'70s Rock Icons That Tarnished Their Own Legacy

The trajectory of rock music is such that it all pretty much peaked in the 1970s. Our most iconic rock stars — both solo performers and significant contributors to bands — came of age creatively and professionally in that decade. From folk rock to hard rock to blues rock to New Wave, rock music arguably reached its apex in this, the age of the rock star. However, some important figures of '70s rock are more fondly remembered than others. Over time, certain details about those rock stars' behavior and activities emerged, and it cast a pall on all the great work they'd generated.

As it stands now in the 21st century, some of those instrumental rock stars, all of them members of the controversial Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, did things that permanently marred their public record and damaged their reputations. Here are the biggest '70s rock stars who did such terrible things that the world thought twice about them.

Formerly a member of the Byrds, David Crosby spent the 1970s with Crosby, Stills, and Nash (and sometimes Young), the pre-eminent acoustic act of the decade. Crosby's and his bandmates' music extolled progressive virtues and the value of peace and love, but in his personal life, Crosby was arrested more than once for drug and gun-related crimes. 

While on his way to an anti-nuclear protest in California in March 1982, Crosby crashed his vehicle into a freeway divider. After authorities removed him from the automobile, they determined that Crosby was high on cocaine. Finding cocaine and Crosby's loaded gun, police arrested the musician for illegally carrying a concealed weapon, driving under the influence of cocaine, drug possession, and drug paraphernalia possession. 

A plea deal reduced the slate to a count of reckless driving and Crosby was sentenced to probation, but he would be sentenced to prison for another series of crimes that occurred three weeks after the car accident. In April 1982, Crosby was arrested at a Dallas concert venue due to the presence of cocaine and a loaded handgun in his dressing room. Crosby started serving a five-year term in March 1986, but was sprung after five months.

In the late 1970s, Elvis Costello was a sensation in the U.K. and the U.S. with his albums "My Aim is True" and "This Year's Model." Lumped in with both the post-punk, anti-establishment "angry young men" as well as New Wave, Costello would later gel as more of a cult favorite and icon on the more niche-like alternative rock circuit. However, any aspirations of mainstream mega-fame were ultimately dashed after a couple of utterances of hate speech.

In 1979, Costello's "Armed Funk Tour" landed in Columbus, Ohio, where the musician and his band hung out in a hotel bar with folk rock icon Stephen Stills and his entourage. As the alcohol flowed, the conversation got more intense, and Costello stated his general distaste for American music. Then he decided to use an ugly racial slur to dismiss the work of two foundational figures of American music, Ray Charles and James Brown. Singer Bonnie Bramlett struck Costello, leading to a brief, two-band brawl. Then Bramlett told reporters about Costello's use of the N-word, forcing the latter to hold a press conference to explain what had happened and to deny being a racist.

Regarded as one of the finest British blues-inspired hard rock guitarists, Jimmy Page became positively worshipped in the 1970s with Led Zeppelin. As the lead guitarist in the band, Page played a major role in forging its sound, and his distinctive shredding can be heard on rock standards like "Whole Lotta Love" and "Stairway to Heaven," both of which he'd later be accused of stealing. 

In 1985, blues musician Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for stealing chunks of "You Need Love," a song he wrote for Muddy Waters and well known throughout the '60s blues-rock scene, to use for "Whole Lotta Love." The case was quickly settled out of court, and Page and singer Robert Plant went back and forth in the media, blaming each other for the heist.

In 1968, the band Spirit released the instrumental "Taurus," the guitar line of which sounds a lot like the opening section of 1971's "Stairway to Heaven." The estate of Spirit member Randy Wolfe filed a copyright infringement suit in 2014, which was dismissed in 2016 but retried upon appeal. Page, along with Led Zeppelin, was cleared of intellectual theft in 2020. "What you have here is a big win for the multi-billion dollar industry against the creatives," Spirit's lawyer Francis Malofiy told Rolling Stone. "They're the greatest art thieves of all time and they got away with it again today."

Undoubtedly one of the famous rock stars of all time, Steve Tyler emerged with the rest of Aerosmith out of the Boston area in the early 1970s. By decade's end, the band was huge, blending blues with simple rock hooks and playing arenas around the world. During much of that time, it would later emerge that Aerosmith's highly recognizable frontman was allegedly touring with an underage girl, whom he'd adopted for the sole purpose of committing illegal acts.

In 2022, Julia Misley filed a suit against Tyler, publicly claiming that she was coerced into a lengthy relationship with the Aerosmith singer in the 1970s. Misley reported that she met Tyler at a concert in 1973 when he was 25 and she was 16, after which they went to a hotel room where she was assaulted for the first of several times. In 1974, after flying Misley to various Aerosmith concerts for a few months, Tyler filed paperwork to become Misley's legal guardian so he could keep her nearby. Misley also alleged that Tyler gave her lots of drugs and alcohol, continuously assaulted her, and forced her to end a pregnancy. Parts of the lawsuit were dismissed in 2024.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

In 2003, the FBI-led international sting Operation Ore led to the arrest of 1,600 people in the U.K. on charges of possessing obscene media depicting children. Among them was Pete Townshend, The Who's lead guitarist as well as primary songwriter, who composed everything from concept albums like "Quadrophenia," experimental works like "Baba O'Riley," and crowd-pleasing hits like "Won't Get Fooled Again." This legal incident instantly brought notoriety to Townshend's name, which he'd struggle to shed as details of the case came into focus.

Townshend sort of admitted to the crimes of which he was accused, but with a caveat. In 1999, the musician told authorities that he'd used a credit card to pay to view a website that housed the illegal and profane materials, believing that seeing the imagery would bring up memories of similar abuse he'd suffered as a child and repressed. Following an investigation, during which Townshend said he hadn't actually looked at any of the photos, the charges were dropped, although the guitarist was placed on a national sex offender registry for five years.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

After a successful run in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a band adept at punk, disco, reggae, and pop, Blondie broke up for various reasons in 1982. It reunited in the late '90s with the hit album "No Exit" and a tour, with golden-era members Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, and Jimmy Destri taking part. However, '70s-era members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison were intentionally left out, and they sued for $1 million, seeking to stop the reunion from taking place without them while drawing negative attention to the newly reformulated Blondie.

The case was tossed out of court, but the two sides would publicly square off again, and in a way that embarrassed the Blondie establishment. In 2006, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame enshrined Blondie, including Harrison and Infante. Before the event, Harry told the Associated Press (via Today) that a full, happy reunion was out of the question. "There was no excuse for them suing us," Harry said, confirming that a full Blondie reunion would not happen at the induction ceremony. "That ended it." Harrison and Infante still showed up, however, to heckle. "We'd like to play with you guys — and Nigel. Pretty please!" Infante called out (via UCR). "Can't you see my real band is up there?" Harry replied.

Joining up with the band in 1962, bassist Bill Wyman played with the Rolling Stones for about three decades. Through its entire storied era as "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band," Wyman provided the bubbling low-end counterpoint to Mick Jagger's vocals and Keith Richards' guitar licks. Apart from a couple of solo albums, Wyman was content to leave the headline-grabbing to his cohort, until he brought on the biggest scandal in the history of a band known for its scandalous behavior.

At the 1984 Daily Mirror British Rock Awards, Wyman spotted two young women in the crowd. "I saw two stunning girls leaving the dance floor and my heart just jumped," Wyman wrote in his autobiography, "Stone Alone." The musician met them and found out that the one who'd especially caught his fancy was named Mandy Smith, and that she was 13 years old. Within a few weeks, they were a couple. The relationship became physical within the year, and Wyman took things public when Smith was 16 and he was about 50. They married in 1989, filed for divorce in 1991, and Wyman left the Rolling Stones in 1992.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

When Creedence Clearwater Revival split in 1972, it should've led to instant and long-lasting solo success for the band's singer and main songwriter, John Fogerty. Instead, his career turned into an up-and-down melodramatic saga filled with bitterness and self-defeat. His first two albums didn't sell very well, and after the single "You Got the Magic" barely made the Hot 100 in 1976, Asylum Records thought the LP "Hoodoo" was so bad as to be unreleasable.

Fogerty spent the next few years not making music but fighting his old CCR record label, Fantasy Records, over contracts and control of his music. He finally got back into the studio in 1983, but struggled to record music he felt was worthy of release. In 1985, Fogerty waged a comeback with the album "Centerfield," a double-platinum smash. However, it got him sued: The tracks "Mr. Greed" and "Zanz Kant Danz" triggered a slander lawsuit from Fantasy Records boss Saul Zaentz.

Lingering bitterness over Fantasy Records led Fogerty to publicly distance himself from his CCR bandmates, who'd sided with Zaentz, including his brother, Tom Fogerty, who died in 1990 at age 48 without a fraternal reconciliation. John Fogerty adamantly refused to play any of his CCR songs in concert for years, and when CCR was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fogerty made sure that the two surviving other members of the band couldn't get on stage to perform with him.