Ever wondered what the real names of some of your favorite musicians are/were. Here’s a little list to get you started.

John Denver - Henry John Deutschendorf
Cher - Cherilyn Sarkisian
Rikki Rockett - Richard Allan Ream
W. Axl Rose - William Bruce Rose, Jr.
Gene Simmons - Chaim Witz
Tina Turner - Anna Mae Bullock
Iggy Pop - James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
Lou Reed - Butch Firbank
Jay-Z - Shawn Corey Carter
Elton John - Reginald Kenneth Dwight
David Bowie - David Robert Jones
Adam Ant - Stuart Leslie Goddard
Ginger Baker - Peter Edward Baker
Pat Benatar - Patricia Andrejewski
Jon Bon Jovi - John Francis Bongiovi
Sonny Bono - Salvatore Philip Bono
Patsy Cline - Virginia Patterson Hensley
Alice Cooper - Vincent Damon Furnier
Elvis Costello - Declan McManus
Rick Dees - Rigdon Osmond Dees III
Bo Diddley - Otha Ellas Bates McDaniel
Bob Dylan - Robert Zimmerman
Boy George - George Alan O’Dowd
Buddy Holly - Charles Hardin Holley
Engelbert Humperdinck - Arnold George Dorsey
Tito Jackson - Toriano Adaryll Jackson
Chaka Khan - Yvette Marie Stevens
Huey Lewis - Hugh Anthony Cregg
Courtney Love - Love Michelle Harrison
Christine McVie - Christine Perfect
Madonna - Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone
Barry Manilow - Barry Alan Pincus
Manfred Mann - Manfred Lubowitz
Marilyn Manson - Brian Warner
Freddie Mercury - Farouk Bulsara
George Micheal - Yorgos Panayiotou
Billy Ocean - Leslie Sebastian Charles
Gram Parsons - Ingram Cecil Connor II
Prince - Prince Rogers Nelson
Sting - Gordon Matthew Sumner
Sly Stone - Sylvester Stewart
Donna Summer - LaDonna Andrea Gaines
Johnny Thunders - John Anthony Genzale, Jr
Vangelis - Evangelos Papathanassiou
Sid Vicious - John Simon Ritchie
50 Cent - Curtis James Jackson III
Afroman - Joseph Foreman
Dee Dee Ramone - Douglas Colvin
Stiv Bators - Steven John Bator
Darby Crash - Jan Paul Beahm

If you have any more, please post them in the comments to this article !!!

By DESIREE ADIB and STEPHANIE DAHLE

Tommy DeCarlo of Charlotte, N.C., dreamed of becoming a rock star, listening to his favorite band’s albums and memorizing their songs.

“A Boston song would come on and I’d get fired up and I’d start singing it,” said DeCarlo, 43, a father of two kids — Talia, 19, and Tommy Jr., 17.

But dreams didn’t pay the bills, so DeCarlo worked as a credit manager at a Home Depot store in Charlotte to support his [family?].

Still, he never gave up singing along to his Boston CDs, and his daughter Talia took notice. She posted a MySpace page of DeCarlo singing karaoke to Boston songs after the band’s lead singer, Brad Delp, committed suicide in March 2007. And, in an instant, DeCarlo’s whole world turned upside down.

“I wanted to share [the karaoke] with … other Boston fans,” he said.

DeCarlo had to sing with the karaoke track because he had sold his keyboard in 2006, using the extra cash to buy Christmas presents for his children.

Meanwhile, up in Boston, members of the real band were struggling to continue playing as they coped with Delp’s suicide.

“My wife was at her computer playing our tunes, and I asked whether it was us playing live,” Boston founder Tom Scholz told USA Today. “She said, ‘It’s some guy in North Carolina singing your songs.’ I said, ‘I know Brad’s voice, and that’s Brad.’”

Still, a skeptical Scholz was intrigued.

“In order to believe it, I had to plug the computer into the big speakers so I could listen to the background music and see if it was the band,” Scholz told ABC News. “And I realized it wasn’t the band, it was a karaoke track. Somebody was singing to it, and it wasn’t Brad.”

So the band decided to give DeCarlo a shot — as their new lead singer.

“I was like, ‘Wow!’” DeCarlo told “Good Morning America.” “I remember calling my wife and kids in the bedroom and I said, ‘Look at this e-mail!’ I couldn’t believe it.”

“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe this is happening,” said Talia DeCarlo. “It was crazy.”

DeCarlo made his debut onstage at a tribute concert to Brad Delp last August. It was the first time he sang with a band in his entire life.

Source : Source - ABC News, GMA

It is with great sadness that I write this post about blind blues musician, Jeff Healey, as he unfortunately succumbed to a cancer on March 2nd. Healey was only 41 years old. Many knew Healey best from his appearance as Cody in the movie Road House (famous line: “I thought you’d be bigger”), so this sad news was compounded when Road House star Patrick Swayze revealed this week that he has (possibly terminal) cancer himself.

Healey lost his sight when he was eight months old, due to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the eyes which he suffered from throughout his life and which ultimately killed him. His eyes had to be surgically removed, and he was given artificial replacements. He began playing guitar when he was three, developing his unique style of playing the instrument flat on his lap.

Here’s a nice tribute to Jeff Healey that was posted on YouTube

Here’s another touching tribute

I had the opportunity to meet Jeff Healey in the early 1990’s in toronto when a promoter friend of mine who had worked with Jeff wanted to introduce me to him. Although my bands have always been experimental punk/metal/hardcore/psychedelic, my playing style was always rooted in Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn more than the metal guitarists and Jeff Healey always impressed me with his innovative approach to the instrument. Upon meeting him, I felt Jeff was one of the most honest, sincere and nicest people ever to grace the stage. I hung out with him for hours and we even did a cover of Hendrix’s “Little Wing” that was more than impressive. Over the years, while my bands were on tour, I’ve met all my guitar heroes, including Clapton, Santana, Jerry Garcia, Alex Lifeson, Dickie Betts, Johnny Marr, John Frusciante and tons of other guitarists but Jeff Healey was the most “down to earth”, humble, respectful professional musician I’ve ever met in person.

RIP Jeff. Our sympathies go out to his wife Christie and two children who he left behind.

This entry is inspirational for not just musicians but for anybody who has ever struggled with adversity and felt that they were the only one. Next time you start to feel sorry for yourself, just watch this video of Mark Goffeney, a guitar player from San Deigo, California who was born without arms. The video clips below were filmed in Balboa Park, famous in San Diego for street entertainers.

Last Dance With Mary Jane - A Tom Petty Cover

When I Come Around- A Green Day Cover

Drift Away - A Dobie GrayCover

Goffeney is no longer an amateur performer. He has appeared on television as an actor and a musician, and has spoken to audiences all over America advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. He played the principal role on FOX’s Emmy-nominated commercial Feet. The advertisement, aired during the 2000 and 2001 Super Bowls, was for the NFL website, and it told the story of a character named Roger who was so obsessed with the website that he did everything else with his feet, including changing his baby’s diaper.

Mark Goffeney has a band called “Big Toe” their website is located here : Big Toe Rocks

Article on Mark Goffeney in Ability Magazine
Big Toe’s MySpace Page

Pure Inspiration !!!

Here’s an amazing video of a trio of pint sized pickers with a whole lot of talent. These kids are amazing and the kid playing the mandolin is phenomenal and can pick the mandolin faster than Joe Maphis could rip through Foggy Mountain Breakdown on his Mosrite . Watch this video and be inspired by “The Tuttle Kids”. Michael (8) and Sullivan (10) play a bluegrass version of El Cumbanchero on mandolin and guitar with sister Molly. The video was filmed by their father Jack Tuttle who is a Bluegrass performer and instructor and author of Jack Tuttle’s Bluegrass Banjo Collection, volume 2.

I found this video as the featured “Video of the Day” on KillerChops which is an excellent website featuring videos of musicians for musicians. The site has some of the best videos I’ve seen and the webmaster does an excellent job of selecting and organizing the music videos that us musicians would be interested in. Drop by and check out some of the videos.