Post: #76

Whilst looking for a video of Blackmore to post, I also came across this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJnasKutpy0

All hail Satsuma!

Post: #77

Really difficult and a lot of heavyweights have been mentioned here.

Hans Zimmer and Kraftwerk especially for me.

I would like to give a shout out to Phil Collins (most top 40 hits in the 80s in the USA) and he can sing, play the drums and has great energy.

I have also come right to this song many times.

Post: #78

I'd also give a nod to Little Richard








And, Jerry Lee Lewis







Two of the best singers, rockin-est piano players, and all around pioneers of R&B, RnR, rockabilly, gospel and soul. I can't believe The Killer is still touring too.

John Fogerty is a legend too, one of my favorite song writers, singers and guitar players




The energy in the music of these 3 is just off the charts still to this day.

So who's your pick OTR?

Post: #79

John Fogerty is pretty cool. A few years ago I saw a recent performance on video where he actually did a tapping solo, yes, real Van Halen style tapping. Unbelievable. The guy can actually SHRED! You'd never imagine it based on his roots-rock reputation, but he must have expanded his playing style as time went on.

Post: #80

(02-14-2018 11:05 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  All that said, I want to change my pick to Stevie Wonder. No need to explain that, really.

I saw Stevie live a few years ago. He killed it, and he is amazing on stage. Even broke into an improvised version of Kendricks "Alright". Definitely get out to see him in his older days.

Post: #81

vote #2

Van Morrison

Post: #82

(02-11-2018 04:06 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

(02-11-2018 03:02 PM)iop890 Wrote:  

(02-11-2018 09:47 AM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  Jacob Seales.

I knew this post was coming.

I'm completely serious about this. What I mean by the "greatest living musician" is the one who is producing the greatest music right now; of course there are great musical geniuses who are still alive who have produced the unthinkably overwhelming musical bounty of the past 50 years -- but while still alive, they are no longer living musicians.

Seales is the best of anyone I know who is creating music right now -- he has written what I consider to be great music within the last few years, some of the freshest and most unplaceable contributions in a while and during a period when entire musical genres are otherwise completely dead, just as dead as film for example. And it's not a matter of Trump rally / RSBN sentimentality either; although it's certainly no accident that Seales' tunes were married to those other great and restorative energies, they stand on their own and I can evaluate them as such. I believe that he will be very widely known one day.

I will give Seales a listen beyond the glorious Trump victory song.

Part of the beauty of my question is the dare I say subjective (as a hard core objectivist) nature of the question. It is up to the respondent to answer the meaning of greatest and indeed of living -- what musician touches the person so deeply to be their answer is truly an individual feeling.

I see the admirable and genius Bob Dylan mentioned here several times and am indeed very very tempted to make him my own answer, and no shit I flew to Chicago a few years back only to see him at the Cadillac, an upon sensing the energy in the room bought the next nights tickets and so I can say yes I saw Dylan from the first row (ad 12th) and saw him twice, in his no less beauty and brilliance than if I had in 1965 in New York or in 1976 in Colorado. When you have a feeling that you BETTER go see a musician right now, regardless of where the next concert is this is something to take seriously. I have a lifelong regret of not seeing Miles Davis in Atlanta before he died because of who knows what bullshit excuse.

Paul McCartney may also be the answer. And not just for the Beatles but for the simple purity of the Wings hits which I grew up with and still listen to today. If I have a true and sincere moment of innocent love it is the Wings which express it best.

Has anyone mentioned Sting? Fuck what a genius and what breath and depth of musical and lyrical writing.

The great showman, singer and performer Elton John should be here - someone will surely name him.

And there are those who sadly have died who would have been easy answers but that is not the question. Had Freddy Mercury been still living there would be no need for this thread.

Alas no one has mentioned the answer which I have in my head so I according to my own post rules will wait.

In the meantime - PLEASE more youtube links!

Post: #83

^ ok.

Dylan is a great lyricist for sure. So is Joni Mitchell, and her music is on another level altogether. Her tune "The Jungle Line" got covered by Leonard Cohen and Herbie Hancock, not too bad. This tune is incredible, it's like she managed to put a nightmare to lyrics and music:





Rousseau walks on trumpet paths
Safaris to the heart of all that jazz
Through I bars and girders-through wires and pipes
The mathematic circuits of the modern nights
Through huts, through Harlem, through jails and gospel pews
Through the class on Park and the trash on Vine
Through Europe and the deep deep heart of Dixie blue
Through savage progress cuts the jungle line
In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer
Rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear
Those cannibals-of shuck and jive
They'll eat a working girl like her alive
With his hard-edged eye and his steady hand
He paints the cellar full of ferns and orchid vines
And he hangs a moon above a five-piece band
He hangs it up above the jungle line
The jungle line, the jungle line
Screaming in a ritual of sound and time
Floating, drifting on the air-conditioned wind
And drooling for a taste of something smuggled in
Pretty women funneled through valves and smoke
Coy and bitchy, wild and fine
And charging elephants and chanting slaving boats
Charging, chanting down the jungle line
There's a poppy wreath on a soldier's tomb
There's a poppy snake in a dressing room
Poppy poison-poppy tourniquet
It slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spit
And metal skin and ivory birds
Go steaming up to Rousseau's vines
They go steaming up to Brooklyn Bridge
Steaming, steaming, steaming up the jungle line


Although he passed away last year, how can David Bowie not be brought up? His album 'Station to Station' is incredible. What struck me about Bowie also is how well he sings live. This was probably his best band, what a tune. The backup singing is great, the sound is great, this is an epic live performance.

Post: #84

Probably Ennio Morricone

Post: #85

(02-17-2018 02:15 PM)bobmjilica Wrote:  Probably Ennio Morricone

thats the first answer on the thread ive never heard of...

Post: #86

^nice

Post: #87

(02-14-2018 10:01 PM)TheSergeant Wrote:  Being a Van Halen fan from way back, I’m going to nominate Sir Edward.

While I don't care for VH's music as much, Eddie wins GOAT on guitar for me without question. His early stuff is still mind blowing to this day.

(02-14-2018 10:54 PM)stugatz Wrote:  



Someone mentioned Ennio Morricone a page back. I also like Mike Patton and his groups (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) quite a bit - so here he is covering a Morricone tune.

If you are a Patton fan I highly recommend checking out a extremely underground Italian/Slovenian band called Devil Doll & anyone that is into prog music.

Its not music to put on making a cup of tea or cleaning your place....Its something to be digested in one sitting with zero distractions.

This is probably their most accessible album




My fav but not as immediate

Post: #88

Well, he died recently, so I am just slipping him in here as a footnote.

Maurice White was one of the great innovators and geniuses of pop music.

To understand why his band was great, you have to have seen them live, and maybe this is one of the hallmarks of a great musician, that they really came alive when they had a real audience in front of them.

For White, music encompassed many things, beauty, fun, spirituality, individuality, but most of all love, which he spoke of openly, sincerely, and often. Probably why they are often forgotten in the mention of the all time greats, just too sincere, so people call it corny, that simple life affirming mentality.

That too was why, and White has spoken of this many times, he felt the most loving thing he could do for people was to give them a good time, to get them involved, through sound, in a communal experience of joy.

Also why, they had songs with titles like Gratitude, Devotion, stuff like that.

Also too, why there were so many meaningless phrases, "Ba Di Ya," like in their hit song "September." White has said that the real message was love, and it was shared through the harmony of the voices, punched up by the band and especially the horn section, as well as the application of theatrical and special effects during carefully chosen parts of their shows.

They also utilized the call and response formulas from church services to great effect in some songs, an echo of White's start as a church musician.

I saw them many times in the late seventies, early eighties, before they started to fall off and sound just like another band, and an Earth Wind and Fire concert was an electric, communal event, without the self conscious bad boy posturing of other bands, or the fake edginess.

A group of individuals filed into the stadium, and when you left everyone was smiling at each other, feeling as if you had been part of something you couldn't explain. Was it church? A magic show? A concert? The circus?

You couldn't articulate why you all felt so good and so connected, you just did, and wanted to come back again next year.

One of the amazing things about the band is that their songs were completely different experiences live, as if the studio had constrained the band, and they only really came alive when they could share it with other people, and this wasn't only true with their hit songs.

They might tackle a song you barely noticed on the album, and absolutely bring down the house with it live, to the degree that it was actually better than any of their hit songs.

To get a taste of what I'm talking about, listen to this studio version. You don't even have to listen all the way through, just skip around here and there:





Not a bad song.

Now see where the charismatic bandleader takes it live.





RIP Maurice White. Still feeling it somewhere.

Post: #89

^Great stuff.

I have this , listen to the bass playing and overall energy. Prince used to bring Larry Graham up to jam. Love the old soul-funk sound. I hadn't heard "Mighty Mighty" before, I dig it.

Post: #90

Beat me to Larry Graham. Dammit Zep. He was the living one I was going to go with.

(When I was in high school, too young to appreciate it, Graham Central Station did a free lunchtime concert for us. We knew they were good, but not how lucky we were.)

By the way, there is a lot of unknown Earth Wind and Fire that is really good.

Post: #91

Joni Mitchell is technically alive but I doubt her health will allow her to perform or make any new music.

I am more inspired by people who have stayed active straight through and will probably remain active until they keel over (like how Lemmy went out).

Post: #92

(02-20-2018 01:24 PM)questor70 Wrote:  Joni Mitchell is technically alive but I doubt her health will allow her to perform or make any new music.

I am more inspired by people who have stayed active straight through and will probably remain active until they keel over (like how Lemmy went out).

For me she was good but too narrow. She sounded the same her whole career.

Post: #93

Joni Mitchell was a good songwriter but I can't stand listening to her.

Post: #94

(02-21-2018 03:01 AM)Sidney Crosby Wrote:  Joni Mitchell was a good songwriter but I can't stand listening to her.

She was the soundtrack of all my parent's hippie friends who couldn't be trusted to babysit us.

Post: #95

Roger Hodgson -- none of his many hits songs were about women - he never put women on a pedestal.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdTrqV6dt3o

Post: #96

Poor Joni, lol, she can't catch a break from you guys. No one has to like her, but she is a genius. How stylistically different is 'Blue, from 'Hejira' which is so different from 'Mingus', which is so different from her terrible 80's stuff. Two jazz giants, Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus work with her on three albums, Charles Mingus' last album was with her, Jaco Pastorius and her did incredible work on Hejira and Don Juans Reckless Daughter. Leonard Cohen and Herbie Hancock cover her amazing tune "The Jungle Line"...She's basically a freak.
Anyways, enough about Joni.

Moving along to Roger Hodgson and Supertramp. Yea, the older I get, the more I look at tunes like "Dreamer" and realize it's perfect, and perfection is hard, it is so so hard. The way this little tune progresses is the work of a Master, the dynamics are perfect.





My choice for the 'winner' of this thread, if there must be One, would be Roger Waters and Pink Floyd. Their music is inventive, the lyrics are incredible, the production outstanding. "Dark side of the moon" is basically the most perfect album ever created, and then Floyd also created the brilliant albums "Animals", "Echoes", and "The Wall" which my psyche teacher used as a teaching tool.

Post: #97

Surprisingly enough, looks like I'm the first to nominate Brian Eno. An understated, behind the scenes but enormous influence on the sound of pop and rock music from Roxy Music, through David Bowie and on to U2. At the same time, exploring and pushing the boundaries of sound and visual installations, creating and defining ambient music.

Post: #98

I apologize if I missed it... But how has no one mentioned Joe Satriani? The guy is unbelievably talented.

Post: #99

(02-25-2018 10:06 PM)RIslander Wrote:  I apologize if I missed it... But how has no one mentioned Joe Satriani? The guy is unbelievably talented.

Nice answer. (Not mine but really nice choice)

Post: #100

(03-06-2018 12:10 AM)Off The Reservation Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 10:06 PM)RIslander Wrote:  I apologize if I missed it... But how has no one mentioned Joe Satriani? The guy is unbelievably talented.

Nice answer. (Not mine but really nice choice)

Joe Satriani is one of the greatest guitarists that I have ever heard. Couple names I might throw into this list (it's tough for me to pick one person) would be Carlos Santana & Eric Clapton.