Wordman, great post. I don’t know if you are disagreeing with me, but you sum up both singers very well. In my little assesment, I wasn’t including anything from their post-Who/Zep days, but it is worth mentioning where they have gone. As pure rock singers, they’re both great, I just give a slight edge to Daltrey.
It’s tough to explin Wooten. He’s got a Jaco sensibility when it comes to soloing. His flights fancy do come from a bass-player’s perspective, which is to say he’s not so much playing guitar-style leads. His leads tend to maintain the rhythm as well as soar away from them. He often keeps playing low rhythmic notes to accompany himself while soloing. Here’s a nice example of what I’m talking about. He can also play fast…faster than I’ve ever seen. Fast in a way that makes Entwistle in “The Real Me” look like a he’s standing still. Give Bela Fleck & The Flecktones a listen (Flight of the Cosmic Hippo or Three Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest are good places to start) if you’re interested. It’s Jazz, led by a banjo…real creative and fun stuff.
I don’t know about comparisons to Levin (who, according to wikipedia, has played on a lot of albums I have but haven’t read the liner notes to yet), but Wooten is incrediably accomplished. I’ve seen him playing with Bela Fleck, as well as touring on his own (with his brothers), and the guy can lay down incredibly funky grooves, as well as just beautiful melodies.
My favorite number of his was when he tuned the bass down to indiscernible pitches and played a furious slap-heavy piece while at the same time tuning the bass up. When he finally had the bass tuned, the song morphed into an amazing counterpoint Amazing Grace with the melody done on harmonics. Just awesome.
I guess I am not trying to agree or disagree with anybody - I enjoy X vs. Y music discussions when they compare and contrast players, styles, songs, etc. I am not a fan of “X rules and Y drools” posts - unless they come with a thoughtful explanation to back them up. I don’t mean to imply that you were taking such a simple approach - given your write up of Wooten, you clear invest time in music - only that I was looking to keep the thread on a geekier path…
And by the way, I agree with your basic point about Wooten. My biggest issue with calling out a single player is that to me it is the BAND that matters. If I focus on single players, I end up in a worst-case scenario where I have to respect Yngwie Malmsteen and we just can’t have that .
To me, the point isn’t to be A-Rod - a great player on a dead team when he was on the Rangers - the point is to be the '98 Yankees, winning 125 games and having great team interplay. The fact that some of the individual players may or may not be technically superior vs. their counterparts on other teams - it is the success that counts.
With both Zep and The Who, the bands succeeded due to each player’s contribution. It’s just that: a) the bands had different intents (if you buy my first post in this thread); and b) the players were called on to play different roles (if you buy my thread focused on Entwhistle vs. JPJ and which extends to each instrument…).
Steve Vai - and yes, Yngwie - are technically superior guitarists to Page and Townshend - but honestly, who cares? That is not a measure that matters to me. Johnny Ramone is a far more important, influential and innovative guitarist vs. those two shredders using any scale I care about…
I couldn’t edit my post in time - by “success” I mean the quality of the songs and the influence of the band on the sound of music at the time and bands that came after them…
Yeah, one thing that strikes me is how with these two bands, how they are very much four unique individuals who not only bring a lot to the table, but make the table greater than the sum of it’s wood and nails. I can’t think of any bands who do this as well as those two, not the Beatles, Stones, U2, Rush, anybody. (There might be somebody; I’m just drawing a blank right now).
[80’s flashback]I saw Malmsteen with the Joe-Lynn Turner Rising Force at a pretty small club. During a show-offy solo portion of his show, he asked the audience for any requests. A bunch of kids shouted “Eruption!” Yngwie proceeded to play it. Afterwards, he took off his axe and got himself a left-handed guitar, and he played it again–lefty. That was awsome![/80’s flashback]
We agree to agree then. I think ultimately, it is the band and the music that matters, but these discussions are fun, in an “A-Rod or Jeter” kind of way.
Thanks. That’s the Dope for you - I get to look over your shoulder while you go toe to toe in baseball threads (I aspire, and will post, but can’t go all sabermetric on anybody the way you and a few others can…) and I speak up in music threads…
This is so true. And it really does make a huge difference. I put together numerous one-off bands each year. I know a lot of players, many of whom are phenomenally talented musicians. However, the first people I call are not the “best” players. Above a certain minimal level of competency, the most important factor is, “does this person play well with others,” both musically and personally? The best performances are always the ones where the group gels. If I’ve got a band that “works,” I don’t really care if that other band has a guitar player who can thrash harder than my guitar player; we’re still going to be an impressive group because we can play with/off of each other.
I also have a hard time with best/worst musicians because of this. I like Led Zeppelin, and I love the Who. I like Entwistle more than JPJ, and Moon more than Bonham. However, if I had to pick one song out of the combined catalogue of Zeppelin and the Who to listen to, it’d be Fool in the Rain. I’m hard pressed to think of a better groove anywhere. It’s not that any one musician blows my mind with ability or technical prowess in that song (but man do those drums pound), but that together they are all just doing the right thing.
Moon vs. Bonham - I’ve come to appreciate Moon much more over time, but Bonham still reigns supreme for me. Whoever implied up there that Bonham didn’t have a good sense of dynamics is insane. Most of Zeppelin is loud and thudding, but if you listen carefully to Bonham’s drumming, there’s a lot of dynamic subtlety in the beats, especially with the way he hit the high hat and all the ghosting of the kick and snare. I always kinda thought Moon was the more ham-fisted one who could only play loud or soft but not both at the same time. I’m also just not a big fan of Moon’s style of constant 16th-note (or triplets or whatever) fills. It’s a stylistic preference, though–I don’t like a drummer that tries to fill up every bit of silence with a beat. He’s too much “in front” for my tastes. But he does rock and absolutely captures the rock spirit and the spirit of the Who. I can’t see the Who with any other drummer and I can’t see Moon with any other band.
Entwistle vs John Paul Jones - I gotta give the edge to JPJ, based on stylistic preferences. JPJ and Bonham are my all time #1 rhythm section.
Page vs Townshend - Townshend. Page wrote some great riffs, but, overall, I prefer Townshend’s songwriting. I’ll take Townshend.
Plant vs Daltrey - I never did like Plant much, so Daltrey.
Zeppelin vs the Who - At this point in my life, it’s as close to a draw as it’s ever been. But, historically, I’ve always preferred Zeppelin to the Who.
One of my favorite drum grooves ever. I like it so much, that I taught myself the groove (based on the “Purdie shuffle”) and, while I can play it and sound respectable at it, it just doesn’t swing the way Bonham made it swing. That’s what amazes me about him so much, that’s why I find so much subtlety in his drumming–there’s plenty of his drum parts I can technically play, but there’s a lot more going on underneath the main line. Take the drum part of “Kashmir.” Easy peasy, right? But how many drummers can pull that off, lock that groove, and not make it sound utterly boring?
Too funny. **puly **- good points all. You know your shit in terms of music and theory and such - am I doing okay so far?
Now, how *about * Townshend and Page? So many places to go with this one. A few observations:
They are both inherently masculine guitarists - IMHO, they both play to the guys in the crowd, whether they are speed-addled Mods or low-slung guitar god wannabees (like me, say). Hendrix has a much more feminine touch to his playing, as a contrast.
They are both studio rats, but come at it from very different places: Page was all about production. His “pan guitars hard to one side, the bass to the other and keep the vocals and drums in the middle of the mix” style was innovative and defined rock production for the next, oh, 25 years. Townshend was all about studio experimentation and songwriting while constructing. I don’t know this for sure, but I get the impression Page worked his songs out on an acoustic and then brought them in to Zep-ify them. Some of Townshend’s full demos sound basically like the finished piece - some of Moon’s fills have already been sketched out - but he leaves the genius pyrotechnics to Entwhistle and Moon.
Page tended to fuse primitive music sources - including the blues, Gaelic and other English folk music, Middle-Eastern scales and arrangements, etc. Townshend focused on newer music - Steve Reich’s minimalist classical work (listen to Music for 19 Musicians and tell me you can’t hear where Pete got the intro to Baba O’Reilly) and Karlheinz Stockhausen. And clearly Pete cared about Broadway or at least the musical tradition where songs are meant to define characters and carry a story along. I guess I would say that Page depended on Plant’s lyrics to evoke a feeling - Townshend used his lyrics to tell specific stories.
As guitarists, well, lots of places to go. Page is a gunslinger - okay, a sloppy, gunslinger, but one nonetheless. (I happen to love slop as a price to pay for spontenaity and innovation). Townshend is, as mentioned above, a foundation for his band - but man, is he an underappreciated guitarist. Whenever I see some wannabee toss out Pete’s name as someone not in the same league as the blues-based Brit guitar gods of the 60’s, I just snicker. They have no clue. Townshend is a brilliant guitarist - period. Listen to Sparks or the Secret Policeman’s Other Ball acoustic stuff - Pete’s got chops. But what was he going to do, fight for lead time with Entwhistle and Moon?? Please - that simply wasn’t his job - get over it. Pete plays big, blocky chords because they make sense for the song and the band. Who was the Marshall stack invented for? Pete Townshend. I don’t know why I need to add that last bit of trivia, but back in the day, when all the rules of rock guitardom were being canonized, Pete was in the thick of it as much as Page…
Bernard Purdie! Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin has, to my mind, the greatest brief drum fill/break in all of funk rock. Purdie’s shuffle on that particular song, where he syncopates the high hat? Talk about making the impossible sound simple…
I think I have mentioned this in threads you and I have hung out in previously: The drummer in my first incarnation of my current mid-life crisis band took lessons from Purdie…
Yeah, that sounds familiar. Was Purdie as much of a character as he seems to be? Definitely comes across as one of those borderline crazy musicians I love.
Good points all around, and you’re definitely more detailed and descriptive than I could be in this subject. At the end of the day, they’re two very different bands to me. The Who were more anarchic, crazy, and erratic than Zeppelin. I’d hate to say one was more inventive than the other, because they both pushed rock in two different directions. If it makes any sense, the Who have always felt more “punk” in spirit than Zeppelin, while Zeppelin was expanding the vocabulary of blues-and-groove-based rock. It’s like trying to compare the Stones and the Beatles to me (I prefer the Beatles, if you’re wondering). They’re two great bands that did very different things at the same time of musical history.
When my drummer took lessons, Purdie came across as the Little Richard of drumming, consistently hitting the point that he was super influential and the greatest drummer in rock and roll. He also spent as much time telling my friend where to buy the best shoes and clothes while on tour and to MAKE SURE HE GOT PAID! (all this stuff about not trusting The Man would ensue…which was funny, because Purdie was lecturing a nice Jewish boy…my friend always chuckles when he tries to talk like Purdy telling him to not take any guff and get paid…)
I agree with this - if you add Zep’s other influences as well…
At lunch I was talking to a co-worker that is still successfully still in a small bar band after 30 years. He is a complete Beatles fanatic, but likes all Classic Rock.
I threw the question to him and he felt Bonham, JPJ and Plant all took the edge, but despite Page being a better Axeman, Townsend was more brilliant overall.
We then were discussing how Zep 1-4 were perfect albums and the Who don’t really have a perfect album, unless you count a collection.
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