10 Legends That Guested On Hard Rock Songs

By the time Michael Jackson got to making Thriller, he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than the best of the best. And you better believe that his producer Quincy Jones followed suit, eventually pushing MJ into writing better material before he finally came through with Billie Jean and Beat It at the exact same time. Despite the slick groove of Billie, Beat It was his first foray into hard rock, and he needed a guitar hero with the same hot streak as he had.

Considering both men’s pedigree though, it was shockingly easy to book Eddie Van Halen to come down to lay a solo over the bridge of Beat It, with Quincy just calling him up on the phone and asking if he’d be interested. Though Eddie admitted to not being the most comfortable in the session at first, everything fell into place when the music started, going from traditional R&B to one of the most spellbinding solos of the ‘80s.

Then again, not everyone was too happy with the mashup, with David Lee Roth thinking the King of Pop had stolen Eddie’s licks from right under his nose. No matter who he was playing with at the time though, everything that came out of that Frankenstein guitar always came from a place of fun for Eddie.