# Musicians in the wrong genre **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2018, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448 "2018-03-12T20:35:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/21 "2018-03-13T03:23:52Z")
Jerry Garcia was doing a folkish type thing for awhile. I saw a documentary on it. I liked it. Can’t remember the guys name who was with him. They had a cute play-on-words name for their deal. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/22 "2018-03-13T03:27:18Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > It’s been mentioned by Dopers that Billy Joel should have been a Broadway composer — a sort of Sondheim, I suppose. > [@pulykamell](#): > > Yes. That’s a good one. I’m one of those people who have said that his music always sounded to me like “rock” music as envisioned by someone writing for Broadway. Joel mentioned in an interview that he never set out to be a performer. He wanted to be a songwriter and have other people perform his songs. However, he was advised by people in the music business that if you want people to hear your songs you need to make an album and then go out on tour in support of your album. That’s how his first album _Cold Spring Harbor_ came about. The problem with the album was that it was recorded at the wrong speed and wasn’t promoted properly. When it was remastered years later, Joel said he still didn’t like it, he thought he still sounded like a chipmunk. Perhaps if Joel had his way in the beginning, he’d be known as a Broadway writer today. His music was the subject of the Broadway musical _Movin’ Out_, which was a huge smash. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0MLyrPdjxto/maxresdefault.jpg "Billy Joel - Billy Joel on COLD SPRING HARBOR - from THE COMPLETE ALBUMS COLLECTION") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MLyrPdjxto) ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/23 "2018-03-13T04:23:12Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Don’t try to lay no “Woo-gie Boo-gie” on the King of Rock n’ Roll. 😉 > > Don’t forget Graham Parsons! **Gram** Parsons. His first name was Ingram, shortened to Gram. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/24 "2018-03-13T04:29:21Z")
Mick Mars considers himself more of a blues musician, I’m not sure how he ended up in Motley Crue. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/25 "2018-03-13T04:34:54Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > I’m not sure this is quite what the OP had in mind, but I’m quite certain that if the Eagles had been formed in 1991 instead of 1971, they would have burned up the Country charts, but would never have received airplay on any rock station. They would be lucky. Most artists wouldn’t have a place to go. The Eagles actually prophecied the sound of country radio. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/26 "2018-03-13T04:35:24Z")
Barbara Mandrel started out hard core country. She played pedal steel guitar and was very, very good. Also played banjo and guitar. Later in life she did cross over into country pop and R&B. Her tv show featured a lot of pop tunes. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/27 "2018-03-13T07:55:43Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Jethro Tull really shouldn’t have been “Heavy Metal” for ten minutes back in 1988… > (how the hell they [won a Grammy for that](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877498_1877438_1877489,00.html), over Metallica yet…) > Here’s a [more thorough take](http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-11-28/what-happened-the-night-jethro-tull-beat-metallica-to-a-grammy-award) on it. If the category was just “Heavy Metal”, everyone would have a point - but it was “ **Hard Rock** /Heavy Metal” and I’m sorry, the Tull can rock as hard as anyone. All the criticisms of the award that take pains to call them “folk rockers” are just showing their own cluelessness about the breadth of Tull’s _œuvre_, never mind _Crest_. And I’m less inclined to sympathy because of all the people who think it’s _Metallica_ that was robbed, and not Jane’s Addiction. I mean, I love “One”, too, but seriously… ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/28 "2018-03-13T08:22:41Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > **Roy Clark** was a guitar virtuoso that could play anything, check out his spanish/classical stuff [Link](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjdh8KT3efZAhUpwVQKHXlLBggQyCkIKzAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlxDQQDF6j0Y&usg=AOvVaw3JNZXxVLez0R9D7a_FoT7O)… I’m pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of flamenco or classical guitarists don’t use picks or electric guitars. I don’t know much about **Clark**. Based on that video, he looks like a top player ideed, but the music itself sounds like a stereotypical imitation of the genre. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/29 "2018-03-13T09:43:37Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Jerry Garcia was doing a folkish type thing for awhile. I saw a documentary on it. I liked it. Can’t remember the guys name who was with him. They had a cute play-on-words name for their deal. Dawg Music with mandolinist David Grisman. Interesting thread. I’m one of the Billy Joel on Broadway guys, so +1 me there. Springsteen in his way, too. Epic stories of hope loss and redemption. Or a novelist. Steinbeck in leather as they say. Beyond that, I’ll think about it. From a guitar standpoint, hearing Jeff Beck play straight up rockabilly or John 5, guitarist for Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, kill on bluegrass and country chick’n pickin - or Roy Clark nail the Malagueña - there’s a lot of that. Most swim in one lane, but grew up woodshedding all kinds of music. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/30 "2018-03-13T10:05:47Z")
The Eagles were originally played on all the top 40 rock radio stations. It was like that all through my high school and college days. I still do a double take when a country station plays the Eagles. But, they fit with what people call Country music these days. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/31 "2018-03-13T11:49:51Z")
Many people don’t know Conway Twitty started as a rock star, following in Elvis’ footsteps. Recorded with Sam Phillips and Had several hits in the early 60’s. He always insisted he should be in country. Things finally blew up and he walked off stage. Great story. He ended up a huge country star with over 40 number one hits. [http://people.com/archive/to-conway-twitty-whos-been-a-star-of-both-country-is-a-higher-art-than-rock-n-roll-vol-12-no-10/](http://people.com/archive/to-conway-twitty-whos-been-a-star-of-both-country-is-a-higher-art-than-rock-n-roll-vol-12-no-10/) > [@](#): > > Within a few years, though, Twitty yearned to return to his musical moorings, to country. “I thought I’d lived long enough then to go be with my heroes,” he says. At the time he was a rock star of the first rank, making big money. To a man, the people making money off his success told him he was “stone crazy” to quit a good thing. But he made up his mind. One evening in the summer of ’65, before he went out to perform at a club on the Jersey shore, his agent handed him a whole bunch of new appearance contracts. He thought about that when he was singing and all of a sudden, dead in the middle of a song, Conway Twitty stopped singing rock and walked off the stage. “I never looked back at them people,” he says. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/32 "2018-03-13T12:26:47Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I just watched the Stones doing a concert on PBS. They did the whole album ‘Sticky Fingers’ alot of it sounds country. Speaking of the Stones, they sound better as an _actual_ low-down blues bar band, not an over-produced (for the genre) version of the same. Ironically the only album song of theirs I like is Sympathy for the Devil which is pretty far from bar blues. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/33 "2018-03-13T13:57:13Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Dawg Music with mandolinist David Grisman. Or, [Old and In The Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_and_in_the_Way). ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/34 "2018-03-13T14:35:59Z")
Tom Waits. Put him in a genre, and I’ll explain why he doesn’t belong there. ---
**Author:** ![SykoSkotty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@SykoSkotty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SykoSkotty)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/35 "2018-03-13T14:43:52Z")
Interesting topic. First thing that came to my mind was Jack White, although I’m not 100% certain he’s in the wrong genre as OP requested, but more along the lines of he could excel at a few other genres as well… If I saw Jack White in a sleazy dive bar in New Orleans, beating the hell out of a slide guitar in a blues band, it would be perfect. If I saw Jack White in a small music theater in Nashville, playing Rock-A-Billy guitar with an unknown country singer, it would be perfect. If I saw Jack White in an arena, with a huge rock band, playing giant riffs and covering AC/DC songs, it would be perfect. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/36 "2018-03-13T14:50:18Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Pickin’ and grinnin’ all the way to the bank… _Hee haw_ was a big deal, for a lot longer than most people realize… An aside, back in the 70s as a wee tyke, I saw Roy Clark and Buck Owens together at a county fair. It was the greatest moment of my life to that point 🙂 I still remember them doing a ‘dueling guitars’ version of dueling banjos that knocked my socks off. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/37 "2018-03-13T15:01:21Z")
Garth Hudson ( The Band) should have been a church organist. I think he was a musical genius but not much of a rock star. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/38 "2018-03-13T16:56:37Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Tom Waits. Put him in a genre, and I’ll explain why he doesn’t belong there. Songwriting? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/39 "2018-03-13T16:58:39Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Garth Hudson ( The Band) should have been a church organist. > I think he was a musical genius but not much of a rock star. But he’s a very successful music teacher. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2018, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448/40 "2018-03-13T17:00:45Z")
> [@SykoSkotty](#): > > Interesting topic. First thing that came to my mind was Jack White, although I’m not 100% certain he’s in the wrong genre as OP requested, but more along the lines of he could excel at a few other genres as well… I think Jack White and Jack Black would together make an excellent classic rock band. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-in-the-wrong-genre/810448.md?page=3)