If we’re letting in fiction writers under the “entertainment” label, I’d have to nominate Agatha Christie.
No, she was by no means the technically best writer in English ever seen in a lifetime (very far from it, in fact), nor the best constructor of mystery stories as literary art, nor the “best” according to a whole bunch of other fairly narrow criteria.
But as an overall achievement, what she did was unequaled. She did more than anybody else to make “the murder mystery” a recognized genre that is part of how anybody who reads English thinks about the fictional universe. Her main characters and stories are as much a part of the cultural consciousness as many traditionally known ones from the Bible or the Brothers Grimm. And even today her creations are constantly being re-read, re-filmed, re-adapted, and argued about. I don’t think we’ll see that again in mystery writing.
(And yes, I would agree that Tolkien has a similar stature vis-a-vis the genre of fantasy writing.)
There was as much music in Jaco’s empty spaces as in his notes. Chops are not the same thing as taste. Has that guy composed anything like “Continuum”? It’s just not the same. Wooten is great, he’s also not the same. Nobody is in the same class. Wooten is like Carroll Shelby, Jaco was like Howard Hughes. Another order of magnitude entirely.
There are a few artists whose talents aren’t necessarily the greatest in their field but who can never be duplicated. In this category I would put the singing of Roy Orbison and Linda Ronstadt. And (an obscure one) Lux Interior of the Cramps as a truly irreplaceable frontman.
Songwriter male: Agree with Dylan
Songwriter, female: Laura Nyro
Poet: William Butler Yeats
Blues guitar: Robert Johnson, still undefeated.
Rock guitar: Agree with Hendrix though I often prefer to listen to Jeff Beck.
Jazz guitar, male: Lenny Breau
Jazz guitar, female: Emily Remler.
Jazz drummer: Paul Motian
Jazz trumpet: Gotta go with Miles.
Classical composer: Beethoven, Schubert a close second.
Modern composer: Beats me.
There are hundreds, and I’m not exaggerating, of Dylan songs in his catalog that would have been classics by any other songwriter, only to be left on the cutting room floor. If magically only the Dylan recordings released in the Bootleg Series since 1991 (which is massive, 16 volumes of multi-CD editions so far) and none of his official albums existed, he’d still be considered one of the best songwriters of our time, I’m sure.
Sherlock Holmes was a stunning achievement, true. But he was one very distinctive character with a unique “schtick”. I don’t think Doyle’s work would have made “the detective story” its own canonical genre the way Christie’s work did.
And, just looking at sheer volume: The Holmes canon consists of 56 short stories and four novels. Christie wrote 66 detective novels, mostly featuring Poirot or Marple (plus tossing off some 14 “straight” non-mystery novels on the side, under a pseudonym mostly) and 14 collections of short stories, again mostly about her most famous detectives. Oh, and not just the longest-running play of all time The Mousetrap, but at least a half-dozen other mystery plays as well.
Her works AFAICT are outsold in English only by the Bible and Shakespeare. I love Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes corpus (no pun intended), and he was definitely an immortal pioneer in the field, but yeah, we are not talking comparable impact here.
Having thought about this topic a bit more, I have another nominee: Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton.
When Payton retired from the NFL in 1987, he was the league’s all-time leading rusher, and was 4,000 yards ahead of the next guy on the list at that time (Jim Brown, at that point). 35 years later, he’s still #2 on the list.
But, in addition to that:
Payton caught almost 500 passes in his career, and led the Bears in receptions five times
He was a devastating blocker, despite being listed as 5’10" and 200 pounds (and I’ve read that he was likely smaller than that)
He was a good passer, throwing 34 passes in his career, including 8 touchdown passes; he also played quarterback for the Bears in a 1984 game, in which their actual quarterbacks were injured or ineffective
In his rookie year (1975), he returned kickoffs for the Bears, and averaged 31 yards per return
He was also good at kicking and punting, and was the Bears’ emergency kicking specialist for much of his career. It was said that he might have been even better at kicking than the Bears’ actual kicker, but that the coaching staff and GM didn’t want to risk having their best player injured by being run into while his leg was in the air after a kick.
Well, while we’re on this subject (and a reference to another sports thread we’re both on), Rickey Henderson. He has a career 1406 stolen bases. The closest is Lou Brock with 938. I feel it’ll be a long time, if ever, we see someone like this in baseball (especially as the game moves away from this type of base stealing aggressiveness.)
He is great. I’ve seen him with his own band and several times with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Bela Fleck is a true once in a lifetime artist on the electric banjo and also top notch on acoustic banjo. The reunited original group with Roy Wooten (Future Man) on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboard put on probably the best concert I’ve ever heard. Levy is a master of harmonica (and terrific on piano) and, well, nobody else plays Drumitar, which he created, so each member of the band has a claim to being the best on their instrument.
Their Friday Night in San Francisco live recording with John McLaughlin is a peak of acoustic guitar. Listen with headphones for a treat, since they were produced on right, left, and middle tracks.
I have to disagree. Doyle did in fact make the mystery a canonical genre before Christie wrote a word. Indeed, the Holmesians refer to the Holmes stories as “the Canon” when discussing them. Christie is very successful and people do prefer novels to short stories. But Holmes is the literal representation of the mystery and Christie is no more than a practitioner.
As a talent, neither is intrinsically great. They are famed and unbelievably popular, but as artists they are mediocre.
Summarizing multiple accounts from legitimate sources (including former bandmates), the word most commonly associated with Buddy Rich is “asshole.” He was certainly a hard-driven taskmaster and didn’t suffer fools or tolerate subpar performance from himself, or anyone else. But, isn’t that kind of want from your top performers? He had a bad temper and sometimes he went too far with it, particularly with bandmates. However, he always spoke highly about them to the press.
Speaking of Yuja Wang…
I’ve been waiting patiently for Wang to include Liszt’s 2 piano concertos to her performance repertoire. I even suggested she do so in a newsgroup Q&A she participated in (I also asked her to play some boogie-woogie for a lark!).
My patience paid off (at least with concerto #1).
I was expecting a near-perfect performance. It isn’t.
It’s perfect:
Review Excerpts:
*“There’s nothing Wang can’t do at the piano keyboard, but Liszt’s writing seemed to bring out some of her most astonishing skills.” *
“Through it all, Wang’s extraordinary keyboard technique — fluid, masterful, terrifyingly precise — served as a reminder of why a concerto can be so much fun, for performers and audiences alike. It’s a thrilling high-wire act, and we got to hear her risk defeat again and again without missing a step.”
“A performance of Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with Yuja Wang as soloist: a breathtaking account of the work, virtuosic on every level, both pianistic and orchestral.”
“For surface brilliance there’s nothing she can’t do better than anyone else, seemingly effortlessly, whether it’s finger-twisting chords sweeping up and down the keyboard faster than the eye can follow, or cascades of hushed staccato octaves.”
