Surely Ringo, I bet Pete Best chuckles every time he hears Octopus' Garden.

I dare say the new Fleetwood Mac-ers post the leaving of Buckingham and Nicks felt a bit peeved when they were usurped again. Ditto the Stiltskin singer briefly in Genesis, the fan club singer in Judas Priest for a moment and the between Kemp bassist in Steeleye. The legions are endless as reformation mania sweeps the skies (or is it streets?)
And do you know, I can't think of any of their names. Funny that!

Memorably described by one journalist as 'A man with a job even professional cider testers would envy'.

out of Wham, surely? Gary Leeds in the Walker Bros had a nice time too - drummer in a band whose records had no drums on them.

Bez must be the most obvious contender; do one dance and shake some maracas. That said, I saw the Mondays live on several occasions and they were absolutely brilliant (honest!) and Bez played a huge part in whipping up the audience and creating atmosphere.

as possibly a wise head from this parish said back in the day in Q magazine 'a classic example of choosing your friends carefully'

As for Ringo - i'll have to disagree. He was a bloody good drummer. Listen to the deliberately sloppy fills on the likes of 'I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever or A Day in the Life'...he knew what he was doing!

He was the best drummer the Beatles could possibly have had and, as Brian Epstein pointed out, he completed the picture. I don't know another drummer anywhere, apart from possibly Al Jackson Jr, who played on so many records which still make so many people so happy today.
Gary Leeds an excellent call. Never thought of that.

Bill Wyman
He only got into The Stones through his ownership of a bass and amplifier. However his luck ran out when Jagger and Richards gave themselves the composing credit for 'Jumping Jack Flash' even though the riff was Wyman's.

Simon Napier Bell
Co-wrote English lyrics for 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me'
Still being played and covered 40 years later.

...who isn't the singer or the songwriter.

He's the one.

"Hey JD, could you drop by, we need a chorus for this thing about taking it, y'know, easy". Cue lavish royalty cheques and not having to put up with Don Henley explaining why the toilet paper should be just so on tour.
Or the artist formerly known as Marcella Detroit;
Eric;"It goes dum, dum, dumdum in the chorus, but I'm not sure what to put there"
Marcy Levy;"How about 'Lay Down Sally'"?
Kerchinggg!
Oh, and the bass player in Snow Patrol.

Check the label for 'Maggie May' and you'll see this..

Stewart/Quittenton.

That's who he is.

...doesn't have to tour. But writing lyrics is no snooze in an armchair. And how about writing lyrics for someone who might be a little demanding from time-to-time? Underpaid, I'd say.

Not rock exactly but it's always struck me that Tim Rice must thank his lucky stars every day that he's avoided that uncomfortable juxstaposition of wolf and door that his "talents" so richly deserve.
And lay off Rod Temperton. If you write Boogie Nights you earn the right to have petals forever strewn in your path.

That "...Sat on the roof top, kicked off the moss, well some of these lines, they've got me quite cross" line? Ongoing 'sits back in the armchair for a snooze, chuckles, checks bank balance' scenario ahoy...

Despite their credentials and individual talents, they must all still be quietly incredulous that they've managed to be associated for so long with Neil Young.

but didn't Robbie Williams flatmate get a record deal simply because he was Robbie Williams' flat mate? No idea of the chaps name, a fact that concerns me not.

And does anyone remember Jimmy Nicol? Asked to join the Beatles as drummer for a few weeks for a world tour, then shown the door once Ringo got over whatever bug was ailing him. At least Pete Best's name is known to some.

Hmm, disagree about the Stills bit, he was a talent in his own right, but Crosby & Nash, yeah, lucky, lucky lucky.

No idea of his name, but he must have received some lovely PRS cheques for his talent and connections.

wasn't it? Never did understand what he was on about. Tired starlings or something.

Jimmy Nicol or Pete Best - drums
Ian Stewart - keyboards
Glen Matlock - bass
Terry Reid - vocals and guitar

.....doesn't seem to be weeping much. Earning far more from the Pistols than Sid ever did, methinks. Arguably befits jammy dodger for staying alive. Pink wafer to Mr Vicious.

Surely the greatest con man is David Bowie, who has made a career of regularly pinching and rehashing other people's ideas and fooling everyone they are his own (chameleon etc etc) to enduring adoration. Except by me that is.

*****stands back and awaits torrents of abuse...

Great musicians both, drummer Ernest 'Boom' Carter and keyboard player David Sancious were unlucky not to make the cut. They contributed greatly to The Wild, The Innocent and BTR. Of course Max and Roy are as good as you get but what a career 'miss' for those two not to make the band that has been together, with the odd hiatus, for the last 33 years.

I can't help but feel that some of the above nominees are being treated harshly. Ringo and Bill Wyman can both play and therefore were in their bands on merit.
Andrew Ridgeley on the other hand...
And may I offer for your consideration:
Ladieeeeeees and gennlemun - he plays the bongos (ahem), he'll dazzle you with his sparkling sax breaks (perhaps), please welcome to the stage, from Spandau Ballet - Mr Steve Norman!

Are you seriously suggesting that anyone could be LUCKY to be considered a member of Spandex Ballyhoo. That bloke who was in Eastenders and the sofa adverts, now he was lucky!!

...but given that we're talking about lyricists here, it always burns me that Hal David doesn't get the same, or even more, kudos as Burt Bacharach. After all, he did write the lyrics that people sing.

Anyone who managed to pen 'The moment I wake up/before I put on my make up' should be able to demand money, sexual favours, house keys, etc from anyone in the world.

I don't think he toured much but did a lot of co-writes with Rod Stewart and played on a lot of sessions. Rod's studio band on these records (I still think of them as records)was pretty good.

The luckiest bugger: Wyman, Ridgley, ALL of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest are good calls but Bev Bevan gets my vote. Looked like a glam/hippy brickie and drumed like an ape with Tourette's - yet was in 2 very successful bands. Baffling.

Nick Rhodes' book of TV interference photographs, lambasted in The Word not so long ago, may have been a visionary tome. Magnum photographer Harry Gruyaert has just published a book called 'TV Shots' which features his photographs of images from TV screens. So the ever-pouting keyboardist beat him to it by 20 years. What a talent.

Remember the bass player whose face didn't fit & wasn't named Goss? He got paid off (£100000 was the figure thrown around at the time) before Bros became a prototype Northern Rock. Since then he's done OK, becoming a major EMI exec (there's probably another handsome pay-off heading his way) and 'squiring' several famous and attractive young women. And he looks well on it, too. As my dad used to say, if he fell in a barrel of shit he'd come out smelling of roses.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article611994.ece

Who was that bloke in Galliano, like a cross between an air traffic control man and the news for the deaf on telly? Very off putting, but surely a jammy dodger.
But were the members of Hawkwind jammy dodgers for having Stacia on stage with them? Discuss.

I took the very talented bluegrass musicians Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott to a radio interview. On the way, O'Brien told me a story about someone he knew (can't remember the name, sorry) who had been working in an adjacent studio to Garth Brooks. He popped in to say hello and heard Brooks saying that he was struggling to find a title for a new song he's just recorded. After listening to the song, this musician then said "How's about calling it such and such?" Brooks said "That's it!" and gave him a songwriting credit for his help. The song was a single and appeared on Brooks' album which sold about 10 squillion copies, making the provider of the title much, much better off than he'd been before. Sorry about the lack of concrete info in this tale, but it was a while ago.

I call that jammy in the extreme.

In his Lemmy's biography he mentions about co writing a handful of tracks with Ozzy Osbourne in the mid 80s. These few tracks have generated more money for him than his entire earnings with Motorhead .

Bonehead and Guigsy. (For a time anyway)