Aerosmith

Aerosmith came out of Boston, built on the bones of the Jam Band, where Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton had been playing before they threw in with Steven Tyler, drummer Joey Kramer and guitarist Ray Tabano. Brad Whitford took over from Tabano in 1971, and the classic five were in place: Tyler out front singing, blowing harp and pounding piano, Perry and Whitford twisting greasy guitar parts around each other, and Hamilton and Kramer laying down a bottom end with a real swing to it. Tyler and Perry wrote most of the songs, and it wasn't long before people were calling them the Toxic Twins.

The self-titled debut came out in 1973 and Get Your Wings a year later, but the breakthrough arrived with Toys in the Attic in 1975 and Rocks in 1976, blues-based hard rock with a strut in its hips and grit under its nails. "Dream On" is the brooding ballad that climbs all the way up to a scream; "Sweet Emotion", their first Top 40 hit, slinks in on a sly bass line and then detonates; "Walk This Way" is all funky stop-start riffing; "Back in the Saddle" gallops in hard.

By the end of the '70s they were one of the biggest hard rock bands on the planet, with a devoted following known as the Blue Army. Then the wheels came off. Drugs and infighting drove Perry out in 1979 and Whitford in 1981, Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay filled the gaps, and Rock in a Hard Place in 1982 didn't come close to the old fire.

Perry and Whitford came home in 1984. Done with Mirrors in 1985 stalled, but a 1986 remake of "Walk This Way" with Run–D.M.C. kicked the door wide open, and Permanent Vacation in 1987 sealed one of the great comebacks in rock. Pump and Get a Grip kept them on top, with "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", "Janie's Got a Gun", "Livin' on the Edge" and "Cryin'" among the biggest hits of that stretch. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 2001. A vocal injury to Tyler in 2023 cut short their farewell tour, and they retired from the road in 2024.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.