Strumming With The Rhythm …

My favourite rock and roll songs are:

1) Johnny B Goode 

2) Roll over Beethoven 

3) The last (rock and roll) song I heard by:

• The Beatles 
• Led Zeppelin 
• Tom Petty 
• AC/DC
• The Who 
• The Kinks 
• The Police 
• The Rolling Stones 
• Queen 
• U2
• Chuck Berry, obviously 

Oh, or Elvis, CCR, Buddy Holly, Springsteen, Dire Straits or ...

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.

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?

What Happened

I'm back on to the lists. Here's an interesting one, Gibson's 10 Events That Changed Rock & Roll Forever

1. Ike Turner records Rocket 88 - arguably the first rock song.
2. Elvis records at Sun Studios - got it going for the white folk
3. Buddy Holly dies in a plane - who knows what he could have accomplished?
4. The Beatles Appear on Ed Sullivan - and changed everything, forever
5. Bob Dylan Goes Electric - the stuff of legend, but can't say I noticed
6. Woodstock - we actually thought we would change the world, versus vice versa
7. The Sex Pistols release Never Mind the Bollocks - well, punk arguably saved rock. I guess.
8. MTV Launches - and it was so very exciting for a couple of years, then Broadway took over.
9. Nirvana topples Michael Jackson - yes, and that was cool, but have we ever recovered?
10. Napster - well, we certainly haven't recovered from piracy, have we?

Good list. Glad to see Ike Turner instead of Bill Haley. Some other notable deaths might have made the list: Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin? 4-8-16-32 track recording? Synthesizers?

Nice to see a list without The Beach Boys on it, anyway.

Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Artists

The Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Artists list is a little closer to good enough.  A little.

Here's the Top 25:
 1. The Beatles.  Correct.
 2. Bob Dylan.  Good.
 3. Elvis.  Sure.
 4. Rolling Stones.  Lookin' pretty good so far ...
 5. Chuck Berry.  Man, they're gettin' this about right!
 6. Jimi Hendrix.  Can't argue there!
 7. James Brown.  Sigh.  Just too good to last, I suppose.
 8. Little Richard.  Curious, but nice.
 9. Aretha Franklin.  Surprisingly low, no?
10. Ray Charles.  Sure.
11. Bob Marley.  Ya mon!
12. Beach Boys.  Inevitable, I guess.
13. Buddy Holly.  Good.
14. Led Zeppelin.  Yep.
15. Stevie Wonder.  OK, fine.
16. Sam Cooke.  Higher, I think.
17. Muddy Waters.  OK, these people do know what they're doin'.
18. Marvin Gaye.  Ya, maybe, 'cause I feared higher here.
19. Velvet Underground.  Oh for cripesakes, why this enduring lie?
20. Bo Diddley.  Alright, the list-makers have redeemed themselves.
21. Otis Redding.  OK, OK.
22. U2.  Yes.
23. Bruce Springsteen.  No.  Top 10.
24. Jerry Lee Lewis.  Ya, I get it.
25. Fats Domino.  Not sure I do.

So this is artists here.  We're not talking just playing, singing, writing or performing, right?  But all the above.  And influence and impact and all that, right?

Therefore Howlin' Wolf is not #51.  And Clapton at #53 is crazy.  And how can James Taylor be only #84?  How can Booker T be all the way down at #93, when he backed up, inspired or otherwise impacted half the list above him?  And Tom Petty is absent from the list?

Thanks for keeping Aerosmith in the bottom half, though (#57).

Now, can someone explain to me where they sold that koolaid that made you think the Velvet Underground were so freakin' cool?  'cause I never drank that stuff, brother, never a sip.

Run For Cover

There are two basic approaches to doing a cover song:  you can try to be true to the original, paying homage to it by trying to replicate it.  The Beatles were masters at that, because - even though they went virtually note for note when they covered Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins - they still sounded like the Beatles.

A second strategy is to come up with a brand new interpretation, to take the song and re-invent it, to capture the magic of the old song yet make it fresh at the same time.  Not an easy thing to do, which is one of the reasons I admire Eric Clapton.  He is a master at re-interpreting other people's songs (OK, except maybe for I Shot the Sheriff).

In both cases you're trying to improve over the original (respectfully of course).  If that's not the goal, or if the song can't be improved (because it's already perfect), then what's the point?

Which brings us to Guitar Heaven, Sanata's recent recording.  Unfortunately, Carlos doesn't seem to be following either strategy.  Except maybe for While My Guitar Gently Weeps, he doesn't really seem to be trying anything particularly new (no, not even the rap vocals on Back In Black).  But he's not trying too hard to stick with the original either.

So, you recognize the songs, and you recognize Santana's guitar playing, but in the end it comes off like Carlos is just jamming along to songs he likes, and we all like.  But has he improved any of them?

Sorry, Carlos, but nope.

By the way, since when was Riders On The Storm a guitar song?