I was reading the “is Queen respected by serious musicians” thread and my first thought was “if you define serious music as classical and jazz, I doubt they like any rock musicians”. Do you know of any rock or pop artists that were highly respected and influential to jazz or classical musicians? And on the times pop/rock artists play music related to classical or jazz music, which got high marks from people in these fields?
The composer Howard Goodall believes the Beatles rescued western art music.
Classical artists Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Ned Rorem, and Aaron Copeland all praised the Beatles when they first came out.
Bernstein even did a TV show praising them, as well as other rock musicians of the time.
Eddie Van Halen is seen as a genius by any musician i know worth their salt. Heck, he sounds like **John Coltrane **on some solos.