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The Top 25 Rock & Rollers of All Time
Life.com ^ | 2005 | staff

Posted on 03/07/2006 4:41:33 PM PST by pissant

Every kid who has ever spent Friday night at a concert or a dance, or been mesmerized by the light of a jukebox, has his or her own Top 100. And it's safe to say that no two Top 100s are alike. The fun is in the fighting. What do you mean Jimi's not No. 1? Hey, where's Britney? Of LIFE's Top 100 we can say only this for certain: They rocked our world. We're betting a lot of them rocked yours.

1. ELVIS PRESLEY In the 20th century, only a few individuals in the world of popular music were so far above and beyond what surrounded them that they became stars of a different, greater magnitude. Bing Crosby was one, so was Frank Sinatra. The third member of that tiny but brilliant constellation was a young man who emerged from a hardscrabble Mississippi background to become a phenomenon that may have been the biggest of them all — Elvis.

2. THE BEATLES John Lennon, never a falsely modest man, once said that without Elvis, there was no Beatles. Indeed, the rockabilly craze ignited by Elvis was the formative influence on each of the four young Beatles-in-waiting as they grew up in near-poor to middle class circumstances in the oil-slicked English port city of Liverpool. Without Elvis, the Beatles wouldn't have wanted to be what they eventually became.

3. BOB DYLAN In the mid-1950s a high school freshman in Hibbing, Minn., named Bobby Zimmerman, whose ultimate ambition was "to join Little Richard," formed a band called the Golden Chords. Thus began the astonishing musical journey of the one who, even before leaving the Midwest for New York City in 1961, had been reborn as Bob Dylan. At first performing in a style resonant of his hero, Woody Guthrie, Dylan conquered the world in stages: the Greenwich Village folk scene, the rock arena, the Nashville crowd. As the millennium turned, he was playing at special audiences for Presidents and popes, meanwhile creating new, vibrant music that continued to thrill.

4. JAMES BROWN The most influential black artist in rock's history, Brown burst onto the scene in 1956 when he and the Famous Flames recorded "Please, Please, Please." Like many another, he had a gospel background, but he also drew on stints as a semipro boxer and baseball player. His stage shows were an explosion of jumps, splits and rapid-fire dance moves that earned him the nickname Mr. Dynamite.

5. THE ROLLING STONES For many they are, simply, the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. In the early '60s, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts joined forces in London for music that was mostly covers of Chuck Berry and Chicago blues. While those influences would remain, Jagger and Richards soon became a team that wrote one great song after another.

6. MADONNA Christopher Ciccone once called his sister Madonna Louise "her own masterpiece." That she is, an intricately crafted figure of great rarity who may or may not be a feminist icon, may or may not be much of a singer, may or may not be a narcissistic empty vessel, but is one thing for sure: a rock star of the highest order, one with savvy, style and legs.

7. STEVIE WONDER Stevie Wonder is one of the most "musical" people rock has ever known, musical in the sense that Louis Armstrong was musical, where the sound is always special. He opened everyone's ears when his third single, "Fingertips (Part 2)," and its accompanying album both hit No. 1 in 1963. His vital, inventive singing and harmonica playing made it clear that someone important had arrived. For the rest of the decade, he hit one pop homer after another, equally comfortable with gentle ballads or swirling rockers.

8. CHUCK BERRY He was rock's first poet, spinning three-minute sagas of teen angst that cleverly reflected that manic-depressive reality, whether it was the doldrums of school ("the teacher don't know how mean she looks"), the liberation of the automobile ("we parked way out on the Kokomo") or the allure of fine young things ("she's too cute to be a minute over seventeen"). Driving the lyrics were some of rock's immortal melodies, with guitar licks (and piano riffs from Johnnie Johnson) that remain fresh despite having graced the songs of a thousand others.

9. MICHAEL JACKSON Born in 1958, he was already a member of the Jackson 5 by age five, and hasn't left the stage since — a fact that made him a star beyond measure and, meantime, cost him dearly. He has often lamented his lost boyhood, and cited this as a reason for his wistful, childlike personality. Jackson's enigmatic nature — some call it plain old strangeness, what with the oddly evolving facial structure and skin tone — often overwhelms an appreciation of his extraordinary gifts.

10. KURT COBAIN Growing up in a small town in Washington, he was a happy boy who loved the Beatles. His parents divorced when he was eight, and the next year Cobain became a devotee of heavier music: Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. (He once said that he hoped his band, Nirvana, might marry Beatlesque melody to Sabbath's power.) In 1987, Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic began expressing their anger in loud, edgy, intoxicating songs. Eventually joined by drummer Dave Grohl, they released, in 1991, a disc that was the very definition of seminal.

the best of the rest:

11. Eric Clapton 12. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young 13. Smokey Robinson 14. Aretha Franklin 15. Bruce Springsteen 16. Jimi Hendrix 17. Ray Charles 18. The Everly Brothers 19. The Drifters 20. The Beach Boys 21. Buddy Holly 22. The Band 23. Bob Marley 24. The Four Tops 25. Grateful Dead


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: baycityrollers; uhhgg
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To: Supernatural

I think he would. But I've never liked him. I'd take Jerry lee Lewis first.


81 posted on 03/07/2006 5:22:21 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

No...but I like a few of her cuts. My 17 y/o puts a mix together for me, and Kelly is there...along with Dashboard Confessional, Plain White Ts, Sugar Cult, Brand New, Sublime, Smile Empty Soul, and many many more. ( :-D


82 posted on 03/07/2006 5:22:22 PM PST by Pharmboy (The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones.)
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To: Supernatural

#8


83 posted on 03/07/2006 5:23:05 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant
Steve Harris is the Top 25 Rock & Rollers of All Time.

Fender Jazz & no pick, baby.

84 posted on 03/07/2006 5:23:12 PM PST by humblegunner (If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.)
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To: Purple Mountains Maj

You are not a follower of the Bahgwan Shree Rajneesh are you?


85 posted on 03/07/2006 5:23:58 PM PST by pissant
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To: Supernatural

Yup. And bubble gum pop thrown in for good measure.


86 posted on 03/07/2006 5:24:51 PM PST by pissant
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To: thoughtomator

there ya go. Zappa deserves some credit here.


87 posted on 03/07/2006 5:25:21 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

No Gene Vincent? No Carl Perkins? No Bill Haley? Madonna, fer cryinoutloud?!?!?Pshaw!


88 posted on 03/07/2006 5:25:29 PM PST by GodBlessRonaldReagan (Count Petofi will not be denied!)
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To: Chi-townChief

Where's the Everly Brothers?


89 posted on 03/07/2006 5:25:36 PM PST by blam
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To: humblegunner
One of the best guitarists of all time, and certainly the 1980s:


90 posted on 03/07/2006 5:26:00 PM PST by RockinRight (Attention RNC...we're the party of Reagan, not FDR...)
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To: Pharmboy

I feel your pain. ROFL!


91 posted on 03/07/2006 5:26:00 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

Yeah, I missed Chuck B. on the list. I plead insanity.


92 posted on 03/07/2006 5:26:27 PM PST by Supernatural (Lay me doon in the caul caul groon, whaur afore monie mair huv gaun)
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To: humblegunner

Who the heck is Fred harris?


93 posted on 03/07/2006 5:26:34 PM PST by pissant
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To: GodBlessRonaldReagan

The Madonna thing is blasphemy


94 posted on 03/07/2006 5:27:07 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

"You are not a follower of the Bahgwan Shree Rajneesh are you?"
No no never never unh unh unh...Why ever would you ask such a ? as that? Silly Rabbit, cults are for kooks!


95 posted on 03/07/2006 5:27:15 PM PST by Majie Purple
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To: Purple Mountains Maj

You don't know about his purple fetish, I take it?


96 posted on 03/07/2006 5:28:05 PM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

Madonna and Kurt Kobain???

Schlock and self-promotion, yeah. But ROCKERS?

BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


97 posted on 03/07/2006 5:28:11 PM PST by freedumb2003 (American troops cannot be defeated. American Politicians can.)
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To: pissant
Who the heck is Fred harris?

GRRRR.

Bill and Ted worshipped Fred Harris.

98 posted on 03/07/2006 5:29:15 PM PST by humblegunner (If you're gonna die, die with your boots on.)
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To: pissant
Well, I can see clearly a common thread among all the replies to the original post:

Nobody, apparently, has a clue about the clear difference between "my favorite"... and "the best", what ever that might be.

Let the eternal waste of time begin...

99 posted on 03/07/2006 5:29:36 PM PST by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: pissant

"You don't know about his purple fetish, I take it?"
Nope...Never heard of him at all...I supose that is now quite obvious.


100 posted on 03/07/2006 5:30:36 PM PST by Majie Purple
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