A game that many music fans have enjoyed, for the last 30-40 years maybe, is to form a chain "linking" one artist or group to another. It's illustrated by this passage from one of Ariel's memoirs published in 1999.

Emma has this amazing talent where she can connect any two bands I give her.
Ariel:  OK. Bikini Kill and Counting Crows.
Emma:  Kathleen knows Courtney Love, Courtney knows Evan Dando, Evan knows Victoria Williams, and she knows Counting Crows.
Ariel:  OK, so maybe you got that one. But what about Rancid and Pennywise?
Emma:  They know each other.

As a 60's-70's fan, I know nothing about the artists named there, but I assume she was right. However, this "linking" game appears rather pointless if you can link two artists by just saying that they "know" each other. I'm sure anyone who knows a lot about the social lives of music artists (which I don't) could easily find hundreds of "links" of that kind, so it makes the game very easy.

What is more challenging, and more meaningful, is to link artists on the basis of group membership only. If a particular musician was in one group and was later in another group, that "links" those two groups. And if two musicians were in the same group (even at different times), that "links" those two musicians. But no other kinds of links are allowed.

Some time in the early 1980's, just for fun, I did some of this "group membership linking" with the 60's and 70's bands that I had once enjoyed. Here's a sample of it.

We'll start with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Well, let's see......

Neil Young was in a band called the Ducks with Bob Mosley,
who was in Moby Grape with Skip Spence,
who was in the Quicksilver Messenger Service with David Freiberg,
who was in the Jefferson Starship with Harvey Brooks,
who was in the Electric Flag with Buddy Miles,
who was in the Buddy Miles Express with Jim McCarty,
who was in Cactus with Carmine Appice,
who was in Beck, Bogert and Appice with Jeff Beck,
who was in the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page,
who was in Led Zeppelin with John Paul Jones,
who was in the Jeff Beck Group with Nicky Hopkins,
who was in the Quicksilver Messenger Service with Mark Naftalin,
who was in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Mike Bloomfield,
who was in KGB with Ric Grech,
who was in Traffic with Steve Winwood,
who was in the Powerhouse with Paul Jones,
who was in the Manfred Mann group with Tom McGuinness,
who was in the Roosters with Eric Clapton,
who was in Cream with Ginger Baker,
who was in Blues Incorporated with Jack Bruce,
who was in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Aynsley Dunbar,
who was in the Mothers of Invention with Mark Volman,
who was in the Turtles with John Barbata,
who was in the Jefferson Airplane with Spencer Dryden,
who was in the New Riders of the Purple Sage with Skip Battin,
who was in the Byrds with Chris Hillman,
who was in the Flying Burrito Brothers with Bernie Leadon,
who was in the Eagles with Randy Meisner,
who was in Poco with Jim Messina,
who was in the Buffalo Springfield with Jim Fielder,
who was in Blood, Sweat and Tears with Steve Katz,
who was in the Blues Project with Al Kooper,
who was in the Royal Teens with Bob Gaudio,
who was in the Four Seasons......

So that links the Four Seasons to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young!

Yeah, I know--Neil Young was also in the Buffalo Springfield, so I could have linked them in just a few steps. But part of the idea (for me) is to get as many artists as possible into one chain. Anyway, why have ten minutes of fun making a short chain, when you can have three hours of fun making a long one?