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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/12/2007 3:36:12 PM | There are many, too numerous to mention but here are some pre-rock n roll pioneers I think were instrumental in the foundation of Rock N Roll.
Hank Williams
Louis Armstrong
Louis Jordan
T-Bone Walker
Robert Johnson
Memphis Minnie
Wynonie Harris
Roy Acuff
Les Paul
Blind Willie McTell
Elmore James
Big Joe Turner
Louis Prima
Nat King Cole
Amos Milburn
Roy Brown
Stick McGhee
Bill Haley
Skeets McDonald
The Dominoes
Jackie Brenston
Hank Ballard
Johnny Ace
The Clovers
The Treniers
Ella Mae Morse
Tennessee Ernie Ford
These are the ones that came to mind right now. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 1:14:54 AM | I think there are four that stand pretty tall, Elvis, because Rock essentially metastasized after his first records and television performances came out. I think people can't forget Bill Haley either. Granted he wasn't pure rock and he never got much else going after that, but Rock around the Clock was a seminal record. Alongside Elvis has to be Little Richard and Buddy Holly. Little Richard rocked much harder than Elvis, and he could also actually right, while Buddy Holly was probably the second most influential band in the most influential of bands of the sixties and beyond, The Beatles. Elvis got John, Paul, and George into the scene, Buddy Holly's exploits helped get them to actually writer their material.
Regardless I don't think there are any single right answers. As some have said, Carl Perkins was huge, and indeed he was, and the great blues musicians and singers of the thirties, forties, and fifties are essential as well, but I also think it's telling that the art form exploded after Elvis, Little Richard, and later the Beatles, in truth, the Beatles may have actually saved it, considering the tottering position of Rock and Roll after Elvis joined the Army, Eddie Cochran died and "something (forgot the name) Vincent were killed in an accident in England, Buddy Holly and Richie (3 massive hits in about a year) Valens died, Little Richard decided to preach instead, and Chuck Berry got in trouble and Jerry Lee Lewis lost his mind. Right there, in the span of about two years rock and roll lost probably 8 of the top 10 or so artists to car accidents, plane crashes, the church, the army, jail, and horrendously poor judgement. People forget that while the music of the sixties was amazing in many ways, particularly Motown, Do-Wop, and girl group music, and the Beach Boys, the music scene by and large was driven by labels and the choices they made for their artists, rather than unique artists influencing the choices labels made. The Beatles brought back the rock group after a nearly four year slumber in many ways.
There is no rock and roll without the great bluesmen and women, without Bill Haley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard, but there might not have been a rock and roll that was recognizable after 1959 if it wasn't for The Beatles and the British Invasion that followed them. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 1:46:01 PM | As some have said, Carl Perkins was huge, and indeed he was IF you're NOT joking, please explain why you believe this.
The Beatles. Elvis got John, Paul, and George into the scene, Buddy Holly's exploits helped get them to actually writer their material. I actually gave up or thought I did trying to make this a logical and historical discussion due to the fact that so many keep posting things like Britany Spears,Jessica Simpson,Madonna, Black Sabbath,Tiny Tim ect.
It would be good to elaborate rather than make brash statements like those about the Beatles and Holly and Elvis.
This is what Elvis said;"A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let's face it, I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I know that." | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 5:26:49 PM | You seem interested in the origins, the topic title refers to who was the most influential and obscure, and not so obscure blues artists were not nearly as influential as Elvis, Little Richard or the Beatles. If you're talking about the origins, the original birthplace, the men and women who created the art form, you've got a point, slowly it spread out from these guys and women until it exploded with Elvis. How else do you explain the charts, and record sales? Radio+Television+Elvis equaled Rock and Roll having the possibility of becoming permanent, The Beatles insured that it would be. I've read how you go on and on about these brilliant, highly original and highly copied artists made the art form and should get the credit they deserve and yet rarely receive. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is denigrating the idea that Elvis, Little Richard, and to a slighly lesser extent guys like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and later the Beatles redefined the artform and influenced everybody.
I don't really think it's debateable, I think the problem is that we've gone in divergent directs about what influential actually means. Elvis got kids across the world to pick up guitars and start bands, same deal with Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly got bands like the Beatles to start writing. I've read just about every Beatle book ever beaten, and the Beatles are certainly the most influential band since Elvis, and John, Paul, and George were fundamentally inspired by Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard (who the band actually worked with before they broke in America) as well as Motown, and Phil Spector produced bands. The Stones were obviously highly inspired by the Blues originals, the Beatles by and large were not, and if one is going to argue that these great blues musicians were more influential in rock and roll than the Beatles, than one will be engaging in intellectual dishonesty. The Beatles picked up where the greats of the fifties left off, the greats of the fifties picked up where the artists you and a few others mention from the 20's, 30's, 40's and early fifties left off. No one doubts there is a chain that goes far, far back, but it's also important to note that Elvis converted America, and Europe to Rock and Roll, and the Beatles converted the world to it, just as it was at risk of dying, the blues musicians you mentioned clearly were influential, but I don't even think it's even close here.
There's obviously a lot of undisguised distaste for Elvis and I get it. Didn't write jack, borrowed/stole depending upon your attitude heavily from black music and artists, and became a caricature of himself in the seventies after surrendering his career to a witless Parker. Fair enough. I like Little Richard, and Buddy Holly more to be honest, Little Richard rocked harder, and so did Jerry Lee Louis, and Buddy Holly wrote material that mostly holds up better, although like Elvis, he had those god awful backing vocalists ruining a few of his works. That being said, even with my preferences I can't deny what happened after Elvis released his first material at Sun, and after he got his first tv gigs. The music charts were never, ever the same. Up till then all the great blues musicians in the world hadn't completely rewritten what was played on radio, bought in record stores or what were the top 20 records around. After Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and a few others blew the top off the music industry, the great bands of the British Invasion picked up guitars and played at their schools, the great american bands of the sixties started to pick up guitars, and the world of music changed for good.
I have no doubt that there is no rock and roll without the men and women you talk about it. There's no denying it. That being said, the rock and roll we all know and love today, and in yesterday's albums was most heavily influenced by those fifties icons, and the Beatles who picked up the pieces after just about all of their careers ended due to deaths, career screw ups, and other accidents of fate, or choice. I think I understand where you're coming from, but still nothing seems sillier than attacking the idea that these men in the fifties and sixties were some how less influential. It's patently obvious they were infinitely more influential by the direction music took, the direction radio took, the change in what was played on television, and what sold, and sold like mad in those years. This doesn't diminish those hugely talented artists, I just think it puts in perspective what they did, which was create the foundation of the most popular music in the world, but certainly not influence on anywhere near the scale of Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and to a lesser extent Buddy Holly. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 5:47:36 PM | | Btw, as I said earlier I think where people are at loggerheads is basically w/the occasional posts suggesting artists who were around far, far after the birth, as well the question of birth and influence. I think you've got it right about detailing the foundation, and the influencing of the fifties icons, but I think I and a few others have it right about the art form actually becoming viable, instead of a fad. Like I said before, there is no Rock and Roll without the men and women you mentioned, but likewise rock and roll likely would never have become a major art form if the fifties icons I talked about didnt basically explode on the scene and get the whole of the country to turn on their radios and change the stations, buy the records, and of course later the Beatles converted the whole world to it, after the fifties icons converted them and swaths of Europe to it. Otherwise, it would just be obscure offshoots of the blues, selling to die hard afficionado's, nowhere near what it ended up becoming after Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry started blasting across radios and televisions across the country and in record shops across the Atlantic. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 10:33:36 PM |
You seem interested in the origins, the topic title refers to who was the most influential I AM the OP  I KNOW to what I refer.
Radio+Television+Elvis equaled Rock and Roll having the possibility of becoming permanent, Not really, Rock N Roll was here BEFORE televison and certainly before Elvis as even Elvis has admitted. Radio play of Rock also predated Elvis. In FACT, the radio play of Rock occured due to the HUGE upswing in popularity of Rock among listeners who had been sneeking to hear it. Rock was and would have been the music of rebellious youth dispite TV and Elvis. Lets face it, to a segregated largely racist population Elvis simply made Rock more commercial. However, MUSICALLY Elvis presented NOTHING new. Socially and in terms of performance Elvis presented nothing new nor innovative. Elvis was the Vanilla Ice of Rock, the Eminem at best(and THAT would be stretching it quite a bit). Further, ROck would have been popular no matter what. The writing was on the wall. Jazz was born without tv nor radio and was more than a "fad". The more the "establishment" fought Rock the more popular it would become. Elvis simply helped COMMERCIALIZE Rock. Elvis was socially POPULAR but musically was simply doing rock minstrel without burnt cork. When you even begin to consider Elvis, 1st consider those HE admits to be influenced by in that genre of music. Then look at what THEY presented. Its already been clearified that by "most influential" I am NOT refering to sales nor popularity.African American performers saw their songs recorded and imitated by white performers, an important step in the dissemination of the music, but often at the cost of feeling and authenticity (not to mention revenue).
Did you NOT read the original post ?"Many opinions vary as to who is the real "king" or inventor of this important musical gene.Who do YOU feel is the most important/influential artist in RockNRoll history?Who is the REAL KING of RockNRoll? " The question does NOT refer to the commercialization of Rock.
Elvis got kids across the world to pick up guitars and start bands,
Hmmmmm...was this due to his virtuousity on the guitar? Or his great band?
Are you kidding? Its MUCH more likely that a kid would pick up a guitar after hearing Chuck Berry than after hearing Elvis.
Up till then all the great blues musicians in the world hadn't completely rewritten what was played on radio, bought in record stores or what were the top 20 records around. Is THAT a joke or just a really poor revisionistic view of history? Did you know that many great "Blues" artist crossed over into "rocknRoll" before it was commonly called RockNRoll? This of course occured BEFORE Elvis.
Now, BECAUSE Rock existed BEFORE "Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and to a lesser extent Buddy Holly."(Buddy Holly?  ) Saying Elvis was the most influential in Rock is like Al Gore claiming to have invented the INTERNET! IS Donald Trump the most influential person in casino or real estate history? He is the most famous.
The ONLY reason Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Count Basie, Louis Jordan,Wynonie Harris, Big Joe Turner with Pete Johnson,Jimmy and Joe Liggins,Jimmy Preston are more prominently noted is due to the marketing/commercialization of Rock in the 50's-70's. Racsim and American Aparthied(Jim Crow) made record label owners and radio station owners believe that the music needed a certian kind of face(Elvis,Holly,Lewis until he became known as a pediphile) to market the music. The music itself however was gaining steam regardless. It took 10-20 years for Rock to reach larger European American audiences but once it did, most knew there was no turning back. Hence a revision of the musical history due to the ignorance of most listeners after the explosion of Rock took place.
I take nothing away from Chuck Berry but note that his style was there BEFORE his popularity and the FACT that he should NEVER be mentioned without Jimmy Johnson, the band leader who gave Berry his start and tutored him. Still, where would HE be without those who proceeded him? I LOVE Little Richard, but I know who he got his style from. I take NOTHING away from him however.
The point has already been made that RocknRoll was at LEAST hinted at in the 1920's(Trixie Smith-My daddy ROCKS me(with a steady roll)1922).Now, arguably(EASILY) there was rocknroll in the 30's.However,there is no question that in the '40's RockNRoll was already out of diapers,and walking.
Elvis:;"A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock 'n' roll was here a LONG time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like "colored people". Let's face it, I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I KNOW that."
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in the birth of RockNRoll
Posted: 8/15/2007 11:03:39 PM | | rock and roll was just getting underway when i was three [1953]. there is only one possible answer to your question and that name is elvis aron prestley,look at the hits, the people who have been influenced by him,it,s 30 years since he passed away and but still his music is as popular as ever , oh yes long live the king kind regards thuryboy. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in the birth of RockNRoll
Posted: 8/17/2007 9:18:32 PM | I think Rock and Roll was a tree that took centuries to grow therefore this is a very complex question. It sprouted out of classics, was nurtured on jazz, swing, and blues and branched into many genres we love today. For laughs I thought I’d try and evolve classical composers into today’s modern day rock band! What do you think?
1. Chopin’s bluesy piano - Scott Joplin to Jerry Lee Lewis to Elton John
2. Mozart charming melodies - Duke Ellington to Buddy Holly to Beach Boys
3. Beethoven moodiness and pain - to Muddy Waters to Jeff Beck
4. Wagner intensity and VOLUME - to Jimi Hendrix to Deep Purple to Def Lepard
5. Listz clever compositions and riffs - Robert Johnson to Van Halen
6. Bach’s mathematical complexities - Genesis to U2
7. Debussy wistfulness and fantasy - Aaron Copeland to Pink Floyd to Beck
ETC!! But my most influencial vote - Robert Johnson
The Cinnamon Girl | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in the birth of RockNRoll
Posted: 8/18/2007 2:03:03 AM | I would say Charlie Christian. Although he was a Jazz artist; He was one of the few musicians of his generation that used the electric guitar and influenced Rock and Roll. So is Howlin Wolf.
Rather than say the King of Rock and Roll, I would say the originators of the genre. | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/10/2008 11:35:12 PM | Jimmy Hendrix - the Riffs were amazing - classic rock in general - CCR - Doors, Led Zepplin - the whole genre - but I totally agree with our past writers in regard to Jazz =- classical - it all plays a part. The funny thing about music is it is ever growing - and ever evolving. And thank god. Minus the corporate BS - Music in its' core form and purpose is just bad ass. So all you independant artists: KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES! - get your stuff on pandora.com - or broadjam.com. I posted there when I was doing music and it's a great place to get ideas and reviews.
Hell I think if you listen to Palladio - you can here a metal sound to it - gets me moovin considering its just classical :)  | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/11/2008 2:12:46 AM | wow it not name your favorite
any way what is the main instrument of RNR ...the electric guitar.
So Charlie Christian is it , not the first to play it but the first to make it an instrument for acompanment or soloing :he made the electric guitar a serious instrument and every one from T bone to berry onward is influenced by him. In fact Gibson first pickup is called charlie christian. an okie he knew CW and blues and played swing with benny goodman which is a for runner of RNR ,,,,,,listen to zeps fast part of heartbreaker....that swings like basie ...think of the page rif as horns and you'll hear it. amazing period in American Muisc Armstrong 1920 to Dylan 1964 | |
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| Name the artist you feel was the most infulential in RockNRoll
Posted: 8/11/2008 10:38:48 AM |
Not really, Rock N Roll was here BEFORE televison and certainly before Elvis as even Elvis has admitted. Radio play of Rock also predated Elvis.
The popularity was rather small, limited to people who could get access to clubs and small radio stations that played that "black/hoodlum" music.
In FACT, the radio play of Rock occured due to the HUGE upswing in popularity of Rock among listeners who had been sneeking to hear it.
The problem was, until Elvis came along, this was only to known to scattered groups of people that were isolated - since there was no real way of having any commercial market.
Rock was and would have been the music of rebellious youth dispite TV and Elvis.
Without four critical things, that might have taken decades to arrive.
1) The demographics of the Baby Boom - lot's of young kids
2) The mass media of TV to promote what was/is a very visual type of music
3) A culture that was "repressive" to that group of kids viewpoint, and they needed some cause to be a rebel for.
4) Elvis
Lets face it, to a segregated largely racist population Elvis simply made Rock more commercial.
I can't say you are wrong - but he did open the door to others simply by being who he was, when he was. He was "rebellious" enough to get kids interested, good looking, and he was polite enough not to be considered the Anti-Christ.
That wasn't ever going to happen with Little Richard first, trust me. 
However, MUSICALLY Elvis presented NOTHING new.
Agreed, and although I really like the Sun Session LP, he was a very "watered down ""rocker", and after the Army he was even more so.
Socially and in terms of performance Elvis presented nothing new nor innovative.
He was a white man doing "black" music, and that was a seismic shock to the culture of the time. That hip swiveling that shocked the adults was exceptionally tame (again compared to Little Richard) but he was seen as far more "Sex Pistol" like than you give him credit for.
The fact he was so popular to the kids made it even "worse: 
Elvis was the Vanilla Ice of Rock, the Eminem at best(and THAT would be stretching it quite a bit).
More like Johnny Rotten, for that time period. They probably would have lynched Little Richard.
Further, Rock would have been popular no matter what. The writing was on the wall.
Elvis opened that door, like it or not, and the crowds rushed in afterwards.
I remember traveling and living in the USA (LA) for around a month or so in 1966. At that time, honestly, almost all the males you saw had crew cuts. They'd take off their hats, and it looked like the top of a felt pen.
My Mom (bless her soul) saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show with me on TV, and was in SHOCK about how their hair was the length of a woman's. It took her until about 1966 (and Yesterday) to actual consider them as musicians. 
I remember watching McCartney doing that song on TV, and her turning to me and going "Now THAT'S a SONG !"  
That's roughly ten years POST Elvis, btw..........
When Hendrix smashed and set his guitar on fire at Montery Pop, it was on the news the same night - and my Mom assumed that civilization as we knew it was indeed ending.
When I first heard "Heartbreak Hotel," I could hardly make out what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We'd never heard American voices singing like that. They'd always sung like Sinatra who enunciated well. Suddenly, there's this hillbilly hiccupping with echo and all this bluesy background going on. We didn't know what the hell Presley was singing about or Little Richard or Chuck Berry. It took a long time to work out what was going on. To us, it just sounded like great noise.
- John Lennon
“It was Elvis who really got me buying records. I thought that early stuff of his was great. The Bill Haley era passed me by, in a way. When his records came on the wireless, my mother used to hear them, but they didn’t do anything for me. It was Elvis who got me hooked on beat music. When I heard Heartbreak Hotel, I thought ‘this is it’ and I started to grow sideboards and all that gear...”
- John Lennon
October 9, 1956:
John spent some of the money he’d been given for his birthday on two new 78 rpm singles, Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog/Don’t Be Cruel and The Goons’ The Ying-Tong Song.
March 1957:
Inspired by Lonnie Donegan and fired up by Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, John and his school friend, Pete Shotton, started a skiffle group, which they called The Blackjacks.
No Elvis....and no Beatles... :cry:
If you want to see something REALLY over the top, something that would have never made it on live US TV at the time - check out this little clip over at YouTube.
The Tielman Brothers - Rollin' Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s95TYVsuwVs
That was taped in the Netherlands, on the 23rd January 1960.
(That group also played in Hamburg, at some of the places the Beatles knew and played at, in 1960. That would have made an interesting meeting, I'm sure. ) | |
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