Harmonica

[petesgrayz]

Who played the harmonica on Millies, my boy lollipop? My mate reckons it was Rod Stewart.

[CheekyChops]

From Rod Stewart's page on Wikipedia:

Contrary to popular belief, he did not play the mouth harmonica on the number two hit in the UK and in other European countries - My Boy Lollypop by Millie Small. This was, in reality Pete Hogman, noted musician with a career starting way back in the 60s as part of the Five Dimensions.

[Whoa Nelly]

A similar myth was started by Stuart Maconie who wrote (in the NME I think) that the saxaphone solo on Baker Street was played by Bob Holness

[jenstar]

Ah, but the difference is that Rod *could* have played on it, because he was a session musician in London at the time. Rod's theory was that the story came about because there was another session musician around at the same time who looked liked him, and it was an honest case of mistaken identity. Though I think that theory was based on it being someone other than Pete Hogman.

The other difference is that while the Bob Holness story is often bandied about as a "common misconception", you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who ever actually believed it was true - it seems more of a common myth that it was ever a common myth! Whereas the Rod Stewart story really was widely accepted as being true for many years.