I worked a whole summer at Kentucky Fried Chicken (that's what they called themselves - before they became "KFC") saving up to buy it.
Posted on 05/25/2016 7:20:38 AM PDT by Borges
Classifying anyone as the “most successful” at anything tends to reflect more on the source than the subject. So keep that in mind when I make the following statement: John Philip Sousa is the most successful American musician of all time.
Marching music is a maddeningly durable genre, recognizable to pretty much everyone who has lived in the United States for any period. It works as a sonic shorthand for any filmmaker hoping to evoke the late 19th century and serves as the auditory backdrop for national holidays, the circus and college football. It’s not “popular” music, but it’s entrenched within the popular experience. It will be no less fashionable tomorrow than it is today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
People in their teens and twenties already can’t name even Elvis or the Beatles. My wife and I have a collection of vintage phonographs and hundreds of records and cylinders going back to the early part of the 20th century. Younger people do not even know songs from the 70s and 80s let alone the 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s and earlier.
Every generation seems to believe that their art forms are better and more advanced than those from previous time periods. We currently have easy and inexpensive digital access to media from all eras. But for the most part younger people have little interest in music from the beginning of the “Rock” era.
Look at the people who show up for an Eagles concert, or even the Rolling Stones. They are mostly senior citizens these days. When these groups die out interest in their music will decline even further. Historians will be able to access the music from our day, just as I can do an internet search right now and listen to Edison cylinder recordings from the turn of the 20th century within a few seconds. But who does this other than a few people such as myself who have an interest in early recordings?
What people will remember from our glory days will be dependent on the popular media of the day. So it is difficult to predict what that will be.
agree.
A bunch of us old goats were reminiscing this past summer and groused how loosely the term superstar gets tossed about. So of course we decided to determine who was worthy of that designation during "our" era of music (approximately 1950 to mid 1980s). We all agreed on seven: the three above, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Abba, and the BeeGees. We had to keep reminding each other that our personal like or dislike of the acts was an irrelevant factor. It would be hard to write even a short history of popular music during that span without mentioning these acts as each was, for at least a reasonable period of time, the top musical act in the world.
you’re a Lucky Man, indeed.
Roy Orbison
“Love Reign O’er Me is maybe the most intriguing rock song I’ve ever heard.”
IMO, that song & the Quadrophenia album is one of the greatest musical works of that century. Last year I got to see The Who here in Jacksonville. Roger & Pete could still bring it. I waited 35+ years to finally see/hear them perform that amazing song.
Heh!
Followed by Jerry Lee Lewis
Fortunately Brian is still with us. It’s ironic that the most fragile of the Wilson brothers has outlived his two brothers.
If that ELP was the same one I went to it was the 1st time a quadraphonic sound system was used at MSG:-)
Some of us DO KNOW who “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” is. :-)
Ginger Baker! His live version of “Toad” is by far the greatest drum solo in rock & roll history. It’s on Cream’s Wheels of Fire I believe.
Orbison had the most perfect set of pipes of that era. Dwight Yoakam stated that Orbison’s voice sounded like “the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window”.
Once thing about the Disco era was that most of the songs were about Love, feeling good and gett’n it on:-)
I worked a whole summer at Kentucky Fried Chicken (that's what they called themselves - before they became "KFC") saving up to buy it.
Damn straight.
:)
In general I think you have to look beyond the sales and the awards. Those are very much of the moment, and moments fade. You really have to look at the interviews, specifically the interviews with OTHER musicians, especially 10 years later. That’s where somebody’s position in history is shown. A lot of artists that never really broke out sales wise have that wake. It’s the old Velvet Underground & Nico “nobody bought the album, but every that bought the album formed a band” joke, THAT’S what gives a band a place in history. To be remembered a band need be a focal point to some style or concept, you need to be able to clearly define a before and after on them. We know one cut of a razor-blade will make sure The Kinks are always in the history books, the foot board no rock star goes on stage without will keep Hendrix in the books, monitors will keep Keith Richards in the books even if we forget about The Stones.
Agree about Simon Kirke. I play drums in a Bad Co. tribute band and his feel is what it’s all about. Not technical flash, but groove. One of my favorite drummers.
He hates that song. Often credited with giving birth to the heavy metal drum solo his retort is to ask if it’s too late for an abortion. Of course he hates almost everything.
Five Blind Boys Of Alabama, Amazing Grace to the tune of House Of The Rising Sun.
Epic.
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