I gotta go for Janis.
Glad I’ve stepped into the Dead Rockers Society.
The rules of this game are why I didn’t say Buddy Holly, because of his age. But I would have liked to have seen what he would have done in the 1960s and 70s. He probably would have turned country like Jerry Lee Lewis did. But he might have thrown in with the country/blues/rock hybrid of guys like Doug Sahm, Freddie Fender, the Winter Bros., etc. Besides late on he might have made an excellent member of either the Travelling Wilburys or the Texas Tornados.
Miles would have been old, but I would have liked to have seen what he would have thought of hip-hop and especially gangsta rap. He showed an interest with that Doo-Bop album, which I don’t believe was complete when he died, despite what the liner notes said. Dreams of colaborations with Prince or Dr. Dre dance in my head.
Jimi is too much of an unknown quantity for me, besides I’m not much of a fan. He could have continued to break new ground as a musician, but he might have become just as bad as some later guitar heroes like Robin Trower or Yngwie Malmsteen.
The worst part is that even if we could get some of these performers back at any age, many of them would probably just proceed to destroy themselves with drugs all over again: Jim, Jimi, Lowell, Kurt, Marvin (shot by his dad I know, but he had huge cocaine problem, I shudder to think what he would be like in the days of crack), Elvis,etc.
Nope, and I won’t. Ray Manzarek is a sellout, making a living off a guy dead (maybe, that is ;)) 32 years. I find that to be particularly distasteful.
Plus he was planning to branch out into different genres - he had planned a project with Michael Stipe at the time of his death.
I second Darby Crash and add one - Tupac Shakur.
2 that haven’t been mentioned:
have we forgotten Johnny Cash already?
Brian Jones. Just finished a book on the Stones, and he seemed like such a talented musician, he seemed to give the Stones all those different sounds on their music. Sitar, marimbas, mellotron, etc… He played them all. Too bad he couldn’t handle the alcohol & drugs(and keep his fists off his women).
And Jerry Garcia. They could have lost anyone in that band and it would have continued, but without Jerry, forget it.
My heart says Jerry Garcia, but my head says John Lennon.
Wesley Willis. Seeing as he just died, the condition’s not a big deal.
True of course. I was thinking of what we could’ve gotten from him if he’d lived another thirty or fourty or fifty years. He probably wouldn’t be around now, but he would’ve had much more material and maybe been around to enjoy the blues reaching a wide audience in the 60s and 70s.
Yet another vote for Frank Zappa.
I will miss Faroukh Bulsara until the day I die.
And Cobain…with the brilliance of ‘All Apologies’ I thought he was going someplace interesting soon.
Please forgive me but I could not simply narrow it down to one choice. Since alot of you already listed and have discussed several of my choices I thought I would add my two cents. So here goes!
Maria Callas for her gift and her attitude.
Sylvester for her faaaaaaaabulous funkiness.
Ella, Dinah, Billie, Judy, Josephine, Carmen, Nina, and every beautiful soul who has sung jazz and blues from their core.
And for an outside “I truly know that she was a rock girl” Gilda Radner.
That’s true, but I interpreted the OP as who you would resurrect now, in 2003. I assumed that would mean that Johnson would be dead for sixty-five years, then suddenly be brought back to life. That’s why I recommended Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain (though given Cobain’s suicidal tendencies, it would be best to go with Buckley, who died accidentally).
These two have both already been mentioned but I just want to underscore their votes:
I honestly believe that hip-hop and skapunkrastafunkwhatever would be in much better states than they are today if Tupac and Brad Nowell were still around to raise the bar in their respective genres.
Another vote for Jeff Buckley and a maybe-its-just-me vote for Michael Hutchence.
Eddie Cochran of the orgininal “Summertime Blues” might have done some fabulous things in the 60’s — at least he had the chops for it
and Johnny Horton had an amazing voice. With halfway decent material, could have continued into the 60s
Brian Epstein was only 33 when he died in 1967. Some see The Beatles ultimate dissolution stemming from his death. We sure could have used more original Beatles…
Here’s a great site to find out who died when.
And, yes, I agree instrumentalists would have a better chance of remaining viable. Stevie Ray Vaughn would continue to put out killer blues, absolutely no doubt
My immediate response would have been buddy holly, but since you added the rule that they would have to be at their age today, had they lived, hrm…
I’d go with Kurt Cobain. I think if that jackass was still with us, he’d be capable of still churning out some great musical tracks.
Another vote for John Lennon, though as a bass player, I’m tempted to say Jaco Pastorius. It would be great to have Joplin, Marley, Zappa, Zevon, and others back too, of course.
Jeff Buckley or Bradley Nowell. Rather unexciting, but those are the two that had the most left in them imho. George Harrison was still putting out decent stuff in the 90s as well.
If it weren’t for the condition, I’d have to say John Bonham, Nick Drake or Jimi Hendrix.
Maybe someone could have saved Syd Barret’s mind before he tried to preserve it chemically?
I don’t know, Ike. Evidently Jerry had decided (yet again) to clean up, so maybe his stay at Serenity Knolls would have been just the ticket to a healthier Fat Man. That being said, we could only hope that once he came out of treatment he would have said “Ok, this is the deal. We suck. Bad. We need to take another hiatus and go our separate ways for a year or two and work some things out and see what we can produce independetly. If, after that time, we’ve still go the fire in the belly, we can get together again and see what the All New, Bigger and Improved Grateful Dead sound like.” Absent that, I think he’s better off resting in pieces.
I would like to see George Harrison and John Lennon back but only so that they could take Lorne Michaels up on his offer and have the Beatles play on SNL for $3,000.