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Gimme 10: The Rock Legends

From birth, rock n roll carries thousands of legends, which now form an integral part of mass culture. Join me for a walk in the garden where  strange stories grow...

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From the very birth, rock 'n' roll carries thousands of legends, which now form an integral part of mass culture. Most of them fade quickly. But some have proven to be very resistant in time, haunting the minds of thousands of fans and music lovers. Join me for a walk in the garden where  strange stories grow...







1. Robert Johnson and the Devil
It was at a crossroads in Mississippi where, according to the archetypal rock legend, Robert Johnson met the devil and sold him his soul in exchange for his great guitar skills. It was even said that there was a scratch on his body as a "signature" of the agreement. Rohnson himself assisted enormously the spreading of the legend, writing songs as Me And The Devil Blues.

2. Paul is dead
In 1966 Paul McCartney was killed at a car accident. The rest of the Beatles secretly replaced him with his double, William Campbell, but inserted encoded messages regarding this fact, on the covers of all their later albums, as well as among the lyrics of their songs. All these  only happened in the minds of some American students after extreme marijuana consumption...

3. Elvis lives
The death of Elvis Presley was so unbearable for some of his fans, they created a legend, according to which the King either lives on some exotic island under another name or has been abducted by aliens and will return on the Second Coming. Many "spottings" of the "missing " have also been noted...


4. The dark side of the Wizard of Oz
The Dark Side Of The Moon is one of the greatest albums ever and one of the most influential. Sometime in the 1990s a rumor was spread on the Internet that the album had been recorded as an alternative soundtrack to the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz. Some, apparently with plenty of free time  discovered that when playing alongside the film and album, the lyrics reflected what was happening in the film at many points. The band members have repeatedly denied that there is any trace of truth to this theory. 

5. The blood of Keith Richards
The admission of Keith Richards in a Swedish clinic in 1973 sparked the rumor that the Rolling Stones guitarist had a full transfusion of blood to "clean it up" from the drug residues. According to him, he started the rumor himself , when he was put to answer for the millionth time to a journalist's question on how he got off drugs. 'I was sick of having to answer that, so I gave them a story', he said later.

6. Joints in the toilets of Buckingham
In 1965 the Beatles visited the Palace of Buckingham, where they were awarded the title MBE (Member of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth. Later, Lennon said that while they were nervously waiting, the four of them shared a joint in the toilet. Later, of course, he admitted that they were too scared to do so. However, it is possible that they smoked a plain cigarette to cool down ...

7. Jacko and The Elephant Man
At the time that the star of Michael Jackson shone dazzling, many strange rumors about himself and his private life begun to spread out. Among others, it was said that he had purchased, for 50.000 dollars, the bones of Joseph Merrick, a patient who went down in history as the Elephant Man because of his mangled body. It is possible that Jackson may have indeed tried to make that purchase, but it is certain that the bones have never been in his possession.

8. The audition of Charles Manson
Before becoming famous for the murders he organized, Charles Manson was an unfamous musician, trying to promote his work, managing to even convince the Beach Boys to record one of his songs and include in their album 20/20. According to legend, Manson participated in auditions for the selection of members of the Monkees, a "manufactured" band of the 1960s, and being rejected left him severely hurt. Do you think that could be the reason he begun the 
bloodshed began a few years later?

9. Bat terminator 
Ozzy Osbourne is crazy enough to make the fact that he cut off the heads of bats with his own teeth on stage believable, and he once did that indeed, but
... accidentally. A bat had fallen on stage and Ozzy, mistaking it for plastic, bited it. The bat bited back before dying, but the singer had to undergo a series of painful antirabic vaccination that would prevent anyone from continuing to engage in this sport ...

10. Kiss my tongue
The Kiss' Gene Simmons does not lose an opportunity to publicly display his unusually large tongue. Its
size has led some to create a legend, according to which Simmons has been transplanted with a cow tongue. Interesting point of view, don't you think;



* Photos http://www.learntheguitarnow.com/learn-guitar-blog/uploaded_images/keith-richards-771731.jpg , http://bittenandbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/gene-simmons-photo.jpg and www.wikipedia.org .

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