Bands With the Most Keyboard Players: 19 Names on One Map, and a Line With a 12-Year Gap
Bands with the most keyboard players are not the ones you would guess. Across four maps I have counted, George Harrison's 12 releases carry 19 separate keyboard players, more than one and a half per record, while David Bowie's 26 albums are held together by a single pianist on 11 of them.
On my maps each release is a station in order, and each credited musician is a line running through the records they played on. A one off contributor becomes a branch line. That makes the keyboard chair easy to read, because unlike a guitar or a drum stool it is a seat bands fill and refill without anyone much noticing.
A note on what I am counting. Anything with a keyboard: piano, electric piano, organ, harmonium, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, clavinet, synthesiser. I counted the names my research sheets record playing one of those on each album, on the four maps where the sheet itemises the instrument. It is not every keyboard credit across all 70 maps.
The four maps, ranked by what the keyboard credits show
- George Harrison, 12 releases, 1968 to 2002. 19 separate keyboard players, the most names on any map I have counted, and no single player on more than five.
- Squeeze, 17 records. Ten keyboard players, which is the most changeovers in one chair I have drawn.
- David Bowie, 26 studio albums, 1967 to 2016. Fewer names, but the longest keyboard line anywhere in my research: Mike Garson on 11 stations.
- Steely Dan, 9 studio albums, 1972 to 2003. One keyboard player on every single station, which happens on none of the others.
Those four are not a ranking of which band used the most keyboards. They are four different shapes the same chair can make, and that is the more interesting thing to look at.
George Harrison: 19 keyboard players and nobody holding the chair
This is the finding that started the post. Harrison's map runs to 12 releases, and when I went back through the credits I had drawn, 19 different people are on them playing something with a keyboard.
Nineteen names across twelve records means the chair turns over faster than the album cycle. On Brainwashed alone there are three: Marc Mann on keyboards, Jools Holland on piano and Jeff Lynne on keyboards. On All Things Must Pass there are five, if you count Tony Ashton's piano and John Barham's harmonium alongside Billy Preston, Gary Wright and Bobby Whitlock.
The two longest keyboard lines on that map both run to exactly five, and they are not the two you would expect to overlap.
| Release | Year | Billy Preston | Gary Wright |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Things Must Pass | 1970 | organ, piano | keyboards |
| Living in the Material World | 1973 | not credited | organ |
| Dark Horse | 1974 | electric piano, organ, piano | not credited |
| Extra Texture | 1975 | electric piano | organ, electric piano, ARP |
| Thirty Three & 1/3 | 1976 | organ | piano |
| Gone Troppo | 1982 | keyboards | not credited |
| Cloud Nine | 1987 | not credited | keyboards |
Three albums carry both of them. On Extra Texture and Thirty Three & 1/3 there are two keyboard players in the room before you count anyone else, which is unusual on any map and routine on this one.
Mike Garson: the longest keyboard line I have drawn, with a hole in the middle
Garson is credited on 11 of Bowie's 26 studio albums, from Aladdin Sane in 1973 to Reality in 2003. No other keyboard player in my research runs that far.
The line is not continuous. He plays on Aladdin Sane, Pin Ups, Diamond Dogs and Young Americans, and then nothing until Never Let Me Down in 1987. Twelve years missing from the middle of the longest keyboard line on the map.
That gap is the whole argument for drawing these things rather than listing them. On a discography in date order it is a blank you would never notice. On the print it is a line that stops, crosses a decade of other people's work, and starts again.
Steely Dan: one keyboard player, nine stations, and 41 people around him
Steely Dan go the other way entirely. Donald Fagen is credited on keyboards on all nine studio albums, 1972 to 2003, so the keyboard line on that map never breaks once.
What changes around him is the cast. My sheet records the credited musicians per album as 13, 19, 21, 22, 24, 37, 41, 30 and 22, rising steadily to Gaucho in 1980 and falling back afterwards. A map where one chair is fixed and everything else triples is a very particular shape, and it is why the Steely Dan print is one of the busiest in the range.
Victor Feldman is the next longest line, on seven of the nine, credited with percussion on most of them and with keyboards on The Royal Scam.
What the keyboard chair tells you that a line-up list does not
Band line-ups get written down as guitars, bass and drums, and the keyboard player is usually filed under "and others". The credits say something different. On these four maps the keyboard chair is where the most movement happens, and the people in it are often the most interesting names on the record.
From the patterns I have mapped, it goes one of two ways. Either one player holds it for decades, as Fagen does, or it turns over constantly, as it does across Harrison's twelve releases. There is not much in between, and you can see which kind of band you are looking at from across the room.
Sizes, paper and framing
Each print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium acid-free matte fine art paper. It comes in A3 (420 x 297 mm), A2 (594 x 420 mm) and A1 (841 x 594 mm). Three inch formats sit alongside those as separate sizes rather than conversions: 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in. Every size is available unframed or in a black wood frame.
The maps in this post are the George Harrison discography art print, the David Bowie discography art print and the Steely Dan discography art print.
Related Music Maps
This is the fourth count in the same series. The others are which bands have had the most drummers, bands with the most lead singers and bands with the most bass players. For the ten keyboard players on one map, there is Squeeze albums in order. The rest sit in the music maps collection.
Questions I get asked about counting keyboard players
What are the bands with the most keyboard players?
Of the four maps I counted for this post, George Harrison's has the most separate names at 19 across 12 releases, and Squeeze has ten across 17 records. Both are maps where no single player holds the chair for long.
Who is the longest serving keyboard player on your maps?
Mike Garson, on 11 of David Bowie's 26 studio albums between 1973 and 2003. Donald Fagen is on all nine Steely Dan albums, which is a higher proportion but a shorter run.
What counts as a keyboard player in this count?
Anyone the sleeve credits playing piano, electric piano, organ, harmonium, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, clavinet or synthesiser. I count the credit as written rather than deciding who was the band's keyboard player, because the sleeve is the evidence and my own opinion is not.
Do producers who play keyboards get a line?
Yes, if the sleeve credits them playing. Jeff Lynne co-produced Cloud Nine and Brainwashed and is credited on keyboards on both, so he gets a line. A producer with no instrument beside their name does not.
What is not on these maps?
Live albums, compilations and soundtracks. The maps plot studio records only, which is an editorial rule I apply right across the range. The one exception in this post is the Harrison map, which opens with the 1968 Wonderwall Music film soundtrack.
If none of these four is the right band
A gift card for music fans lets someone pick their own artist from the range instead.
