Famous Musicians Who've Unwisely Added Talentless Relatives To Their Lineup

Offset

As threatened.

Where to start... how's about Yoko Ono?

Feel free to add 'talented relatives' too, and I'll offer up Teddy Thompson who I've seen with his dad on a couple of occasions.

Supportact

Yoko Ono is a famous musician who unwisely added a talentless relative to her line up? Controversial.  

roundthebend

This is an example of the opposite..... Liam Gallagher asking Noel to join Oasis.

Gassage

Excellent thread!

Deacon Frey
Sharon Finn playing bass with Neil
Polly Sampson
Jonnie van Zant

tony99

Jools Holland initially had his brother Jeffrey playing bass in Squeeze until they found out he was a  bit crap. Fair play to Jeff though who went on to find fame as Spike in Hi-de-Hi.

slacker

Linda McCartney wasn't great on keyboards. But yoko was good at knitting on top of the pops.

Axe_meister

Ozzy Osborn adding his daughter

Offset

In which bucket do the Zappa progeny belong?

Offset

tony99 said:

Jools Holland initially had his brother Jeffrey playing bass in Squeeze until they found out he was a  bit crap. Fair play to Jeff though who went on to find fame as Spike in Hi-de-Hi.

You're getting confused.  He presented Rainbow.

mrkb

Linda McCartney?

octatonic

Offset said:

In which bucket do the Zappa progeny belong?

2 good, 2 not.

JEM

Talentless is probably not fair but Peter Gabriel replaced the excellent Paula Cole with his daughter, Melanie for the Growing Up tour. She's by no means a bad singer but is not a patch on Cole.

Offset

Violet Grohl?  I suspect most will be favourably disposed towards her (including me) partly because she can sing, but principally because her dad is such a top guy.

BillDL

Is Jon Smolt any good?

boogieman

Leon Hendrix didn’t play with his more famous brother but has been trading off the family connection for years. He’s an extremely average guitarist, and even that’s probably flattering him hugely. 

Teyeplayer

Cherie Blair? 

EricTheWeary

I remember Tina Turner sacking her son as the bassist in her band. Although (if I have the right son) he did give up the bass, turn to acting and get a part in her biopic so I guess it ended well. 

octatonic said:

Offset said:

In which bucket do the Zappa progeny belong?

2 good, 2 not.

Dweezil does seem to be a gloriously wonderful human being.It's probably rather dated now but he was on Celebrity Wife swap USA (I think that's right) and seemed to be the nicest person you could imagine as well as being a successful actor and a rather dextrous guitarist. If it turns out he eats babies on the full moon I don't care. 

I read a book by Moon which I enjoyed. Ahmet does appear to be a prize dick. I have no idea about Diva - acting and making expensive knitwear apparently. 

Blueingreen

It's the "unwisely" criterion that may make it difficult to think of examples.  Yoko is a good example because there's a good argument that she made Lennon's work worse. Linda on other hand was confined to stuff where she probably didn't do much actual harm even if she didn't do much good either.  And I suspect that would be more typical of cases where less talented relatives have been shoehorned in.

stickyfiddle

Offset said:

Violet Grohl?  I suspect most will be favourably disposed towards her (including me) partly because she can sing, but principally because her dad is such a top guy.

Nah, she’s not in the band and only guested on a couple of very poignant songs on a very appropriate record to have her involved with. She’s got a good vibe so I’m board provided she’s not going to be showing up belting Everlong every night.

ICBM

Blueingreen said:

It's the "unwisely" criterion that may make it difficult to think of examples.  Yoko is a good example because there's a good argument that she made Lennon's work worse.

I think the opposite - Yoko is a much better musician than most people who only associate her with her early shrieking noise-art realise - she can actually sing conventionally if she wants to, not brilliant but she can certainly pitch her voice well enough. I think she inspired Lennon to be much more creative and take more chances than he might have otherwise... and she co-wrote Imagine, although wasn't credited for it originally.

Blueingreen said:

Linda on other hand was confined to stuff where she probably didn't do much actual harm even if she didn't do much good either.  And I suspect that would be more typical of cases where less talented relatives have been shoehorned in.

Linda is also unfairly maligned. She wasn't a great musician but she was by no means talentless - I really don't think Paul would have had her in the band if she had been.

Gassage said:

Deacon Frey
Sharon Finn playing bass with Neil
Polly Sampson
Jonnie van Zant

Got to agree with those though - I'm not familiar with Jonnie van Zandt, but you're right enough about the others that I don't think I'll bother being .

Does Nancy Sinatra count?

Dominic

Lieutent Pigeon had a scorching number1 with 'Mouldy old Dough ' ....one of the band had their old mum on the Piano.
I don't think she brought a lot to the Baking Table !