Rock and roll has it roots in country music. You can hear it clearly in early elvis. And I agree that most country is pop music with a fiddle. But most rock music today sucks. It’s not going to last two or three years from now, whereas Zep and early Van Halen will last forever.
Absolutely. There has never been a sharp line between one genre and another. Artists like Charlie Daniels and Jimmy Buffett blur the line between rock and country. Outkast blurs the line between hip-hop and R&B. Kenny G blurs the line between pop, jazz, and insipid, unlistenable crap.
Sorry. I couldn't let that slip past.
American music is always a fusion -- Jazz is a blend of Sousa-style band music and Delta blues. Rock is a fusion of blues and country, with a generous infusion of gospel and bluegrass. The Beatles used sitars, and the Beach Boys used Theremins. Led Zeppelin's title "D'Yer Maker" is a cokney pun for "Jamaica," and that song is heavily influenced by reggae. And so on.
Music has to cross-pollinate, or it gets stale. Great musicians are the ones who seek out something new, and think "Wow, that's interesting," and then incorporate some of those ideas into their work. Even in that stodgy old long-hair classical music, composers incorporated new melodies, rhythms and instruments as they came to know about them.
As one small example -- and I could go on all day with this -- U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was a very good song. When they added a gospel choir for "Rattle and Hum," that bumped it up to a great song.