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Which musicians do you think belong up here?
This morning, as I was bartering five more minutes of bed time with the Snooze Alarm Fairy, I heard a snippet of yesterday’s Mo and Sally show on Kool 105,5 FM, where they were trying to come up with a Mt. Rushmore of Sports. This not only made me come up with my own sports mountain (Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Johnny Unitas and Hank Aaron) but inspired me to ponder who’d be on popular music’s Mt. Rushmore.
This is tricky, of course, because how do you come up with just four faces to be carved into that mythical musical mountain? Do you keep it to the rock and roll era, or go back to early influences like Big Mama Thornton and Robert Johnson? Do you only include performers, or pivotal writers like Leiber and Stoller? Do you keep it to rock and roll? Or do you just cut the difference and carve in all four Beatles?
I decided to keep my timeline between the early 1900s and now. Picking just four people from that is gonna leave some people off – Heck, I’ll probably disagree with myself in ten minutes. But here’s my musical Mt. Rushmore, although I’d be interested in yours, too. And tell me what you think of mine. I know you will!
— Robert Johnson: The mysterious guitarist has been an influence for so many, not only musically, but in creepy supernatural backstory. His claim of having made a deal with the devil at the crossroads is the stuff that rock-and-roll legend is made of.
— Smokey Robinson: He wrote much of the Motown songbook, setting the tone for American popular music lyrically and stylistically. And he sang “Ooh, Baby, Baby,” which is worth a place on a mountain, a Nobel prize and his own holiday.
— Paul McCartney: OK. Here’s where the fight begins. I could only pick one Beatle, and I know that John Lennon gets the artistic props because he was supposedly the brainy one, and because his solo work doesn’t involve “Ebony and Ivory.” But in terms of continued influence and sheer volume of his canon, I gotta go with Macca. Please don’t hurt me.
— Carole King: Oh, did I agonize over this one! I kept typing the name “Michael Jackson” and then erasing it, before I settled on King (whose absence as a solo artist from The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame continues to blow my mind). Bear with me. Her work as a writer in the Brill Building set the tone for so much of the ’60s, and her influence goes not only to girl groups and to peaceful easy singers like James Taylor and Carly Simon, but to almost every woman singer who ever sat down at a piano (or picked up a guitar, for that matter) and sang sensitively and honestly about her life. No Carole? No Lilith Fair.
Yeah, I know. No Elvis. Maybe if there was a fifth face…but I went with Johnson for the early rock influence. What do you think? Who’s on your musical mountain? Type away, dear friends….
1. Bill Hayley. He and his Comets brought the Blues to the masses.
2. Jagger/Richards. The Beatles might have been bigger in the 60′s, but The Stones eclipsed them in their long and storied careers.
3. Jimi Hendrix. Jimi inspired too many to list here, and took the guitar to places it will never see again.
4.Page/Plant. They took the Mississippi Delta sound and made it accessable just like Bill Hayley had done twenty years prior.
Hey Leslie: Your choices are awful. Mine are…….
1. Elvis
2. Jimi Hendrix
3. Bob Dylan
4. Janice Joplin
Elvis Presley
Jimi Hendrix
Paul McCartney
Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice? What are you on?
The Jonas Brothers and Tom Araya of Slayer.
How about:
Chris Ballew
Jason Finn
Andrew McKeag
Dave Dederer
Who!
Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin
beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin,Lynyrd Skynyrd
A few other contenders:
Chuck Berry. Buddy Holly. Roy Orbison. Ozzy Osbourne. James Hatfield. Ray Davies.
Other non-rock genres:
Beethoven. John Denver. Woody Guthrie. Stephen Foster. Louis Armstrong. Bob Wills. Bob Marley. James Brown. Prince. Dr Dre.
Pete Townshend
Paul McCartney
Ozzy Osbourne
Robert Plant
Eric Clapton
Joey Defrancesco
Luciano Pavarotti
Hamish Stuart
never be bored
Wow. Ray Davies is an awesome choice! Woody Guthrie and Louie Armstrong…oh, yeah!
1. Sinatra
2. Elvis
3. Bob Dylan
4. Michael Jackson
Case closed.
Elvis Presley
James Brown
Michael Jackson
Frank”Chairman”Sinatra
Johnny Cash
Michael Jackson
Bob Marley
Tupac Shukur
Elvis
Elvis Presley(1950s)
The Beatles(1960s)
Jimi Hendrix(1960s)
Michael Jackson(1970s-early 1990s)
There’s no question that these four artists changed the dynamics of music worldwide during their time. Most people to this day still consider all of them phenomenal.
The difference between my four and other artists listed is that my four appealed to all cultures worldwide and they had a mass following ranging most age groups. Subsequently they permanently changed the music industry accordingly. On the other hand artists such as: Frank Sinatra, Led Zepplin, Johnny Cash, and Chuck Berry did not appeal to all cultures worldwide. Instead they only appealed to certain subcultures and they also did not possess the same amount of worldwide charisma as Hendrix, Elvis, Michael Jackson, and the Beatles. They were all great but their influence did not equal those four.
The Beatles
Elvis Presley
Michael Jackson
Jimi Hendrix
Honorable Mention:
Bob Marley
Tupac Shakur
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra
James Brown
Little Richard
Chuck Berry.
Elvis Presley would have to be No.1 because it was he alone who broke down social and cultural barriers in 1950′s U.S.A. making it easier for all artists who followed in his footsteps. Further Elvis could, and did, sing in virtually every musical genre available to him. Elvis is still the template by which success is measured in the Music Industry. Simply THE BEST.