John is the group's founder and senior member at 16. No idea who the guy on the right is.
Three British architecture students and a misfit art school dropout named Syd Barrett bought groovy clothes and formed their first band together in early 1965. The lead singer was a fan of two obscure American blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, and borrowed their names for his new group.
He was the son of an affluent St. Louis dentist, hence the professional photo and snazzy clothes. This shot from the 1930's is proof that Miles Davis would, on rare occasions, smile for a camera, sort of.
Until 1966, Jim Osterburg played the drums for an Ann Arbor band called the Prime Movers. He had kicked around in a couple of other local bands, but this was the first one for which he adopted the stage name Iggy Pop. It wasn't long before he ditched the drum kit for center stage.
Lou Reed (in stripes) wrote a couple of unremarkable teen pop songs that were actually recorded around the time of this 1962 photo. The "Merry Go Round" / "Your Love" single was credited to Lewis Reed. He hadn't quite found his final stage name yet, but his father had already dropped the last name Rabinowitz. No info on who the other three sweater-people are.
Unlike most of her contemporaries on the 60s and 70s L.A. music scene, Linda Ronstadt was never a poor, struggling musician. Her family in Arizona was prominent enough to be featured in Family Circle magazine in the 1950's. This photo was taken not long before she headed further west.
Before the James Gang, long before joining the Eagles, Joe Walsh led a band called the Measles in 1966. He would get better at band names and play much bigger stages.
Famed British photographer Peter Christopherson was hired in February of 1976 to take the first promotional photos of manager / boutique owner Malcom McClaren's new band, the Sex Pistols, before they had ever played a note of music. John Lydon, literally a kid pulled off the streets, decided to call himself Johnny Rotten for the project.
Emmylou Harris in 1968, shortly after she dropped out of college and moved to New York City to be part of the Greenwich Village folk music boom. She likely paid for this promo photo with tips she made waiting tables after she got there.
A shot from this band's first-ever concert - 1970 at Nipmuc Regional High School in Mendon, MA - before they had even figured out a name for themselves. The following year they would settle on Aerosmith.
Before they were the Allman Brothers, Greg and Duane were the Allman Joys, a mostly covers band with really sketchy haircuts.
This seems to be the only surviving photo of a new band calling themselves the Rollin' Stones at the Marquee Club on July 12, 1962. This was the first public gig by the group, who would conquer the world by adding a "g" to their name.
These three met in 1973 when they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design. They would soon move to Manhattan and the singer would get corrective dental surgery. The name of this band is Talking Heads.
MYSTERY BONUS PIC - This guy played guitar for NYC's Joey Dee and the Starlighters in the early 1960s. He eventually found fame and fortune, but not as a musician. Name that former rock and roller!
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