Frank Zappa.
The Ukulele Lady went to hear Jackson Browne at the City Winery in Manhattan not too long ago; he appeared with Shawn Colvin and Judy Collins. According to her, he didn’t take a swing at either of them the whole time they were onstage.
Do you think of Elvis as a musician, though? I think of him the way I think of a movie star rather than an actor.
Even my mom doesn’t think Billy Joel is “rock enough” and she gave up popular music after Neil Sedaka. He’s a perfectly fine song craftsman in the pop/Tin Pan Alley tradition, but few things are more painful than watching him try to “rock”.
Yea, Frank Zappa for me. Brilliant composer. Very underrated.
I agree with this post and would also like to include Jeff Tweedy as another example.
Well, I’ve read through the thread. I’ve tried to consider the alternatives, but as long as success and influence are large factors: it’s still Hendrix for me.
The primary rock 'n roll instrument is the guitar, and anyone who’s honest with themselves measures guitar (and by association, rock) in Pre-Hendrix and Post-Hendrix terms. He changed the form’s primary instrument that much. If that wasn’t enough, he was an excellent song writer and arranger, and worked in the studio as well as anyone. Three years was enough for him to secure his legacy.
In fact, it’d take me some convincing to make me not see him as simply “greatest rock musician”.
I can’t believe it took until page 2 to get to FZ. But then he made up some ground.
Another vote for Prince.
I vote early and often for Ry Cooder for the same reason that Adrian Belew and Todd Rundgren are mentioned.
They are all make the Top 100 lists as technically masterful musicians, but RC has worked across more of the genres that rock and roll used to be, before corporatised rock and radio started making everything sound like Nickelback.
He’s used his super-powers for good in promoting these marginalised regional music traditions and continuing to write political music. Upsetting the grown ups is still the entry level requirement for separating the tyre-kickers from from significant participants in any field, especially music.
And:
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Was the person Duane Allman saw playing slide which influenced Duane’s focus and mastery of it.
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Showed Keith Richards how to play in Open G, the guitar tuning that Keef used from Honky Tonky Woman on, and which is the sonic foundation of the Big 5 (Beggars thru Exile + Some Girls). Legendarily, Cooder actually showed him the Honky Tonk riff; Richards wrote the song using it and took writing credit. Similar controversy to Paul Simon using existing South African riffs in some Graceland songs.
OK, I was definitely asleep at the switch. Carole King is a great musician but I wouldn’t describe her as a rocker.
For me it has to be Prince.
Very talented multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, producer, bandleader–his only peers are Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Frank Zappa, and maybe Sun Ra. From '79-'92 he had a very good run, hit a lull, then came back ten years ago with a strong album that wasn’t “pushed” by the Grammys.
Had Hendrix lived, I think he’d be number one, but for sheer talent vs. longevity vs. output, Prince can’t be topped.
One performer, onstage with his/her instrument and nothing/no one else, I’d say she’s a contender. She was the standard-bearer for the whole “singer-songwriter” movement. If she was in one venue and James Taylor was in the one next door, I’d have a hard time choosing. “Rock” is a squirrely thing to define, and Carole King is certainly rock in a way that she isn’t jazz or country. She’s no Janis Joplin, but Janis without a backing band (Does anybody hold that “Mercedes-Benz” song up as a high water mark for Janis?) wasn’t quite Janis Joplin either.
There are Three Canadians on this list of Greatest American Rock Musician of all time?
Young, Mitchell, and Peart… interesting.
“Escapades”? Plural? I’d only heard of one incident, an accusation about Daryl Hannah that is far from definitive. Are there other instances where he’s been accused of beating a woman?
Tom Waits mentioned yet? He may be the best. Master of writing and performing. Is he rock?
If it wan’t for Brian Wilson.
Then there’s Hendrix, Todd Rundgren, Paul Westerberg
This is my analysis:
By eliminating Neil Young and Joni Mitchell as Canadians,
and Marvin, Stevie and Smokey for being black basically.
and eliminating Coltrane and miles etc. as “Jazz”
you have skewed the whole North American contribution out of its strengths towards a narrow band of other guys competing with the English, who were much more prodigious then.
(Look at a list of top billboard recording artists of the “Rock” era and see where those three black artists stand. They account for a significant percentage of the whole record sales GDP itself!!! They define “Rock” in a way a lot of white artist might not, even Elvis, if you take the tonnage of records sold.)
This is distinct from the liverpool London scene which produced a huge concentration of great overall musical creators within a few square miles of each other.
So we get Brian Wilson, Hendrix Todd Rundgren, Tom Waits, Alex Chilton, Paul Westerberg, Robert pollard, Mark Eitzel, Elvis Presley. maybe. Because we are defining a lot of the best out of it.
But you could say Stephen Stills was one of our greats but he just burned it out so quick. And that’s typical of the scene. Roger McGuinn? Maybe? Jerry garcia? Too diffuse…
Then you got
Chuck Berry, good choice
Dylan, I can’t place him above Neil Young musically, though, so it ruins it for me.
Zappa, a little too “specialized”
Duane Allman: An instrumentalist, but not noted composer or singer