Sock It To Me

 

The thing about lists is they are designed to create controversy.  Witness Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.  Everyone’s going to have a grievance or three.  This one’s too low on the list, that one’s too high.  And – especially, it would seem, if you’re a Celine Dion fan – why isn’t she (or he) on the list?

 

But this list created a different problem for me, because for every okay-I-get-it and are-you-serious? on the list there was also a who?

 

I must be getting old.

How Many?

 

I know Chuck Berry only wrote, like, three songs, but all twenty-eight of them are fabulous.

Deep Inside My Heart I Know I Can’t Escape

 

Here’s some heresy for you:

 

Who is the greatest blues songwriter?  Willie Dixon?  Robert Johnson?  Howlin’ Wolf?  Muddy Waters?  B.B. King?

 

I think a serious case could be made for one Robert Zimmerman.

Ol’ Poor Boy

 

The older I get, the more I understand why George Harrison revered Carl Perkins.

Run Devil Run

I know it was Paul McCartney’s album and all, but:

• Mick Green
• Pete Wingfield
• Ian Paice
• David Gilmour
• And Sir Paul himself

So how come that line-up on Live At The Cavern Club wasn’t labelled a supergroup?

Gotta Hear It Again Today

The three best covers of all time are:

1. All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix, and 
2. All Along The Watchtower by Neil Young, and 
3. All Along The Watchtower by U2 

Okay, it’s actually Roll over Beethoven by The Beatles, but still …

Hurry Hurry Hurry

I have this friend ...  he says he loves Rock and Roll, but he thinks punk is rubbish, and he can’t stand heavy metal, which - according to him - is exemplified by Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.

Yes, he is older than me.

I try in vain to explain to him that Zeppelin and AC/DC are Rock and Roll bands, but he won’t have it.

I say: “Listen.  There is no difference between You Shook Me All Night Long and Communication Breakdown and I Want To Be Sedated and Roll Over Beethoven (either The Beatles or Chuck Berry, take your pick).

The sound may differ, but it’s the feeling, right?

Don’t Fade On Me

“The soundtrack to your life” may be a cliché, but to the extent that we all have one, mine seemed to be slipping away in 2017.  Check out Rolling Stone’s People We Lost This Year.

Chuck Berry, Tom Petty, Malcolm Young, Gord Downie, Greg Allman, Walter Becker, Fats Domino, J. Geils …  sheesh!  That’s a partial list of cultural icons relegated to our memories.

Back up your hard drives, people.  We need to keep this stuff alive.

The First Cut Is The Deepest

When you’re huge, you’re huge, and after you’ve been around a while, your entire body of work tends to morph into one, uh, huge, thing.

So it begs the question, who would we still view – years later - as huge if they had stopped after only one album?  Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, Buddy Holly  …

After that, I dunno.  Adele?  The Band?  The Byrds?  Crosby Stills and Nash?  Dire Straits?  Eagles?  Elvis?  Jeff Beck?  Steely Dan?  Maybe.

There are a lot of names from the rock pantheon missing, a lot of acts that took a couple or three albums to really establish a place in music history.  The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, U2, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, AC/DC …

Maybe we’d remember them all, but more as flashes in the pan than big influencers.  But not many artists nailed it the first time out.

Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll!

He might not have invented Rock n Roll, but he defined it.  Everything that’s come after has been built on his foundation.

But don’t read me.  Read Gibson’s lovely tribute to Chuck Berry.  As the article says, “most influential musician ever?  Just ask a Beatle.”

Getting Better

Part II of my rebuttal to Professor Armand Leroi’s preposterous assertion that The Beatles had virtually no influence on pop music.

Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, the Everlys - played by punks, punks who grew up listening to show tunes, folk songs, sing-alongs, music hall numbers, cowboy movies, and Granny’s weekly performance at the pub.

By the time they had emerged from Hamburg and those 6 hour sets, The Beatles had developed their own unique sound, a sound which incorporated that early rockabilly, 50’s R&B, and yes, their childhood influences.  They had become adept at absorbing other styles and transforming them into their own brand of rock and roll.

Then there was soul music, and the pixie dust of Motown, which had, in its own way, done the same thing.

Dylan, folk-rock, classical, Eastern, psychedelic, singer/songwriter, hard rock, each one studied, re-imagined and grafted on to that ever-expanding base.  Each new experiment set someone else off on another new idea, which looped right back to The Beatles for them to start all over again.  Getting so much better all the time.

There is no scientific way to explain the influence of The Beatles, because it magic.

Rubber Soul

Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins …  Yes.  Got it.  But without Motown, would we even have the Beatles?

Mission Impossible

Udiscovermusic doesn’t apologize for giving you an alphabetical – instead of a ranked – listing of The 100 Greatest Blues Albums, saying that would be nigh on impossible, and I don’t blame them.

I don’t pretend to be on intimate terms with every album or artist on the list, but I’ve heard enough of them to believe everyone that should be there is there.  And I sure wouldn’t want to rank ‘em.

The inclusion of so many white folks – especially from the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean – may rankle a few blues purists, but not me.  In terms of respect for the music, not to mention influence, they belong.

The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

Fascinating article in the NY Times a while ago called, Which Rock Star Will Historians Of The Future Remember?

Note the singular Rock Star.  The author’s premise is that in 300 years, Rock will have been rendered down to a brief footnote represented by one person.  Given our human propensity for over-simplification, and our attraction to hero myths, this is completely plausible.

Having successfully established that premise, the article goes on to examine – and eliminate – most of the obvious candidates, arriving at Chuck Berry.

That’s a very good conclusion, eminently argued in the article.  But my money is on John Lennon.  Yes, as the article explains, he was part of the Beatles, and groups don’t qualify for the hero myth.  But Lennon has all the attributes ascribed to Chuck Berry – and then some.  He also has the advantage of being a martyr, and the past 35 years would suggest that his hero-martyr persona will ultimately relegate the other three Beatles to walk-on roles in the larger Lennon legend.

It’s not a stretch. 

John Lennon took a passing American musical fad and, with his band, turned it into an international sensation, defining the music and the culture of the times.  He died tragically, but his influence lived on for generations. 

So says the as yet unwritten music history textbook.

Nevermind the …

According to Rolling Stone, punk is now 40 years old, as celebrated in The 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time.

Sure, you could call the release of The Ramones a start.  Or you could go back to the 60’s with MC5 or The Velvet Underground.  Or you could look at pictures of The Beatles in Hamburg and marvel that the same guys played on Ed Sullivan wearing suits.  Then there’s Elvis, or Eddie Cohcrane, or …

Let’s face it:  Rock and Roll has an edge.  It has attitude.  It has barely contained and badly channeled rage – some of it sexual, some of it social.  It’s for kids who have energy and excitement but no power.

Sometimes that music is raw and unnerving.  Sometimes it’s subjected to more refined production.  But the edge is always there.

Personally, I prefer well-produced music, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get (or enjoy) it when I hear what’s come to be called Punk.  So rock – or punk – on, people.

All Shook Up

The hips, the hair, the snarly smile … oh, and the voice, the energy and the music.  Elvis was, in the beginning anyway, a monumental force, arguably the biggest weapon of mass seduction ever to explode onto the music scene.

So it wasn’t surprising that Rolling Stone conducted a Readers Poll on the 10 Best Elvis Presley Songs around about the time of (what would have been were it not for all that pie) his 80^th birthday.

Not surprised to see Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender, and Jailhouse Rock on the list, and I’ve always loved Suspicious Minds.  Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d seen him live, but it’s disappointing to see An American Trilogy on the list.  It just seems to exemplify the sad caricature he devolved into.

And I know it’s a readers poll, so we don’t get a panel of experts assessing his impact and legacy, but it’s still kinda strange not to see the likes of Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel and All Shook Up on the list.  It was those early, bluesy rockers that set Elvis apart.

But what do I know?  I’m just a Canadian kid who discovered music in the 60’s, when it was, sadly, all over but for the black velvet paintings.

Are We There Yet?

Here’s a curious list from Rolling Stone: 20 Hugely Popular Musicians Who Haven’t Gotten Famous In America (Yet).

Kudos to RS for, you know, trying to broaden our musical horizons.  But when I examine the list I just don’t get the title.  Are they suggesting that, after over 50 years of obscurity on this side of the Atlantic, Cliff Richards is likely to bust out sometime soon?  Do they think that, at the age of 90, Charles Aznavour gives a damn?  I think we’re maybe being a little optimistic here.

Twenty acts who should have made it in America, twenty acts Americans missed out on, not everything’s made in America … there are lots of titles that don’t need to include the rather silly promise “yet.”

The Men With Cricket Bats

Well, Ian Faith of Spinal Tap doesn’t make Gibson’s 10 Famous Rock and Roll Managers, because he is, after all, fictitious.  But he does capture the essence of the ones who do, which are:

Kit Lambert, Colonel Tom Parker, Malcom McLaren, Andrew Loog Oldham, Tony Jeffries, Albert Grossman, Don Arden, Allen Klein, Peter Grant, Brian Epstein.

Creating image, managing the brand, conceiving new directions, bullying young punks into becoming skilled songwriters, looking after the dark side, feeding the machine, and at times micromanaging the personal lives of their charges – these guys definitely provided the script for the Spinal Tap character.

Including the cricket bat.

They provided an invaluable service to their artists, and, in turn, to us.  After all, with the possible exception of Mick Jagger, none of the artists these guys managed had any business acumen at all.  Can you imagine The Beatles managed by John Lennon?  The Stones managed by Keith Richards?  Zeppelin managed by John Bonham?  The Who managed by Keith Moon?

Makes you wonder if some of those one-hit-wonders disappeared because they didn’t have good management.  So hats off to the managers on the list, even if some of them are more than a bit creepy.

Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll

It doesn’t sound very confident, but Gibson’s 10 Greatest Covers if Chuck Berry Songs notes that, with the possible exception of the Beatles, no other artist has had as many of his songs covered by his peers.

Possible?  How about looking it up?  Or just offer an opinion, like this one: no other artist has had a bigger influence over rock and roll during the last 60 years. 

And Gibson’s list proves that.  The Beatles, The Stones, Bowie, The Kinks, AC/DC, Hendrix … they all paid homage to Berry’s iconic tunes.  And everything that followed pretty much stemmed from that list of bands.

Add the fact that Chuck Berry’s guitar playing is even more important, and you get one colossally influential cat.

Got to agree with the comments below the article, though.  Johnny Winter’s version of Johnny B. Goode should be on the list.

Got It Covered

Gibson’s 10 All-Time Greatest Covers Albums makes the point that great songwriters can also do very well covering material by other artists, thank you very much.  It contains the likes of Lennon, GNR, Bowie, Def Leppard, Patti Smith and Metallica.

The article points out that sometimes these recordings are just throw-aways; contractual obligations and so on, and I can think of a few examples where you can tell either the effort wasn’t there or heart wasn’t in the job.

But the list illustrates the passion and respect the artists felt for those that had come before.  After all, you don’t write songs before you’ve learned how to play, so you start by learning someone else’s songs.  And so these albums are also insightful in terms of influence.

One I would have added, by the way, is Run Devil Run by Paul McCartney, a great covers album that rivals Lennon’s – and that’s saying something.