How To Read The Sheets

The way I've designed these sheets isn't too complicated, nor do I think it's anything original. Other people have done the same thing or similar thing to this. Here's how a typical line-up works.

A band line up with look like this

Band name # (time began - time ended)
Vocals
Guitar
Bass
Drums
Keyboards
Etc

Below that will be the albums that the line up in question made. For bands that have their history well documented, I will use roman numerals to refer to a specific line up. Deep Purple are probably the best example to use as even their fans refer to their line ups as Mark I, II, III and so on. Speaking of which, lets use them as an example. For the band's first line up, you had...

Deep Purple I (1967-1969)

Rod Evans- vocals

Ritchie Blackmore- guitar

Nick Simper- bass

Ian Paice- drums

Jon Lord- keyboards

Now Evans and Simper were gone by 1969 and replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. With this change, this is a new line-up. So this becomes line up #2.

Deep Purple II (1969-1973)

Ian Gillan- vocals

Ritchie Blackmore- guitar

Roger Glover- bass

Ian Paice- drums

Jon Lord- keyboards

In some cases, some line-ups will reunite. When this happens, there isn't a new line up number. Instead, it will go back to whatever that line up number that was BUT will a letter added to it. In the case of Deep Purple, the Mark II line up did reunite first in 1984. So that would make that reunion...

Deep Purple IIa (1984-1989)

Ian Gillan- vocals

Ritchie Blackmore- guitar

Roger Glover- bass

Ian Paice- drums

Jon Lord- keyboards

This line up would reunite a second time a few year later, which would make that IIb. For every line-up that repeats, it will continue to go down the alphabet. I've never seen a line up reunite 26 different times so on average.

Another thing to note is if the band changes their name. If that should happen, this starts the numbers back to 1. For example, Tyrannosaurus Rex were in their second line up of Marc Bolan and Mickey Finn when they changed their name to T.Rex. For T.Rex, their first line up was the same as Tyrannosaurus Rex's second.

That about covers it. It should also be noted that not every line up sheet has a number attached to it. Bands that have a mostly unknown history won't have numbered line ups.