re: If you love this country and, perhaps, respect Blind Melon...

I just realized a couple days ago Shannon Hoon was in the video of Don’t Cry by Guns N Roses and sang on the track. He and Axl grew up in same town and Axl was a friend of Shannon’s sister. When he was struggling early in his career he called Axl and he helped him out. I believe Blind Melon opened for GNR for a while.

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I just realized a couple days ago Shannon Hoon was in the video of Don’t Cry by Guns N Roses and sang on the track.

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Yeah, he sang backing vocals on several of the Use Your Illusion tracks. Big ones.

"November Rain"
"Live and Let Die"
On "Don't Cry", he's credited as co-lead vocals. He's back in the mix and singing higher than Axl Rose, but Hoon's singing word for word with him through the whole song if you really listen and pay attention. They bring him up in the mix during the choruses, and drop him back down in the verses, but he sings the whole thing except that long held note at the very end. That chorusy effect to the vocals isn't an effect. It's just Hoon singing an octave above Rose.

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Yeah, he sang backing vocals on several of the Use Your Illusion tracks.

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Yeah I couldn’t remember which ones. I was reading about GNR’s feud with Nirvana and stumbled on that info. My mind was blown.

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Wasn’t that around the time alternative artists were making them popular? Probably trying to get on the trend.

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The eagle eyed among you might be interested to rewatch that video and pay attention about 3:45 in to a hat Axl Rose has next to him toward the end of the song when he's on the therapist's couch and take note of the first thing you see in the video.

Axl was a big fan of the Seattle sound and music scene and Guns had all kinds of exposure to it from their early days doing shows up there with people who eventually created the Seattle sound. Duff McKagan is from Seattle and his roots are in punk, so he knew and played with a lot of the guys that ultimately built what became the Seattle sound before he headed to Hollywood and hooked up with Guns. Hell, Soundgarden opened for a good number of the Use Your Illusion dates, including that fricking cold night they played the PMAC.

The whole Nirvana thing boiled over out of two mentally unstable frontmen going at each other. Basically, Axl wanted Nirvana to open for some of the Use Your Illusion dates and on the tour Guns did with Metallica. Guns and Metallica were everything that Cobain wanted Nirvana to not be, so he rebuffed Axl and turned him down twice. Axl's ego couldn't handle it and it spiraled from there.

That is cool. He was great.RIP

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You just summed up the last three years in this country, politically speaking. Well done.

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You think? It just baffles me the 180 degree turn they did on the man and his family, for daring to challenge them