The lateDanny Gattonwas a brilliant player who never really got the recognition he deserved. His CD “88 Elvira Street” is a masterpiece. He recorded a few more before he died by his own hand. He appeared on Austin City Limits once. He played a stunning slide guitar number with a full beer bottle foaming all over the neck of his Telecaster. Without missing a lick, he put down the bottle, draped a towel over the guitar, and continued to dazzle the audience, playing through the towel!
The Smiths. Way better than The Beatles.
Jeff Buckley.
anyone else?
The most under-rated artist is Joe Satriani.
Maybe the best guitarist who ever lived. Some of the most expressive instrumental music ever (IMHO).
Joe Jackson - for diversity, originality, sheer guts
Some of the artists I really like are considered “one-hit wonders”, meaning they had one or two hits and fell off the charts. The public never delves into the rest of their body of work to see how great it is.
Jill Sobule is one example. She had a hit with “Kissed a Girl”, and people forgot about her. Her lyrics are wonderful, and I find her songs touching, funny, and wry. Cracker is another example: They had the hit “Low”, and disappeared. Their latest album, “Forever”, is great, and they’re wonderful to see live.
On the non-one hit wonder front, I think a now-defunct band called The Uninvited was a really cool group. Catchy, funny songs. A band called The Push Stars has had a few songs on soundtracks, but both of their albums I have are really nice solid power-pop, and I don’t understand why they have yet to “hit it big”.
As Ben Fold is one of my favorite artists (I’ve seen five times solo, one time with the Five), I will have to agree he is highly underrated. Very little from his solo album got any airplay, but it’s probably one of my favorite albums of the past five years. He’s touring with Tori Amos this summer (another of my favorites, although I don’t think she’s underrated anymore.) I think I’m going to go blind and deaf after this experience. hehe.
URLs for above artist, so you may explore: