Fake Shemps in Music.
General examples
- Actually very common in music, as any given song may actually contain one band member overdubbing several instruments, or parts played by hired studio musicians or uncredited friends of the band (a famous example being Eric Clapton guesting on The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"). An essay in the book Kill Your Idols points out that on The Rolling Stones' supposed greatest album, Exile on Main St., most of the band members were trotting in and out of rehab during the recording, and that very few of the parts were played by actual Rolling Stones.
- If two big artists do a duet but don't end up touring together, common practice is for the lead artist to sing their part of the song, and have their duet partner appear via stock video footage. For example, Brad Paisley released two duets in a row in 2011: with Alabama on "Old Alabama", and with Carrie Underwood on "Remind Me". Whenever he performs either song live, the acts in question are shown singing their parts on a video screen. This fits well with Paisley in particular, as he frequently uses video screens to show graphics and animation (some of which he does himself) pertaining to each song.
- Paisley has also had other artists with whom he is touring take Alison Krauss's part on "Whiskey Lullaby": Kimberly Perry on the 2012 Virtual Reality tour, and Mickey Guyton on the 2015 Crushin' It tour.
- Occasionally, two artists will record a song together, but the featured artist cannot be credited due to their label not having the rights, so an alternate version is sent to radio with a different duet partner (although in most cases, radio will play the original version anyway). Examples include:
- "Picture" by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow took off because stations were giving it unsolicited airplay as an album cut. However, when it came time to release it as a single, Kid's label (Atlantic Records) couldn't reach an agreement with Sheryl's (A&M), so an official radio edit was sent out with Allison Moorer (sister of country and Americana singer Shelby Lynne) singing Crow's part. Most stations continued to play Sheryl Crow's version anyway due to her higher name recognition, it was listed as "Kid Rock with Sheryl Crow or Allison Moorer" on the charts, and American Country Countdown alternated between the two versions. In a double example, Kid's 2006 live album Live Trucker has Gretchen Wilson singing Crow's part.
- "Every Other Weekend" by Reba McEntire and Kenny Chesney. As with "Picture", the song started receiving unsolicited airplay before it was a single. However, Reba's label couldn't get permission from Kenny's, so the single edit had co-writer Skip Ewing sing his part instead. The song was credited to "Reba McEntire with Kenny Chesney or Skip Ewing" for one week, then after that, solely to Reba (even though most stations played just the Reba/Kenny version, as did Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40).
- Colt Ford's "Chicken & Biscuits" was originally recorded with James Otto singing the chorus, but the radio mix had former Carolina Rain lead singer Rhean Boyer instead. However, it was credited only to Ford on the charts.
- Radney Foster's 2003 single "Scary Old World" was recorded on the album as a duet with Chely Wright, but for the radio edit, her part was taken by Georgia Middleman. As both versions were receiving airplay, both artists were given an "or" credit on the charts.
- Dustin Lynch's 2021 single "Thinking 'Bout You" was originally recorded as a duet with Lauren Alaina. Due to the label not wanting it to conflict with Alaina's duet with Jon Pardi on "Getting Over Him", Alaina was replaced by Canadian country singer MacKenzie Porter on the radio edit. Billboard credits both artists.
- Santana's 2003 hit "Why Don't You & I" was credited as "Featuring Alex Band or Chad Kroeger". The song was written by Nickelback frontman Kroeger, who performed the original vocals. When Nickelback's label refused to have the song released as a single, the song was re-recorded with Alex Band from the band The Calling.
Specific examples
- When Agnetha Fältskog of ABBA became pregnant with her first child in 1973, she was temporarily replaced by gospel singer Inger Brundin on a trip to West Germany.
- Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are the only members of Aerosmith who appear in the music video for Run–D.M.C.'s cover of "Walk This Way". Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer were replaced by Roger Lane, J. D. Malo, and Matt Stelutto of Smashed Gladys and only ever seen in shadows or from a distance. Supposedly Run D.M.C.'s label could only afford to pay Tyler and Perry for their appearances.
- On the eve of The Beatles' 1964 Australasian tour, Ringo Starr suddenly fell ill with tonsillitis. He was replaced by Jimmie Nicol (who wore a moptop wig for the whole duration) for eight shows. Upon learning about the replacement, George Harrison threatened to pull out of the tour, and it took everything in George Martin and Brian Epstein's power to convince him to stay.
- While The Bee Gees were recording "Stayin' Alive", drummer Dennis Bryon had to leave to attend his mother's funeral. Having trouble finding a replacement on short notice, they decided to sample a couple bars of Bryon's drum part from the already-recorded "Night Fever" and loop it underneath the track. On the Saturday Night Fever album they credited "Bernard Lupe" as the drummer. After it became a huge hit, other artists asked The Bee Gees for Lupe's contact info so they could hire him for their own sessions.
- Bon Jovi's "Runaway" features a completely different lineup from the rest of its parent album. The song was recorded with a group of session musicians and released on a compilation album before Jon Bon Jovi established his band, and that recording was included as-is on Bon Jovi's debut album. "Runaway" bassist Hugh McDonald would later replace official member Alec John Such.
- During Garth Brooks' World Tour with his wife Trisha Yearwood, Garth would sing Kelly Clarkson's harmonies on Yearwood's "PrizeFighter" (although Clarkson got to sing it a few times herself).
- When Eric Church sings "Kill a Word" in concert, Rhiannon Giddens' part is sung by Joanna Cotten, a backing vocalist in his road band.
- Kelly Clarkson's 2013 single "Don't Rush" is a duet with Vince Gill. On at least two occasions, Gill was unable to sing with her on an awards show due to other commitments, so Jason Sellers (a session vocalist and songwriter, and ex-husband of Lee Ann Womack) took Gill's part.
- The music video for Fall Out Boy's song "Love From The Other Side" has someone in a giant raccoon costume playing guitar in place of Joe Trohman. A few hours after the video debuted the band announced that Trohman would be taking a hiatus from the band due to health issues, effectively confirming that he wasn't in the video.
- In live shows, Neil Diamond had his longtime backing vocalist Linda Press take Barbra Streisand's part on "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" until she retired in 2015.
- Michael Jackson:
- "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", his duet with Siedah Garrett. Outside of the Dangerous World Tour, Garrett's part would be sung by other backing vocalists, most notably Sheryl Crow on the Bad tour.
- When he was unable to fully film the music video for "Who Is It" due to tour commitments, E. Casanova Evans (who previously stood in for Jackson on-camera in Back to the Future Part II) stood in for Jackson in scenes where his face wasn't fully visible.
- On the original concept album version of Jesus Christ Superstar, Murray Head (Judas) dubbed in two words (“this unfortunate”) for Barry Dennen (Pilate) when those words were accidentally recorded over during production and Dennen was unable to re-record them himself. His line delivery is, more or less, a playful jab at Dennen’s somewhat nasal voice.
- KISS often used session men like Bob Kulick (guitar) and Anton Fig (drums) in place of Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, whose drug and alcohol problems made them unreliable in the studio.
- They don't talk about it as much, but also used this many times for Gene Simmons on bass. In the 70's, Ace or Paul sometimes handled the bass parts to "get the right feel". In the 80's, Gene was often doing something else like acting or producing other bands, and session men like Jean Beauvoir would fill in for him.
- In their TV movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, there is at least one scene where Ace is portrayed by his stunt double.
- On their 1996 reunion tour, Peter Criss missed one show (some say he hurt his back, others say he refused to go on) and his drum tech filled in for him, with the band cutting Peter's spotlight moments like his drum solo and singing "Beth".
- Gene Simmons once appeared in an ad for Jackson guitars, with his bodyguard dressed up as "The Demon" while he dressed normally, with the two holding the same bass guitar and looking at each other. It helped that the double looked a lot like Gene.
- Since the early 2000s, the band has had Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer wearing Ace and Peter's makeup and costumes. This has been a Broken Base among their fans.
- Milli Vanilli is infamous enough for the fact that the duo presented as the group's singers – Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan – were actually models lipsynching to other people's voices. But it actually goes deeper than that; on their first single, "Girl You Know It's True," the voice Fab lipsynched to was provided by Charles Shaw. After Shaw quit, "Fab's" vocals were provided by John Davis on all subsequent songs. In some cases, Rob & Fab would actually be lipsynching to falsetto vocals contributed by the group's producer, Frank Farian.
- The original version of Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" had Gibby Haynes on guest vocals - the album Every Day Is Halloween: The Anthology included a re-recorded version with Al Jourgensen, the band's usual vocalist, imitating Gibby's original performance. Naturally, Al usually sings this song when they perform it live too.
- While *NSYNC were in the middle of tour rehearsals, Joey Fatone was badly injured by malfunctioning equipment and was forced to sit out the majority of the filming for "Pop"'s music video. Their choreographer Wade Robson stood in for him while Joey himself was filmed from the waist up and sitting. If you were sharp-eyed enough, you can tell the two apart since Robson is about two sizes thinner than Joey.
- Invoked by Pink Floyd during the tour behind The Wall. The four extra musicians ("the surrogate band") wore life masks to resemble the Pink Floyd band members and would do "In The Flesh?" as them to begin the show. Afterwards, the four real band members joined them onstage.
- Rascal Flatts, when on tour with Sara Evans in 2012, had her sing Natasha Bedingfield's part on "Easy".
- During his farewell tours, Kenny Rogers frequently had Linda Davis (best known as the duet partner on Reba McEntire's "Does He Love You", and as the mother of Lady A member Hillary Scott) sing the female vocals on songs such as "We've Got Tonight" (Sheena Easton), "Islands in the Stream" (Dolly Parton), and "Anyone Who Isn't Me Tonight" (Dottie West). Other songs instead used archival footage for the duet partner.
- Tupac Shakur rose from his grave to appear on stage alongside Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg during Coachella 2012 thanks to the deployment of a Pepper's ghost
and CGI courtesy of Digital Domain. Oh, and the idea of bringing in Tupac's ghost was Dr. Dre's, by the way. And the end result of this effort? Searches on Tupac skyrocketed and Digital Domain's stock increased by 20%. - The country group SHeDAISY consists of three sisters: Kassidy, Kelsi, and Kristyn Osborn. When Kelsi took a brief maternity leave in 2006, their younger sister Karli filled in for her on both that summer's tour and the music video for "In Terms of Love" (even though Kelsi still sang on that song).
- Akin to the Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood examples, there is a bilingual duet version of Taylor Swift's "Long Live" featuring Brazilian singer Paula Fernandes. The video for this version has Paula singing in a studio while Taylor is shown in a TV screen, performing her part of the song at one of her concerts.
- Carrie Underwood has done the "duet partner on video screens" thing herself with "I Told You So", a duet with Randy Travis (the song's original artist), although she also got to perform it with him singing live a few times.
- Versailles bassist Jasmine You died of an undisclosed illness during the production of Jubilee, the band's second album. While he had already recorded bass parts for some of the songs on the album, it was still incomplete; lead guitarist Hizaki filled in the missing bass parts.
- Dweezil Zappa recorded a cover of "Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals. When initially unable to secure permission from Ozzy's label, Dweezil replaced "The Ozzman" with "The Osmond" as his friend and former teen idol, Donny Osmond performed the vocals on the album.note The Ozzy version was eventually released.
