🤡🎸Mock the Rock #2: Rockers Imitate Their Peers Through the Years!

Funny meets funky as we take another spin on the parody turntable! Some say rockers take themselves far too seriously. To that, we can only skeptically respond, "Oh, yeah? C-flat for yourself!"

Rock mocker, Dilbert “Frets” McGee, Inane Clown Posse

It all started here, when our Mock the Rock spotlight fell on these rollicking rockers:

Before we kick off Mock the Rock #2, a little call-back to #1, with the inimitable Burton Cummings, former lead singer of Guess Who (who led off our debut edition), and another contribution by

🅟🅐🅤🅛 🅜🅐🅒🅚🅞

of Deplatformable Newsletter…yep, it’s Burton as Elvis…..at the piano, yet!:

“Pardon Me…Aren’t You Rick Springsteen? Bruce Springfield? You sang about Jessie’s girl being born to run somewhere, right?”

Not strictly rock impression, or even parody, really, I couldn’t resist this nifty contribution by

Rick Ellis

of Too Much TV Newsletter, to begin our little giggle-fest:

“One of my favorite examples is this weird Rick Springfield track, “Bruce,” which he recorded early in his career, and then it was eventually released in 1984 once “Jessie’s Girl” became a hit. In the song, he complains that people are always confusing him with Bruce Springsteen. It turned out to be a modest hit, reaching #27 on the Billboard Top 40!”—Rick Ellis, never once confused with Tinsley Ellis.

Brad: Tone is everything: Had we suspected that Rick was seriously peeved at Bruce, or more to the point, earnestly kvetching at fans mistaking him for the “Born to Run” rocker, it’d be far less appealing than this cheekily fun tune-tantrum by Rick!

Now, if Springsteen would simply comply with my request to somehow fashion a “Jessie’s Girl” vamp about the one time someone mistook him for Rick, we’d have something! But, this is a good “Spring-board”:

Thankfully, there are a few places in show-biz-land that seem to regularly cater to this cunning corner of rock/giggle dysplasia, and we’re happy to be here for it! Mad props to

Andres

of The Vinyl Room for submitting this regular Jimmy Fallon chat-fest nugget, “The Wheel of Musical Impressions”!

Some of these mimicking artists seem so adept at aping others, one has to assume singing along to stars’ records was an important part of their early training. And, why not, with these breath-taking results?:

Andy also sent this SNL skit with Ariana; matters not the premise…the result of having La Grande sing as various artists is the jaw-dropping draw here:

More Fallon and his Wheel, this one submitted by

NickS (WA)

of Earnestness is Underrated, featuring the magnificent Alicia Keys:

In my ‘net meandering, I managed to find this Ariana feature from the long-running network TV magazine, Entertainment Tonight:

This one features mostly film and TV actors being impersonated by other stars right in front of them! We do have singers, Cher and Tracey Ullman, show up here: Sean Hayes impersonates Cher in front of her on Will & Grace, and Ullman skewers Meryl Streep, with the actress watching on:

More celebs impersonating other celebs, sometimes in their presence:

Bruno Mars (born Peter Gene Hernandez in Honolulu in 1985, the year I turned 30), before he was a 21st-century, chart-toppin’ pop star, was a kindergartner with some crayons, graham crackers, paste, and some serious performing skills beyond naptime!

Imagine playing tag on the playground, or completing your inevitable descent down the slide, and being able to slap this righteous noise on your little thumb-sucking classmates:

Two dozen years later, Bruno took a ride in James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke,” where he sings, of course, but also talks about starting out, at 4, as an Elvis impersonator in Waikiki: “Can you do the lip?” “Can I can do the lip!?!”:

Here, he breezes through several of his singing impersonations:

Full circle: We began Mock the Rock #1 with Burton Cummings impersonating Gordon Lightfoot singing “Maggie May” as Rod Stewart! We wrap up Mock the Rock #2 with Burton Cummings again…only, this time, impersonated by Jimmy Fallon, with Kevin Bacon (and his real life touring band).

The premise? Cummings’ 1960s/’70s band, The Guess Who, running through an early draft of their “American Woman” hit:

Have a mocking rocker we haven’t featured yet? Feel free to leave a link, and your comments, in the Comments!