The Top 25 Multi-Instrumentalist Musicians Of All Time
The Multi-Instrumentalist Musicians On This List Do Not Appear In Any Particular Order
Austin Lunn: (Panopticon) guitar, bass, drums, vocals, banjos, fiddles, and keyboards.
Panopticon is an American black metal band founded by Austin Lunn in Louisville, Kentucky in 2007.The project began as a studio-only effort with Lunn writing and performing all parts. While he remains the driving creative force, Panopticon has since expanded to include a lineup of musicians for live performances. The music features many familiar elements of black metal, but additionally incorporates bluegrass and Appalachian folk. In addition to sounds typical to heavy metal music, such as distorted guitars and rapid drumming, Panopticon also incorporates a diverse range of additional instrumentation such as banjos, fiddles, bells, synthesizers and acoustic guitar.
Taj Mahal: guitar, harmonica, banjo, clarinet, trombone, bass, and drums.
Henry St. Claire Fredericks, Jr. (born May 17, 1942), better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and film composer. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
Marcus Miller: bass, guitar, vocals, recorder, clarinet, saxophone, and keyboards.
William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. (born June 14, 1959) is an American film composer, jazz composer, record producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a bassist. Marcus has done thousands of recording sessions as well as live shows all over the world with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, Stanley Clark, Victor Wooten (as part of the group SMV), his own band, and many others.
Roger Rasmussen: (Nattefrost) Vocals, drums, guitar, keyboards, and bass.
Roger Rasmussen, better known by the stage name Nattefrost, is a Norwegian musician, best known for being the vocalist and a founding member of black metal band Carpathian Forest. He also fronts the side projects World Destroyer and Kreft, and since 2003 also has a solo project of his own. In 2000 Nattefrost formed his first side project, World Destroyer, alongside Eivind Kulde and his Carpathian Forest bandmate Daniel Vrangsinn. The band released a demo album, Diabolical Quest, in 2004; it is their only release so far. He would form the duo Kreft in 2011 alongside Patolog Falk, releasing in the same year the EP Lommemannen.
Prince: vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums.
Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor, and director. He was known for his flamboyant and androgynous persona, eclectic work, and wide vocal range, which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams. He often played most or all instruments on his recordings.
Prince's music incorporated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, rock, new wave, soul, synth-pop, pop, jazz, and hip hop. He pioneered the Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s. He had a prolific output, releasing 39 albums during his life, with a vast array of unreleased projects left in a vault at his home after his death.
Paul McCartney: (The Beatles and Wings) bass, guitar, vocals, keyboards, and drums.
Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and record and film producer who gained worldwide fame as co-lead vocalist, co-songwriter, and bassist for the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine.
A self-taught musician, McCartney is proficient on bass, guitar, keyboards, and drums. He is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing (mainly playing with a plectrum), his versatile and wide tenor vocal range (spanning over four octaves), and his eclecticism (exploring styles ranging from pre-rock and roll pop to classical and electronica).
Flea: (Red Hot Chili Peppers) bass, guitar, trumpet, drums, keyboards, and vocals.
Michael Peter Balzary (born 16 October 1962), known professionally as Flea, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He is a founding member and the bassist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea briefly appeared as the bassist for such bands as What Is This?, Fear, and Jane's Addiction. He has performed with rock supergroups Atoms for Peace, Antemasque, Pigface, and Rocket Juice & the Moon, and collaborated with the Mars Volta, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Alanis Morissette, and Young MC. Flea also performed live with Nirvana in 1993 playing the trumpet.
Flea incorporates elements of funk (including slap bass), psychedelic, punk, and hard rock in his style of playing. In 2009, Rolling Stone readers ranked Flea the second best bassist of all time, behind only John Entwistle.In 2012, he and the other members of Red Hot Chili Peppers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Jef Whitehead: (Leviathan) guitar, bass, vocals, drums, and keyboards.
Leviathan is an American black metal solo project that started in 1998 by Jef Whitehead under the pseudonym Wrest. On all Leviathan albums, Wrest records all instruments and performs vocals on his own. Despite having early problems with the release of the fourth album Massive Conspiracy Against All Life, it was released March 24, 2008 in Europe and on March 25, 2008 in North America. Additionally, Wrest has collaborated with the band Sunn O))), and he was an active member of the U.S. black metal supergroup Twilight from its formation until it disbanded in 2014. He has stated in interviews that he has been playing drums longer than any other instrument and that the drums are his instrument of choice. Wrest also played and recorded all instruments as well as vocals in his other project, Lurker of Chalice, which had two demos and one full-length album in 2005 released before it was dissolved. Whitehead also writes all the lyrics for Leviathan but has noted, "I don't consider myself a poet by any means."
Phil Colins: (Genesis) vocals, keyboards, and drums.
Philip David Charles Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English drummer, singer, record producer, songwriter and actor. He is best known as the drummer/singer of the rock band Genesis and for his solo career. Between 1982 and 1990, Collins achieved three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, he had more US top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s.His most successful singles from the period include "In the Air Tonight", "I Don't Care Anymore", "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", "One More Night", "Sussudio", "Take Me Home", "Two Hearts", "A Groovy Kind of Love", "I Wish It Would Rain Down", and "Another Day in Paradise."
Jaco Pastorius: (Weather Report) bass, guitar, vocals, drums, and keyboards.
John Francis Anthony "Jaco" Pastorius III (/ˈdʒɑːkoʊ pæˈstɔːriəs/; December 1, 1951 – September 21, 1987) was an American jazz bassist who was a member of Weather Report from 1976 to 1981. He worked with Pat Metheny and Joni Mitchell, and recorded albums as a solo artist and band leader. His bass playing employed funk, lyrical solos, bass chords, and innovative harmonics. As of 2017, he is the only electric bassist of seven bassists inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame and has been lauded as one of the best electric bassists of all time.
Lenny Kravitz: guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.
Leonard Albert Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. His style incorporates elements of rock, blues, soul, R&B, funk, jazz, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, pop, folk, and ballads.
Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, breaking the record for most wins in that category and setting the record for most consecutive wins in one category by a male. He has been nominated for and won other awards, including American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, Radio Music Awards, Brit Awards, and Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.
Lauri Penttilä: (“Werwolf” from Satanic Warmaster) vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards.
Satanic Warmaster is a Finnish black metal project from Lappeenranta, Finland, consisting of the sole musician "Werwolf" (who's real name Lauri Penttilä). Penttilä began recording under this name in 1998. Satanic Warmaster has sold tens of thousands of albums worldwide without the support of any major distribution companies or record labels. The band has subsequently toured around the world in countries such as Finland, Germany, Russia, Mexico, Japan and Italy. After a level of commercial success was achieved with sustained recordings. In November 2014, Satanic Warmaster's album "Fimbulwinter" reached the Finnish official chart on place #14 and the Rumba specialized stores' chart on place #2.
Vidar Vaaer: (Ildjarn) guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums.
ldjarn was a Norwegian cult black metal project that formed in 1991. Ildjarn recorded music until 1997 but did not officially end until 2005. The man behind Ildjarn was Vidar Vaaer, although some releases were collaborations with a musician known as Nidhogg. The band's music was a very raw, fast, simple and lo-fi brand of black metal, with most songs composed of basic drum patterns, a couple of riffs, and unintelligible vocals. The band's style has been compared to hardcore punk in its simplistic ferocity and short song lengths. Two Ildjarn albums were made entirely on a synthesizer. Of all the released music, the only Ildjarn song to have its lyrics published was "Eksistensens Jeger", from the self-titled Ildjarn-Nidhogg (2003) compilation.
Sammy Davis Jr: (The Rat Pack) vocals, trumpet, drums, guitar, bass, violin, sax, and piano.
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, vaudevillian, and comedian whom critic Randy Blaser called "the greatest entertainer ever to grace a stage in these United States". At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities. In 1960, he appeared in the Rat Pack film Ocean's 11. with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop. In 1966, he had his own TV variety show, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show.
Dave Grohl: (Foo Fighters and Nirvana) vocals, bass, guitar, and drums.
David Eric Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He was the drummer for rock band Nirvana and founded the band Foo Fighters, for whom he is the singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter. Grohl is also the drummer and co-founder of the rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, and wrote the music for his short-lived side projects Late! and Probot. He has also recorded and toured with Queens of the Stone Age. At age 17, Grohl joined punk rock band Scream after the departure of drummer Kent Stax. He joined Nirvana soon after Scream's disbandment. Nirvana's second album, and the first to feature Grohl, Nevermind (1991), became a worldwide commercial success. Following the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in 1994, Grohl formed Foo Fighters, initially a one-man project. In 1995, the eponymous debut album was released by Roswell and Capitol Records. Foo Fighters have released nine further albums.
Steve Winwood: drums, mandolin, guitars, bass, and saxophone.
Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, and pop rock. Though primarily a vocalist and keyboard player, Winwood plays other instruments proficiently, including drums, mandolin, guitars, bass, and saxophone. Winwood was a key member of several major acts of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith. Beginning in the 1980s, his solo career took off and he had a number of hit singles, including "While You See a Chance" (1980) from the album Arc of a Diver and "Valerie" (1982) from Talking Back to the Night. His 1986 album Back in the High Life marked his career zenith, with hit singles including "Back in the High Life Again", "The Finer Things", and the US Billboard Hot 100 number one hit "Higher Love". He found the top of the Hot 100 again with "Roll with It" (1988) from the album of the same name, and "Holding On" also charting highly the same year.
Paul Westerberg Folker: guitar, vocals, bass guitar, piano, and drums.
Paul Harold Westerberg (born December 31, 1959) is an American musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Replacements.[2] Following the breakup of the Replacements, Westerberg launched a solo career that saw him release three albums on major record labels. Since then, he has been mostly releasing music that he has self-produced and recorded in his basement home studio. He has also released two albums and an EP under the pseudonym Grandpaboy. In 2017, Westerberg released songs on SoundCloud as User 964848511 and on Bandcamp as Dry Wood Garage
Sufjan Stevens: vocals. guitar, guitalin, bass, keyboards, banjo, and drums.
Sufjan Stevens (/ˈsuːfjɑːn/ SOOF-yahn; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released eight solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
His debut album, A Sun Came, was released in 1999 on the Asthmatic Kitty label, which he co-founded with his stepfather. He received wide recognition for his 2005 album Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album. Stevens later contributed to the soundtrack of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the soundtrack's lead single, "Mystery of Love".
Skip Spence: guitar, bass, vocals, and drums.
Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. He released one solo album, 1969's Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane's debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. He has been described on the AllMusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights"; however, his career was plagued by drug addictions coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."
Emitt Rhodes: guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, and drums.
mitt Lynn Rhodes (February 25, 1950 – July 19, 2020)was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer. At 14 years, Rhodes began his career in musical ensembles The Palace Guard as the group's drummer before joining The Merry-Go-Round as a multi-instrumentalist.
He was the creator of the idea of the home recording where he recorded his 3 albums from 1970 to 1973 and called the 'One Man Beatles' for his musical inspiration. His career ended in 1973, at 21 years because of a trial with his label.
Silent during 43 years, he was a cult figure of psychedelic pop music when he released his last album Rainbow Ends in 2016.
Todd Rundgren: guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals, and drums.
Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Utopia. He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive entertainment. He also produced music videos and was an early adopter and promoter of various computer technologies, such as using the Internet as a means of music distribution in the late 1990s.
Sly Stone: (Sly and The Family Stone) bass, guitar, drums, vocals, and keyboards.
Sylvester Stewart (born March 15, 1943), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s.[3] Crawdaddy! has called him "the founder of progressive soul".Born in Texas and raised in the Bay Area of Northern California, Stone mastered several instruments at an early age and formed Sly and the Family Stone performed with his siblings Freddie and Rose. The first racially integrated, male and female act in popular music. The group would score hits including "Dance to the Music" (1968), "Everyday People" (1968), "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" (1969), "I Want to Take You Higher" (1969) "If You Want Me to Stay" (1970) and "Family Affair" (1971) and acclaimed albums including Stand! (1969) and There's a Riot Goin' On (1971)
Mike Oldfield: guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, keyboards, harp, tympani, drums, tubular bells.
Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is a British musician, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter best known for his debut studio album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success and propelled him to worldwide fame. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield is known for playing a range of instruments, which includes keyboards and percussion, and doing vocals. He has adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient, and new age music. Oldfield took up the guitar at age ten and left school in his teens to embark on a music career. From 1967 to 1970, he and his sister Sally Oldfield were a folk duo The Sallyangie, after which he performed with Kevin Ayers. In 1971, Oldfield started work on Tubular Bells which caught the attention of Richard Branson, who agreed to release it on his new label, Virgin Records. Its opening was used in the horror film The Exorcist and the album went on to sell over 2.7 million copies in the UK.
Stevie Wonder: vocals, keyboards, harmonica, and drums.
Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Often hailed as a "musical genius", he is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with sales of over 100 million records worldwide. A virtual one-man band, his use of synthesizers and further electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of R&B. He also helped drive the genre into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Wonder has been credited as a pioneer and influence to musicians of various genres including rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz.
Roy Wood: vocals, guitar, bass, cello, sitar, saxophones, clarinet, recorder, oboe, bassoon, drums, percussion, bagpipes, French horn, crumhorn, double bass, and keyboards. Roy Wood (born 8 November 1946) is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was particularly successful in the 1960s and 1970s as member and co-founder of the Move, Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard. As a songwriter, he contributed a number of hits to the repertoire of these bands. Altogether he had more than 20 singles in the UK Singles Chart under various guises, including three UK No. 1 hits.The BBC has described Wood as being "responsible for some of the most memorable sounds of the Seventies" and "credited as playing a major role in the glam rock, psychedelic and prog rock movements". In 2008, Wood was awarded an honorary doctorate for his contribution to rock and pop by the University of Derby.
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