3 Songs You Didn’t Know Featured Famous Musicians

What would “Beat It” sound like without Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo? Or “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” minus Eric Clapton showing what it’s like when a guitar weeps.

Music history is full of legends appearing on the records of others. Sometimes credited, sometimes not. (Listen closely and you can hear Mick Jagger backing Carly Simon on “You’re So Vain.”)

Today, collaborations are useful to juice streams with featured artists listed alongside the main acts. But in another era, you’d have to read the album credits to find out, for example, whether that’s George Harrison playing acoustic guitar and singing on Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

So if you don’t have the CD booklets handy, here are three songs you didn’t know featured famous musicians.

“Blaze of Glory” by Jon Bon Jovi from Blaze of Glory (1990)

Emilio Estevez wanted Bon Jovi’s colossal hit “Wanted Dead or Alive” for the Young Guns II film. Though the 1980s power ballad has an outlaw-by-way-of-Jersey vibe, Bon Jovi didn’t think a song about his band on tour fit the movie’s plot. So he wrote a new Western ballad in the same vein and returned with “Blaze of Glory.” It marked Bon Jovi’s solo debut and featured an all-star cast of musicians: Benmont Tench on organ, Randy Jackson on bass, Kenny Aronoff on drums, and Jeff Beck on guitar.

You wonder what the rest of Bon Jovi’s first band thought about his solo move. All he did was recruit a Heartbreaker, a session ace, John Mellencamp’s drummer, and one of the greatest guitar players to have ever walked the planet. “Blaze of Glory” was yet another smash from Jersey’s other favorite son. The only thing bigger than Bon Jovi’s sky-high hook is Beck’s scorching guitar solo.

“Living in America” by James Brown from Gravity (1986)

James Brown’s funk hit appears in Rocky IV as Apollo Creed enters the ring. There’s an ’80s sheen to Brown’s patriotic jam, but lurking beneath is the sound of gritty and determined Texas blues. It’s a sound many guitarists have attempted but never quite captured. Stevie Ray Vaughan punctuates the glossy production with quick blasts from his beat-up Fender Stratocaster.

It brings to mind another cameo from Vaughan on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” Though in 1983, Vaughan was relatively unknown. Alongside Nile Rodgers’s signature funk, Vaughan’s fiery licks showed he was going to be more than a sidekick. His debut album Texas Flood arrived months later, and Vaughan carved his own path to becoming a legend.

“You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette from Jagged Little Pill (1995)

The most noticeable thing on “You Oughta Know,” apart from the seething lyrics, is the bass. It’s pushed right up in the mix, and that’s exactly what you do when Flea is the bassist. Alanis Morissette’s gigantic commercial breakthrough arrived with one of the biggest songs in the post-grunge era.

Morissette’s hit also features Benmont Tench on organ, Matt Laug on drums, and Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. This was 1995, and Navarro had joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers following the departure of John Frusciante. With half the Red Hot Chili Peppers in tow, the edges of “You Oughta Know” are no less sharp than the year the song dropped and kicked off a revolution of confessional female songwriters.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc