While reading the Rolling Stone article on the death of Wesley Willis, I noticed that he had quite an impressive catalog of work: over 1000 songs spread out across 50 albums. That’s a lot of stuff.
Then I got to wondering about who else was up there. I know that Frank Zappa put out a lot of albums, but I kinda doubt he had 20-25 songs per album like Wesley did.
I can’t think of anyone else who would be that far up there. So, who is the most prolific musician ever? Is it really Wesley Willis?
What do you mean – Who has the largest number of recordings? Who has done the most live performances? Or who has written the most compositions?
Whichever measure you use, it isn’t going to turn out to be Wesley Willis. Duke Ellington has him beat on all counts – more live performances (allegedly more than 20,000 in his 50+ year career), more recorded tracks (probably 10,000 plus - to give you an idea, his complete recorded output for RCA records comes to something like 20 CDs … and that’s only for one label, covering a fraction of his career), and more compositions (Ellington wrote more than 2000, in collaboration with his writing partner Billy Strayhorn.)
I’m sure you could think of other musicians that could beat Ellington in any one of those categories. It’s often said that now-forgotten bandleader Ben Selvin had more records released under his name than anyone else – over 13,000 (this was back in the pre-LP era, of course, so these were all singles.)
Elvis had a ton of albums
Johnny Cash also
Frank Sinatra also
these are just what popped into my head with no research…id bet there are others
Well, if you really mean ever, then I think Johann Sebastian Bach is going to be hard to beat… 
I’d have to nominate Simon Cowell, the Pop Idol (or American Idol to our cousins over the water) judge. He performs on every single track he produces in order to get extra royalties.
flodnak, I think Telemann beats Bach in terms of number of compositions. As does Ellington. 
Johann? What about PDQ?
Bach’s contemporary Telemann had him beat quite handily. I wasn’t able to find a total figure for his compositions offhand, but…
With no research whatsoever, I submit the name Frank Zappa.
unclviny
If you count all the boot, you’re probably right.
The most prolific artist(s) with the least amount of material would have to be the Sex Pistols. They have dozens of records (leagal and not) with more or less the same songs on them. Different mixes, sometimes, but still…
You know, you’ve got to give them credit for continuing the Swindle 25 years on. What other band could keep touring on the strength of one real album for three generations of fans?
The Residents have about two dozen albums that I can think of, probable another dozen or so that I cant think of.
Billy Childish is one of the most prolific punk rockers ever, with at least fifty albums under his belt, from the Pop Rivets and the Milkshakes in the 70s to Thee Headcoats and Thee Mighty Caesers in the 80s, 90s and 00’s, Not to mention other one-off bands, solo work and producing the Delmonas and The Headcoatees.
In addition to making records, he also is a published author of poetry, fiction and no-fiction.
He also has the dubious honor of being a huge influence on (ugh) The White Stripes.
Jon
Ignore all the typos and spelling errors please…I hit submit by mistake. :smack:
Jon
Zappa has released WAY more than 50 albums. The All Music Guide credits him with 57 regular albums, 32 compilations, 5 EPs/singles, and 61 bootlegs/videos/interviews. Some of it is posthumous, granted, but he still put out a ton of material. And I’m sure someone’s gonna complain about my saying this, but Wesley Willis did the same thing over and over again (songs about bands he likes and kicking famous people’s asses over the same keyboard part). If that qualifies as 1,000 songs, it comes with a big asterisk. Zappa probably has a larger catalogue anyway, and it runs the gamut from doo-wop to jazz to rock to classical music and pretty much everything in between.
If not for the plane crash, Buddy Holly should have been on this list too. He wrote or co-wrote some 35 songs in a span of about two years.
I’m gonna have to nominate myself for this one. I have written uncountably many compositions; the titles are {“N seconds of silence”:N is a positive real number}.
Take that, John Cage!
[sub]Note, however, that many of these pieces have yet to see a public performance.[/sub]
Cabbage is Marcel Marceau?
.
Sun-Ra.
Going by what allmusic has listed, he has 132 albums including compilations and greatest hits.
Ravi Shankar?
Heck, if we’re going to go by All Music Guide listings, then Ellington has well over 700 albums (though this includes many compilations/repackagings.)
Johnny Cash recorded (or recorded on) over 500 albums and wrote over 1500 songs. Not bad for a shitkicker.