It’s not really eclectic, but I think some mention should be made of Ray Davies for having some of the greatest variation in style.
I would never ever have guessed that “You Really Got Me”, “Lola”, and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy” come from the same head.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan got pretty eclectic, too, incorporating a variety of stuff into an otherwise consistent style of music. I know he worked with Eddie Vedder (Dead Man Walking soundtrack), and with Peter Gabriel as well.
I’ll see your John Zorn (moe is cool)
and raise you The Residents.
Yeeha! The Residents fer damnsure!
If there is and ougghta be Frank Zappa, George Clinton ain’t far behind.
And adding:
Ry Cooder
John Lurie
Jim Dickinson
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Hasil Adkins( more for imploding a style)
Doug Sahm
Mark Rubin & Danny Barnes (Bad Livers)
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
David Byrne
and special accolades to:
James Brown
I’ve been on a James Brown jones lately, and he just shook the hell out what was happening in the 60’s. If you listen to some of the live, extended versions of his better known stuff, he was from another fucking planet!
And I agree with them I know in the OP…
Here’s one y’all missed
Ray Charles
How about Phil Collins who did all that stuff with Genesis then went solo and now runs a Big Band doing all kinds of material.
Do you know much about Jools Holland who was keyboard player with Squeeze ? His band - The Jools Holland Rhythym and Blues Orchestra - plays a very wide range of stuff and do it to a very high standard, catch them live if you can.
I think Dave Matthews is both innovative and yet able to draw from all sorts of styles.
Then there is Paul Weller who was lead singer of The Jam and then went on to The Style Council which was a total departure and now does his own bluesy stuff.
Sting is worthy of mention.
The Beach Boys…
Except for that pitful “Kokomo” song.
Thank you Oldscratch but I’m feeling slightly less cool at the moment, as I don’t know the Residents. Tell me more about them.
elelle I’ll second your John Lurie and David Byrne
Quincy Jones has to be around here somewhere.
And since no one’s mentioning the obvious, I’ll just throw Bela into the mix. Bluegrass, jazz, fusion, Indian (tabula rasa), funk, classical, rock, pop. I’m waitin for the Bela hip hop project sure to hit someday.
Oh, and don’t get me started on Phil Collins. I have a strong love/hate thing with him. Kind of like watching Cats after Jesus Christ Superstar.
Tom Waits–he’s got at least an album’s worth of old-style country, rhythm and blues, gospel, spoken word, ballads, rock and roll, show tunes, and stuff that can’t really be categorized because he’s about the only one who does music like that.
I’d have to second James Brown, and add Maceo Parker; a saxaphonist(sp?) who has played with JB, Parliment/Funkadelic, and is now doing his own jazzy/funk thang. He has done much too much studio work to mention.
I don’t have any better suggestions than you’ve already received about ‘most genres of music’, but one person I never get tired of is a guy named Steve Tibbetts. I’m not sure what genre of music he does (in fact, he may be a genre), but he went from Buddhist nuns to Norwegian fiddle players in the space of two albums. Everything else he’s done has been so format-challenging that you almost never hear him played (except by us rabid fans). Don’t know if that helps, but it’s different from everything else.
The Residents? :eek:
simply head on over to http://www.residents.com
and be enlightened. And go buy all their CD’s too. Yes buy.
Bucky:( Where ya been?) Tom Waits lollygagged off my tongue right after I posted that last. I put him and Screamin’ Jay on the same revolution of post-mod blues operatics. That might seem odd, but I see Mr. Wait’s songs as a subtle opera, even if all the characters are too hazed out to sing.
To elaborate on the recently passed Doug Sahm: He was a child prodigy who started playing at six. His milieu was Western country, Tex-Mex, and blues. He did a whole lot to mix up that hip-grind, and when he started, it was pretty much an eclectic thang. Now it’s almost normal. A donde vas, Doug?