[eddie willers]

So since everything else came afterward, you conclude everything else was derived therefrom?

Yep....pretty much.

Rock and Roll had only been around for less than 10 years and was dying as fast as you could say "Elvis is outta the Army....and he's NOT the same".

Yep....I'm saying without them, Rock and Roll would have never have matured into "ROCK", there would have been no Who, Stones, Traffic, or Steely Dan etc.

Without the lovable mop tops, The Beach Boys would have continued writing "Little Duce Coupe" and Dwayne Allman would have never picked up the guitar.
(and wouldn't that be a shame)

[IowaHawk]

Fifty Million Mullets Can't Be Wrong....

Journey! Styx! Boston! Night Ranger!

[Mr. Mojo]

I think Bob Dylan's three mid-60's masterpieces (Bring it all Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde) were more influencial than anything the Beatles released, and Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison have admitted as much. Bob was the first to combine poetry with rock and roll (in 1965).....a truly revolutionary msucial accomplishment. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, etc. created the bare bones of rock and roll, but Dylan (and to a lesser extent the Beatles) brought it to maturity.

(As a side note, it's quite false to classify Dylan as an "anti-war protest singer," especially since only 2 of his 30+ albums could be accurately classified in that genre, and both were released before out involvement in Vietnam. He's simply a rock and roller with a poetic genius).

[Petronski]

Yep....I'm saying without them, Rock and Roll would have never have matured into "ROCK", there would have been no Who, Stones, Traffic, or Steely Dan etc.

Oooh, I'd love to hear Jagger or Townshend say they wouldn't have made the music they did without the Beatles.

The good stuff follows a straight line from Memphis TN and Muscle Shoals AL to Sun Records and The Rolling Stones; and from blues artists like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters to Led Zeppelin and heavy metal. Do you think the Yardbirds got more influence from the Beatles? Or did they get it from guitar greats Albert King, Howlin Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, etc.?

And I'd love to see musical lines of influence drawn from the Beatles to Traffic. The idea of it baffles me...it sounds almost silly.