Grooving with The Isley Brothers

Have enjoyed discovering the Isley Brothers 1970s stuff. Dig this cover of the Seals & Croft hit. With some wicked guitar by Ernie Isley, who was influenced by a young guitarist who joined the Isley Brothers backing group in 1964 and stayed until 1966, living for a while in the Isley family home: Jimmy James. Better known as Jimi Hendrix.



UPDATE: I said "1970s," but that includes some of their late 1960s stuff as well. For instance, their classic, "It's Your Thing," from 1969.

Happy Hendrix Day

Happy Birthday, Jimi. He would've been 66 years old today.



"Little Wing" - Winterland, San Francisco, 12.10.68 2nd Show

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

May your turkeys (or non-turkeys) be moist and tender, your family dynamics beautiful, and your gatherings grand.

Concert Vault - Neil Young & Crazy Horse 1970

For music lovers who don't know about the web site Concert Vault, I recommend checking it out. They have digital recordings of over 1,300 concerts, most of them available for free. Shows come from several sources, including archives from Bill Graham's venues and the old King Biscuit Flower Hour.

You can listen to an entire concert, maybe the Jimi Hendrix Experience at Winterland in 1968, or put together individual tracks in a playlist. Or you can try out random programming from each of the four main catalogs.

The range of music is pretty good. Obviously, with the Graham archives, you get a lot of 60s and 70s shows by the biggies: Hendrix, Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Clapton, The Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Creedence Clearwater Revival, as well as gigs by San Francisco groups like Electric Flag, It's a Beautiful Day, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The King Biscuit catalog includes concerts from the 1970s and 1980s by artists like The Kinks, The Clash, Talking Heads, U2, Blondie, the Cure, etc. There's even a country archive, which includes folks like Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker and Kris Kristofferson. (Alas, no Willie Nelson, who was doing some wonderful shows in the 1970s.)

There's David Bowie at Nassau Coliseum in 1976 and the Clash at the Agora Ballroom in 1979. Bruce Springsteen plays Max's Kansas City in 1973, just a few weeks after his first LP, Greetings from Asbury Park, was released. Or catch him in the longest show I've seen in the vault so far, a 1978 gig at Winterland. Both Lou Reed and Jerry Jeff Walker show up at the Bottom Line in the late 1970s; Bruce Cockburn - having just returned from Nicaragua - plays a short, intense set from 1984; and there's part of John Lennon's show at a 1972 benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. You can even hear a short set by Talking Heads at CBGB's in 1977.

And there are more recent shows, including the I'm Not There concert last November at Beacon Theatre, with many of the groups who performed on the soundtrack of Todd Hayne's film about Bob Dylan. Guests include Lee Renaldo, from Sonic Youth, and Yo La Tengo, as well as a brief appearance by Heath Ledger.

At the moment, I'm listening to Neil Young & Crazy Horse at Fillmore East (NY) on March 6, 1970 - the early show.

Here's a rocking 14-minute version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" that closed out the program:

Greatest American Rock and Roll Songs

This is my final installment in a series of posts on American Rock and Roll. In the first one, I took at look at the 20 Greatest Musicians. [See also: Jeff's list at Aún Estamos Vivos.] In the second, I came up with a list of 20 Greatest Albums.

Trying to determine the Greatest Rock and Roll Songs is an impossible task for one person. There are simply too many possibilities to come up with a good list. That didn't stop me, of course, but I recognize that the process is flawed.

UPDATE: Normally, I'm not one to come up with a list of the "Greatest" anything. As Steve suggested in his comment, it may be better to stick with a "Favorites" list. But I wanted to explore something different in this series of posts. To go beyond myself, if possible. There's a different thought process involved in trying to determine the "Greatest." The idea was to be more critical in my thinking about the music. To see if I could overcome personal prejudices and be more objective. I didn't fully succeed in the end. (Let someone else argue for Madonna!) But I enjoyed the experiment. [I'm also not comfortable dealing in strict categories like "rock and roll," as opposed to Soul, R&B, Blues, etc. Nor do I like nation-specific lists. Again, though, it was an experiment to challenge my normal thought process.] So, while it may be impossible for one person to come up with a list of the Greatest American Rock and Roll Songs, I'll say that these 50 choices would be the ones I would submit to a group of people trying to determine such a list. And just for the record, a list of my favorite songs (or musicians or albums) would look very different from what I've offered.

In the end, it looks like I've come up with a playlist for a Classic Rock station, which is the last thing I wanted. But, really, some of these tunes have been played to death for a reason: they were great. Still, I'm particularly interested in getting suggestions from the rest of you, especially for more recent tunes. (That is, after 1974.)

A lot of great rock and roll comes from musicians who weren't necessarily our best artists. And maybe they never produced a consistently fantastic album. But they had moments of brilliance, blessed little epiphanies of kick-ass rock and roll. Maybe that's due in part to the early and powerful influence of radio and the singles format, I don't know. Few people probably remember Mountain, and fewer still could name one of their albums, but as soon as you hear "Mississippi Queen," you know the gods of rock and roll were working overtime that day.

I've chosen 50 songs, because it was impossible to limit myself to 20. Also, I wanted to give you a chance to hear the songs yourself, so I created a Finetune playlist, and that requires a minimum of 45 songs, with no more than 3 songs per artist. I could've easily chosen more than 3 by Dylan or Hendrix, but it seemed like a reasonable limit to work within.

I don't have any numeric order this time - I'm just giving you the playlist, which is alphabetical by musician. And I'm not discussing any of the songs.

With one exception.

I've included Hendrix's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" from Woodstock. Obviously, Jimi produced many other songs that were musically superior. But there's always been something profound to me about this performance. Here was an African-American musician, only a few years after the abolition of Jim Crow laws, and only 16 months after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., taking the national anthem - at the height of the Vietnam War - and transforming it into something utterly and uniquely his own. It's as if he had imagined a new America and by sheer creative force poured out a sketch of it through his guitar. This was a new country. A more inclusive country. A rock and roll country. This was the America where I wanted to live. I still play it on the fourth of July when I can. It's truly a revolutionary song.

[Marvin Gaye's version may even be better. Recorded during the "Sexual Healing" period, he gave us a recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that you could make love to. I kid you not.]

One other note - I was considering: Link Wray's "Rumble," but Finetune didn't have it. (That's terrible!) I haven't heard it in a while, but in my memory, it seems like it was a pretty damn good song. According to Wikipedia, Pete Townsend said of Wray and the tune: "He is the king; if it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,' I would have never picked up a guitar. . . . I remember being made very uneasy the first time I heard it, and yet excited by the savage guitar sounds." So, there you go. I need to get a recording of it again.

So please offer 5 or 10 of your own "Greatest American Rock and Roll Songs." If they aren't on my own list of 50, I can add them to the Finetune playlist. (As long as they have them.)

Rock on!



Original List of 50 Songs

Aerosmith: Back In the Saddle
Bill Haley & His Comets: Rock Around The Clock
Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone
Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue
Bob Dylan: Visions Of Johanna
Booker T. & The MG's: Green Onions
Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
Buddy Holly: Peggy Sue
Chuck Berry: Johnny B. Goode
Chuck Berry: Roll Over Beethoven
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Born On The Bayou
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Fortunate Son
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Susie Q
Elvis Presley: Heartbreak Hotel
Grand Funk Railroad: I'm Your Captain/Closer To Home
Grateful Dead: Uncle John's Band
Iron Butterfly: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
James Gang: Funk #49
Janis Joplin: Me and Bobby Mcgee
Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit
Jerry Lee Lewis: Great Balls Of Fire
Jimi Hendrix: Star Spangled Banner
Jimi Hendrix: All Along The Watchtower
Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Little Richard: Good Golly Miss Molly
Lou Reed: Walk On The Wild Side
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird
Mountain: Mississippi Queen
Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
R.E.M.: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Ray Charles: What'd I Say Parts I & II
Roy Orbison: Oh, Pretty Woman
Santana: Black Magic Woman
Sonic Youth: Kool Thing
Steely Dan: Deacon Blues
Steely Dan: Reelin' In the Years
Steppenwolf: Born To Be Wild
Talking Heads: Psycho Killer
The Allman Brothers Band: Ramblin' Man
The Allman Brothers Band: Statesboro Blues
The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations
The Byrds: Eight Miles High
The Byrds: So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star
The Doors: Light My Fire
The Doors: The End
The Ramones: Blitzkreig Bop
The Velvet Underground: Heroin
The Velvet Underground: I'm Waiting For The Man
Yo La Tengo: Heard You Looking
ZZ Top: La Grange

UPDATE: I kept wanting to fiddle around with the damn list. After being taken to task by Steve for my first two changes, I've decided to go back to my original 50 songs. Instead of changing that list, I offer some additional possibilities as suggested by others or by myself. These have been added to the Finetune playlist:

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Run Through The Jungle [Had to replace "Born on the Bayou" because of the 3-song-per-artist limit.]
Eagles: Hotel California
Janis Joplin: Piece of My Heart
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water
The Stooges: I Wanna Be Your Dog
The Mamas & The Papas: California Dreamin'
The Velvet Underground: Sweet Jane
The Violent Femmes: Blister in the Sun

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Simple rock song? Or explanation for the origin of the universe?

Happy Birthday, Mr. Hendrix

He would've been 65 today.

"Machine Gun"
January 1, 1970 at the Fillmore East

The Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums

When I record an album,
I'm trying to get as close as possible
to that perfect moment.
Lou Reed

After tackling the Greatest American Roll and Roll Musicians, it's time now to explore the Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums. What are the major artistic works of this music in our culture?

The concept of an "album" really belongs to the rock and roll era. Before the mid-1950s, you could only put a few short songs on one phonograph record. Then the LP (Long-Playing record) appeared, and musicians could suddenly expand the length of their compositions. The oeuvre of an early blues or jazz giant like Robert Johnson or Bix Beiderbecke, for example, consists entirely of two-to-three minute songs. Compare that with the works of a later jazz figure like John Coltrane, who recorded a 57-minute version of "My Favorite Things." LPs also allowed for the creation of the "rock opera" and the "concept album," unique and longer-format artistic efforts. I'm not sure compact discs, despite being a major technological change from analog to digital, affected the structure of creative works like LPs did. Now, however, with the rise of mp3s, iPods, etc., the "album" as a discrete unit of artistic production may be coming to an end. So it seems like a good time to look back and see what masterpieces of rock and roll we as a culture created.

In my previous post, I said the musicians had to be primarily rock and rollers. Mainly to keep the discussion focused. But that's not the case for Greatest Albums. I'm open to works by people who were better known for other genres. Thus, to continue with my examples from the other post, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? has to be considered, as do some of Johnny Cash's recordings for Rick Rubin, not to mention At Folsom Prison.

So, on with the show . . .

The 20 Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums

1) The Eagles: Their Greatest Hits (Asylum 1976) - Hey, don't blame me for this one. YOU chose it. WE ALL chose it. America is the greatest country in the world because: a) The invisible hand of God the market dictates everything, and b) We are a free market democracy. So, can there be a more American way of choosing the greatest rock and roll albums than by selecting the ones that sold the most right here in the good ol' USA? Of course not! And this collection of rock anthems is the biggest-selling album of all time in the world. I know some of you pooh-pooh The Eagles, but if someone (probably another American) put a gun to your head and made you choose between listening to "Hotel California" for the millionth time or something un-American and un-rock-and-roll like Celine Dion, you know you'd pick Don Henley & Co. every time. So, eat your broccoli; it's good for you.

2) Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic 1982) - First you complain about my selection method, and now you complain that the King of Pop isn't even rock and roll. Well, you're wrong. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave Mr. Neverland an award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male for "Beat It." In addition, this album single-handedly made MTV the rock and roll success story it is today. Without him, we'd have been left with five maladjusted college kids watching Skinny Puppy videos all day. Not to mention the fact that Michael recorded with one of the Beatles, and, like Bob Dylan, was nominated for a Nobel Prize. And Jackson's was even for Peace, which is much more rock and roll than Dylan's nomination for "Literature." Finally, the guy owned elephants. Outside of a circus, only rock and rollers own elephants.

3) Billy Joel: Greatest Hits Volume I & II (Columbia 1985) - Hey, it's still rock and roll to me.

4) Boston: Boston (Epic 1976) - You can't get more rock and roll than Boston. I mean, "More than a Feeling" is being used for TV commercials and everything.

5) Hootie & the Blowfish: Cracked Rear View (Atlantic 1995) - "Hootie," get it? Heh, heh, heh. And the Blowfish. We all know what that means! See, like I said, real rock and roll.

So, there you go - The United States of America's legendary contribution to the universe of rock and roll, which, with the exception of one or two British bands, IS American anyway. We started all the noise, and these five albums prove that America is still THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL!

Okay, maybe not. Perhaps, just perhaps, the market isn't always the best indication of artistic accomplishment.

[UPDATE: PLEASE READ THIS. Just to make it perfectly clear, the five albums listed above are the biggest-selling American "rock" albums, according to Billboard. My including them as the "Greatest" American rock albums was meant as A JOKE. Humor. Satire. A failed attempt, evidently. Sigh.]

The album that single-handedly killed American rock and roll.

I have to say, it was much more difficult to come up with 20 Great Albums than it was for 20 Great Musicians. There are so many more possibilities. And my lack of knowledge became even more apparent. I've read a lot about MC5's Kick Out the Jams, for example, but I've only listened to it a couple of times - and that was many years ago. I felt comfortable excluding the group from the list of 20 Great Musicians, because they didn't really do much else, but I can't say the same about their album. So, it's a list based on limited knowledge and my being something of a numbskull at times. Take it for what it's worth.

The first five albums are listed in order. After that, it's any body's guess. I wrote about four more albums for reasons mysterious even to myself. Just felt like I wanted to say something about them. They're in chronological order, as are the eleven titles that follow them. The four I wrote about are not meant to be "better" than the eleven I simply gave titles for.

There are many great albums I couldn't include. (I'm still wrestling over ZZ Top's Tres Hombres. Whatever my feelings about their later incarnation, that's a classic rock and roll album.) Tell me what I stupidly missed.

The Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums (take 2)

Five for the Ages

Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia 1965) - You could flip a coin between this and Blonde on Blonde. Actually, I did. The gods of rock and roll were probably right. The drum blast that opens the album, in "Like a Rolling Stone," feels like a cannon shot to announce the beginning of a revolution. Several forces of musical history came together in a perfect storm. This is what it had all been leading to. Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Dylan's folk period - they all collided in "Like a Rolling Stone." Not only did the sound and the lyrics blow everything out of the water, but a six-minute radio single had never been attempted before. Everything up to then was basically 2:59. The Revolution had won. The King was dead and the peasants had taken over.

Though Dylan had already gone electric at Newport and on the first side of Bringing It All Back Home, this marks the starting point of modern rock and roll. "Like a Rolling Stone" was chosen as the best rock and roll song ever by Unnamed Corporate Music Magazine, which said of it: "No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time." And when Bruce Springsteen was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he said, "The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind." To be honest, I’ve always been more partial to “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” (“When you’re lost in the rain, in Juarez, and it’s Easter time, too.” What kind of a journey are we on? Crossing the border, getting lost, finding our way again.) Or "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry," one of the best song titles ever. And the operatic “Desolation Row” can’t be dismissed either. One of the greatest memories of my life thus far is of Liam and I performing"Desolation Row" together in front of a giant bonfire in a bullring near a small village out in the middle of nowhere Castilla. What better setting for this poetic masterpiece? And, yeah, the other songs are pretty good, too.

Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (Columbia 1966) - How do you follow up the Greatest American Rock and Roll Album of all time? Well, you crank out the second greatest one. Highway 61 feels more historic, and it was certainly a tighter, more controlled album. But Dylan was bursting at the seems with creativity and needed to spread out, so he came up with another innovation: the first studio double-album.

I would argue that there have been few if any periods of creative expression among American artists as feverish and fertile as Dylan's hell-bent-for-leather epoch that started in Greece in the summer of 1964, as he finished writing the songs for Another Side of Bob Dylan, his last folk album, and the summer of 1966, when he cracked up on his motorcycle in the rain and came within an inch of losing his life with a broken neck. He produced five LPs (Another Side, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and the 2-album Blonde on Blonde), all of which were much longer than normal LPs of the time. [The first two Beatles albums clocked in at 26 and 22 minutes respectively; Highway 61 is over 51 minutes, Another Side is 50 minutes.] Even more amazing is the amount of high-quality material that went unreleased at the time, only surfacing decades later on Biograph and other collections. Add in his tour of Europe tour of 1965 and the famous one with The Band in 1966, the controversial Newport Folk Festival performance, and a film (D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back, still probably the best rock and roll movie ever made). It’s a truly astounding artistic achievement. And Blonde on Blonde marks the end of the whirlwind. It’s all over the place in terms of mood and tone – that “thin, wild mercury sound,” as Dylan described what he was after – from the rambunctious, drunken Salvation Army Band feel that opens the album in “Rainy Day Women (#12 & 35),” to the snarling rock-blues of “Pledging My Time,” the pop stylings of “I Want You,” the classic rock of “Stuck Inside of Mobile (With the Memphis Blues Again),” and the epic surrealist ballad, “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” which takes up all of Side 4.

Oh, yeah, and then there's the greatest work of rock artistry ever recorded. The song that Dylan fans perennially vote as his best (which it is) : “Visions of Johanna.” I don’t care what anyone else says, “A ghost of ‘lectricty howls in the bones of her face” is still the most amazing line in rock and roll.

May you never hear surf music again.

Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced? (MCA 1967) - Almost another coin toss between this and Electric Ladyland, and for similar reasons. Are You Experienced? is another revolutionary proclamation, whereas Electric Ladyland is a sprawling, too-loose-at-times double album that shows the full breadth of Hendrix's creative vision. Both are essential. But Jimi's first album has a special sense of urgency and surprise. He keeps you off-kilter, like all great rock and roll should. After ripping up the place on "Purple Haze" and "Manic Depression," Jimi offers up a slow, dangerous folk-blues tale about killing your woman and running from the law. Later on, there's a beautiful ballad, "The Wind Cries Mary," a straight-ahead rocker, "Fire," and then - woah . . . what in the hell is this? . . . science-fiction? . . . avant-garde experimentation? . . . What kind of a trip are we on here? Impossible to tell, but it takes place on "The Third Stone from the Sun." Jimi heads into outer/inner-space on a voyage that he explores more fully and beautifully in "1983," on Electric Ladyland. This is more freaky and fun, however. Then it's back to all-out sex-driven rock and roll, with "Foxey Lady," before capping off the adventures with the awesome backwards guitar / tape-loop manifesto, "Are You Experienced?" The album came out 40 years ago, but I'm still asking myself that question. It's a lifelong journey. ("Not necessarily stoned . . . but beautiful.")

The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground and Nico (Verve 1967) - Okay, I have to admit, I’ve never been a big Nico fan. I understand the concept, but she never really moved me. (I do dig the neo-Nico sounds of Stereolab, however.) But if her songs remind me too much of Yoko Ono on some of those Lennon albums (the whole bloody side 2 of Live Peace in Toronto, which, otherwise, would be one of the best live albums ever made), there’s just no escaping Lou Reed’s masterpieces. “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Venus in Furs,” and, most of all, “Heroin.” Plus, with CDs, I can skip the Nico songs when I feel like it. This was, though, definitely one of the most revolutionary albums ever. And it’s one of the mythic examples of artistic influence despite capitalist failure. As the saying goes, only 1,000 people bought this album - But every single one of them started a band. And it only grows in stature as the years go by.

Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland (MCA 1968) - Like Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, this album reveals an artist bursting at the seams with creativity. Opening up with some aural experimentation, the almost opera-like overture of "...And the Gods Made Love" / "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)," Jimi then bursts out with a straight-ahead rock and roll AM radio single, "Crosstown Traffic," which sounds like it could've been on his first album. But that frenetic trip through traffic comes to an abrupt halt at the edge of a wide, deep lake, as he takes us on an epic blues pilgrimage with his 15-minute wonder, "Voodoo Chile." Side 2 of this double-LP is more rock and roll, highlighted by the beautiful and haunting, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp." Side 3 is something else altogether, an 18-minute journey into Hendrix's own mythological space-sea world. We sometimes forget how much science-fiction imagery and aesthetic played in Hendrix's work, and it reaches its fullest expression in "1983 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)." Side 4 takes us back to his rhythm & blues roots with "House Burning Down," and the album closes with what I believe are his two greatest songs, "All Along the Watchtower" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." Hendrix takes Dylan's simple but majestic country-folk song from John Wesley Harding and remakes it into something completely his own, more, perhaps, than any other cover song has ever done. He stays true to Dylan's vision in the original but heightens the myth-making effect through his mastery of rock instrumentation. And he continues his almost alchemical transformation process with "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," turning his own blues epic on Side 1 into one of the best rock and roll songs of all time. So country, folk, and blues have all been turned into gold by Hendrix on these last two tunes, which would be the last songs released while he was still alive.

Four I Felt Like Writing About

James Gang: Rides Again (ABC 1970) - If you love classic, early 1970s rock and roll, I don’t know if there’s a better overall example than Rides Again. The group started out with a funk-influenced "heavy" sound similar to Grand Funk Railroad or The Jeff Beck Group, but added in acoustic rock elements that gave them a broader, more interesting palette. Their first three albums, with Joe Walsh as principal singer-songwriter and axeman, are somewhat forgotten rock gems these days, and this one, their second effort, shows the group in peak form. The album kicks off in high gear with “Funk #49,” which features one of the best opening licks of any rock song ever, and stays in high gear throughout Side 1 with "Woman" and “The Bomber.” Side 2 shows the other face of the group, with a series of slow and mid-tempo numbers that work together almost like a rock-chamber concerto. (Basically, Side 2 is the stoner side.) Taken together, both sides add up to a true rock and roll classic.


Steely Dan: Countdown to Ecstasy (MCA 1973) - A lot of people might pick Aja as the strongest Dan album, and it definitely took rock and roll to a new level of sophistication, but I think Countdown best represents all of the aspects of the group. Who else but Steely Dan could turn Buddhism into a great rock song like "Bodhisattva," which opens up the album with a bang? Tunes like "Show Biz Kids" and "My Old School" continue the pure rock assault, along with some of their best New York wit. "Razor Boy" and "Your Gold Teeth" mark some of their first jazz-influenced pieces, and both hold up well over time. Country-rock elements come out in "Pearl of the Quarter,"and the album closes with "King of the World," which seems to pull all of the elements together. The songwriting on the album is first-rate throughout. Katy Lied would be another possible great album, and the aforementioned Aja. But I like them rocking out on Countdown to Ecstasy.


Tom Waits: Rain Dogs (Island 1985) - You could argue that Swordfishtrombone belongs here instead, because it established Tom Waits as a truly groundbreaking rock and roll artist, but I think his follow-up album was even better. If nothing else, it wins on the strength of “Jockey Full of Burbon.” I still remember hearing the song for the first time during the opening sequence of Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law. I think I went out the next day and bought the album. And then there’s, “9th and Hennepin ,” which contains one of the other most poetic lines in rock and roll: “And all the rooms, they smell like diesel / And you take on the dreams of the ones who've slept there.” Plus, hey, Keith Richards shows up on “Big Black Mariah.”

Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (Matador 1992) - This is where the Velvet Underground wound up. 25 years later, and it almost feels as revolutionary. Except that it references rock and roll rather than creating it anew. The form had been cannibalizing itself ever since the punk revolution, but it really reached a peak in the 1990s. One last gasp before all the meat was picked off the bones. Though Pavement started out producing some serious noise songs, they had a knack for coming up with amazing pop hooks, and they scatter them throughout Slanted, always perfectly timed and placed. Songs like "Summer Babe" and "Zurich Stained" are so perfect that they feel like they've always existed. Lyrically, you're never really sure where you're at, as the words sound so great together, but it's hard to figure out what's happening. That is, you're on a poetic journey. Stephen Malkmus puts on his best world-weary Lou Reed voice and attitude, and takes us on a ride through a strange, glorious early 1990s landscape. This is where America wound up.

Some Other Greats

Hey, where's that other guy? After Mr. Mojo Risin' couldn't rise out of the bathtub anymore, The Doors kept recording. This 1971 effort did not make my list of Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums. And just for the record, I have listened to it.

The Doors: The Doors (Elektra 1967)
The Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday (Columbia 1967)
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bayou Country (Fantasy 1969)
Grateful Dead: American Beauty (Warner Brothers 1970)
Allman Brothers Band: At Fillmore East (Capricorn 1971)
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks (Columbia 1975)
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia 1975)
Ramones: Ramones (Sire 1976)
Talking Heads: Remain in Light (Sire 1980)
Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation (Enigma 1988)
Nirvana: Nevermind (DGC 1991)

For those of you who need to: Substitute The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds for one of these last 15.

See the third part of my trilogy on American rock and roll: The Greatest American Rock and Roll Songs.

UPDATE: I woke up this morning and realized I had forgotten Talking Heads' Remain in Light. So I've added that to the list and withdrawn Yo La Tengo: Electr-O-Pura (Matador 1995), which was a more obviously personal choice to begin with.

The back cover of James Gang Rides Again. A great album, and one of my favorite rock and roll photos. It captures everything about the music: a top hat (showmanship, the song and dance man), snowy woods (rural/nature), the muddy road (the endless American road), choppers (speed, the highway, Don't Tread On Us), hippies (hippies), laughter (joy - or at least being stoned), solemnity (damn it, this is serious business), and a guitar hero [Joe Walsh] in black leather jacket and aviator glasses (cool).

The Greatest American Rock and Roll Musicians

"You know, my temperature's risin'
And the jukebox blows a fuse.
My heart's beatin' rhythm
And my soul keeps on singin' the blues.
Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news."

Chuck Berry

I've been thinking about rock and roll this week. Specifically, I've been thinking about American rock and roll. Rock was one of the major musical forms of the 20th century, developed primarily in this country. So, looking back now, who were the great American artists that produced this music?

This is really a late-night barroom discussion over pitchers of beer, although I've been contemplating the subject during the bright light of day while perfectly sober. But pull up your bar stool and your Brooklyn Lager, or for the teetotalers, your vanilla soy frappe with blueberry and banana, and let's get this straightened out. It's important. This is one of the most vital and influential art forms of our lifetime. No pussyfooting (oops, sorry, Fripp and Eno were British) around. Now, pour me some more of that beer . . .

First off, I'm interested in American rock and rollers. To be honest, I think the British have outdone us at our own art-form, but that's a later discussion. I wanna talk about the artists from my own culture for a moment. Which means no Canadians either, even if it is a suburb of the U.S. [Canadian friends, the internet makes it hard to recognize a satirical voice sometimes, but that really was meant as a joke. At least for the most part.] Neil Young, though he has lived most of his life now in the U.S., is still, in 2007, a proud Canadian citizen. So he's out. So are Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Buffalo Springfield, and The Band, to name a few others.

Beyond issues of geography, there is the genre problem. Was Marvin Gaye a rock and roller? I love Marvin and think he was ultimately a greater artist than many of the people on my list, but have I ever played air-guitar to a Marvin Gaye song? Creedence Clearwater Revival's epic 12-minute version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is rock and roll (and an underrated rock classic). I'm not sure about Marvin's version. Wasn't he ultimately soul? Or rhythm and blues?

And what about Johnny Cash? He did some rockabilly in his early days and ended his career covering Danzig. Rock and rollers revere him. But wasn't he, at heart, a country musician? I hate categorizing art like this. But damn it, you've got to draw some boundaries in this discussion. Otherwise, you'll wind up with a bizarre mishmash of a list like Unnamed Corporate Music Magazine's 100 Immortals, which, in the end, is neither a list of Great Rock and Rollers, nor a list of 100 Great Musical Artists. Especially when Miles Davis winds up at #88, 13 slots below The Eagles and six below Eminem.

If we include Marvin and Johnny, then what about Slim Gaillard, who happened to be Marvin's father-in-law and was knocking out some pretty hallucinogenic, proto-rock tunes on the guitar with his jazz group Slim and Slam back in the 1930s? I would argue that he may have been one of the true pioneers of the rock and roll sound, even though he never gets any credit for it. No, I'm going to be a purist. The artists have to be primarily rock and rollers. I don't care if Miles Davis did incorporate rock music into his jazz - Miles is a jazz demigod, not a rock and roll one. Call them Honorable Mentions, Fellow Travelers, or Friends of Rock and Roll, but they're not on this particular list.

Though I will listen to arguments for some of them to be included.

Finally, there's the whole conundrum of what constitutes a "great" artist. Innovation, originality, influence on others, craftsmanship, performance, individual voice, longevity, overall impact on the art form, overall impact on society . . . there are many qualities to consider. And, since I'm interested in exploring the idea of American artists, how much of the soil and spirit of the country do they convey? There's no easy answer. I've probably leaned more towards people who had an impact on the art form or overall cultural landscape. Someone else making a similar list might lean in another direction.

So, now that I've rambled on (oops, sorry, Led Zeppelin is British), let's get on with the list. After a few days of mulling things over, making lists and re-making them, here's my Top 20 Greatest American Rock and Roll Musicians.

The Holy Trinity

The first thing I realized when working on various versions of this list, was that there are three artists who belong in a realm of their own - the Holy Trinity of Rock and Roll, if you will. Everyone else on the list basically comes out of these three artists. They're the faces that belong on Mount Rock-n-Roll-More.

1. Bob Dylan - Without Dylan, there is no modern rock and roll. It's that simple. Chuck Berry did all the early heavy lifting, and white-boy Elvis got all the early glory, but as great as those two were, by the early 1960s, their rock and roll revolution had led to . . . Pat Boone. Dylan landed on the scene like an atomic bomb, exploding the form and re-creating it into something almost entirely new. Suddenly, rock and roll could be about anything. The skinny Jewish kid from Hibbing, Minnesota, rolled in on a dusty road, carrying the ghosts of Woody Guthrie (folk), Hank Williams (country), Big Bill Broonzy (blues) and Arthur Rimbaud (French poetry). In the end, it was the Rimbaud element, the poetic sensibility, that changed rock and roll, and changed popular music in general. The world was now wide open. We were no longer held captive by banal and endless variations on frustrated love. Now, we could sing "Masters of War" in the shower if we wanted. If Bob doesn't hook up with the Beatles at Hotel Delmonico in New York City in August 1964 to smoke a little weed, and Lennon doesn't try to start writing some Dylan-ish tunes, the Fab four's entire oeuvre might consist of endless versions of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Dylan also may have captured the deeper mystical or mythological aspect of America more than any other rock musician. "All Along the Watchtower" takes the American west and places into an historical context, transforming it into a Biblical or eternal landscape. We, as a people, are now a part of the long tragi-comic story of humanity. Bob belongs in the same league as George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and other giants of American music in the 20th century. He's our Beethoven, our Picasso, our Tolstoy.

2. Jimi Hendrix - The amazing thing is . . . Jimi Hendrix only made three LPs during his lifetime. If he had lived, what might he have accomplished? Think of all that bad music he would've made in the 1980s, with cheesy synthesizers and electronic drums! Think of the late night chats with Jay Leno! The Budweiser commercials! The duet with Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl Halftime show! It's enough to make your head spin. Ah, Jimi . . . He was our shooting star. A marvel among marvels. We all play air-guitar wanting to be like him. (Except for the choking on his own vomit part.) As Dylan revolutionized the lyrical content and overall mind's eye of rock and roll, Hendrix revolutionized the musical landscape.

3. Elvis Presley - I'm only a moderate fan, but the truth is, there's no escape from Elvis Presley. Hell, even Dylan said he wanted to be Elvis. Yeah, he took music from the blacks and made it easier for the whites to listen to, but so did George Gershwin and Benny Goodman. That's what we do in this country, right or wrong. And, he's ultimately the biggest STAR of American rock and roll. In fact, Elvis probably did more than any other person to put this new music on the map. He was the public face of rock and roll. All those bloody movies. The television specials. The tabloids. He's the Great (White) American Godhead to Marilyn Monroe's Great (White) American Goddess. Not my types, to be sure, but that's the way it is. It's Elvis' country - the rest of us are just illegal immigrants.

Two Too Hard to Place

4. Velvet Underground - The Velvets. What can I say? If Dylan opened the flood gates for serious rock lyrics, and Jimi did the same for the musical aspect, The Velvets sort of changed the course of the whole river. They gave rock and roll a cool, intellectual edge that balanced with the primordial earthiness of Dylan and Hendrix. An urban sidewalk, New York, art-scene sensibility. Do Talking Heads evolve without the Velvets? I don't know. Was I wrong in saying that everyone else springs from the first three titans? If so, then the Velvets are the other procreators of rock music. And while it's not really fair, considering his own solo career, I lump Lou Reed in here.

5. Chuck Berry - Maybe Chuck really belongs in the Holy Trinity instead of Elvis. I mean, really, isn't he the granddaddy of it all? As the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says: "While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together." And then there was his influence. When groups like the Beatles and Rolling Stones started out, they weren't recording Elvis Presley hits, they were recording Chuck Berry songs. The Stones included four on their first three albums: "Carol," "You Can't Catch Me," "Around and Around," and "Talkin' 'Bout You." The Beatles recorded "Rock and Roll Music" and "Roll Over Beethoven." When all is said and done, and people 100 years from now look back at the rock and roll era, maybe Chuck will be recognized more. Because he's never gotten enough credit in his own lifetime.

Rounding Out the Top 11

To be honest, placing people on the list from this point forward was kind of a joke. I moved names up and down several times, depending on my mood. One of you could say that #17 should be #7 and you'd probably be right. Here's the version I had when I got tired of the process. It's a reflection of personal preference, in the end, more than a considered analysis.

6. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Say what you will, but when I'm driving down the highway on a hot summer day, amid all the vital sexual greenery and brown rugged dirt of our country, with the railroad tracks gleaming in the sun, I'm not sure another band sounds as deeply American or as perfectly rock and roll as Creedence Clearwater Revival. That chooglin' groove. That delirious, dirty, fuzzy guitar work. Fogerty's backwoods howl. "I can remember the Fourth of July, running through the backwoods bare." Yeah, CCR doesn't strike me the same way walking down the streets of Manhattan as they did driving through the American West, but I love that sound. I still remember listening to "Green River" while driving through Green River, Utah. I have been to "Lodi," though, thank God, I never got stuck there. And then there's "Fortunate Son," an epic American novel in two minutes and 21 seconds.

7. Tom Waits - If Dylan is the Tolstoy of America, then Tom Waits is our Dostoevsky. Our Chekhov. Our slightly scary uncle who might have been in the Navy, probably in the Special Forces, stationed for a while in Shanghai, who now lives alone in a bus in the woods, you think, you're not really sure, but he always smells like tobacco and just a hint of rubbing alcohol. He scares the children. But once he leaves, you realize he's always been your favorite uncle. Deeply, deeply American. I mean, America underneath all that rusty junk out in the tall grass behind the abandoned Fina station. With the earthworms and the June bugs. And, if I may say so, the second or third greatest rock poet after Dylan himself.

8. The Byrds - I mulled over my choice of the Byrds for a long time. I mean, what a weird group, with so many lineup changes over the years that they could fill up Madison Square Garden - just with members of the band. But, really, they were just so important in the incubation period of rock music. 1965. They made Dylan go electric before he himself had plugged in, recording "Mr. Tambourine Man" as a rock song, which knocked Dylan out so much that he quickly followed suit in his own work. They introduced George Harrison to the sitar, which ultimately transformed the Beatles' aural landscape. The Byrds were, in fact, supposed to be our Beatles at one point, and for a brief shining moment - "Eight Miles High" - they seemed like they might be. I mean, they made a kick-ass rock song based on John Coltrane's great jazz piece "India." For a year or two, they acted as a bridge between Dylan and the Beatles. Alas, all those competing egos shattered the original group apart. Still, McGuinn, David Crosby, Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, some great names passed through this unit and left behind a lasting imprint.

9. The Grateful Dead - However good any of the other musicians on this list are, none of them actually engendered a new religion. The Dead are like the Mormons of Rock and Roll. Yeah, the whole thing might be a little nutty, but it's truly an American religion. And they brought in so many different elements to the mix - acid rock, country, folk, bluegrass, jazz improvisation, and spacious, rocked out solos. A rustic spirituality. The endless road. The West Coast. A psychedelic circus. A rock and roll corporation. Garcia & Co. encompassed much that is America.

10. Steely Dan - Steely Dan?!?! Yeah. Because they proved that rock and roll could be wide enough to embrace Bard College poets, William Burroughs, and Thelonious Monk. And their wicked New York wit and smart sarcasm (before they left for the easy life of LA) showed up later in the form of punk. (Go back and listen to "Show Biz Kids.") They could rock when they needed. And they could roll. (And a lot of rolling they did.) A few years ago, I started listening again to their 1970s work and was impressed by how well it held up over time. Mainly, I think, because it was so intelligent. I won't vouch for anything post-Aja.

11. Bruce Springsteen - Yeah, some people would place him higher on the list. It's funny - I have a lot of respect for Springsteen, but I've just never really connected. A couple of years ago, I borrowed several of his albums and set out to burn some CDs. "I'm finally going to get into this guy," I said to myself. But after a couple of weeks, I was basically down to a Greatest Hits compilation. Then, I had to return the discs and nothing got recorded. It's probably a personal character flaw (I have many), but I think Springsteen's music, apart from some of his big hits, is . . . well . . . kind of bland. It's fine rock and roll. I always enjoy hearing his songs when they come on the radio. But I just don't find him that interesting. He's been called a powerful mix of Elvis and Dylan, but I'm not sure how much he evolved beyond either of them. (Actually, he never even reached the level of Dylan.) He's certainly very "American." And he's probably one of the greatest live performers of the last few decades. But how has he changed or added to the art form? I can't answer that. And it's a big question. Maybe someone else can explain it to me.

The Best of the Rest

12. The Ramones
13. The Doors
14. Nirvana
15. The Allman Brothers
16. Talking Heads
17. Janis Joplin
18. Buddy Holly
19. Sonic Youth

20. There is no #20. I could put a dozen names in this slot. What about Jerry Lee Lewis? Little Richard? Roy Orbison? Roy's pretty great. Maybe he's #18 and Buddy Holly belongs in this paragraph. What about REM, Iggy & the Stooges, Prince, Frank Zappa (is he rock and roll?), or Lynyrd Skynyrd? Yo La Tengo (a personal favorite)? Or Black Sabbath? Metallica? Shouldn't there be some heavy metal here? Or what about Aerosmith? Or Fugazi, a band that never gets any attention?

Or the Beach Boys. Most people would include them on a list like this, and they would probably be #4 or #5 or something. But to rock and roll, you have to rock at some point. I don't know if they ever did. Influential? Yes, beyond a doubt. I'm just being stubborn, I know. But it's America. If you think the Beach Boys are one of our greatest rock and roll groups, then make your own damn list!

What's interesting to me, after working on this, is to see how thin the list looks in comparison to the overall universe of rock and roll. A list missing The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell just doesn't feel right. How many of the Americans I listed would actually belong in the Top 10 Greatest Rock and Roll Musicians of All Time? Three? If you made a list of The Greatest Jazz Musicians of All Time, the first 10 or 20 would all be American. So how did the Brits wind up out-rocking us? La Reina, who lived for a year in London, suggested that it might have something to do with British cynicism, or their sense of irony. Maybe. Perhaps a combination of English music hall and their long folk tradition prepared them for rock and roll. I don't know. It's a bit of a mystery to me.

[See Parts 2 and 3 of my trilogy on American rock and roll: The Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums and The Greatest American Rock and Roll Songs.

Finally, I can't go away without referencing my favorite barroom list of great rock and rollers, delivered by Martin Donovan in Hal Hartley's movie, Simple Men. Enjoy.



In the meantime, I'm gonna put on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and rock out. Start working on my list of Greatest American Rock and Roll Albums.

Texas girl rocks out . . .

The Greatest Guitarists of All Time

You'd think at this point in my life, I wouldn't be such a sucker for yet another bloody list of the "Greatest [BLANK] of All Time." But while age has increased the size of my belly, it doesn't seem to have brought me a commensurate amount of wisdom. I always look at the lists. And I almost always come away angry and frustrated. Yeah, the Internet has been a great development in the history of humankind, but it has also led to a serious social problem that doesn't get enough coverage - the toxic proliferation of bad list-making. So when Crystal - who's usually such a nice, un-opinionated girl (cough) - recently decided to start some trouble by claiming that Eric Clapton was an "overall better guitarist" than Jimi Hendrix, she linked to a list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." And I, like the fool I am, fell for the bait. I had to know who they were.

The Great Creator Spirit of the Guitar. And, in my mind, an underrated vocalist as well. Just before he died, Jimi was in discussions with Miles Davis to do a jazz album. Oh, what might have been!

To her credit, Crystal linked to the list even though it had Jimi #1 and Eric #4. (Duane Allman was #2 and B.B. King #3.) The list was done by a major corporate magazine that used to cover music a long, long time ago but switched over to Men's Fashions sometime in the 1980s. For some reason [an extensive marketing budget], they still have a reputation for being an authority on music, and their list even has its own entry in Wikipedia. But I'm not linking to them. I simply refuse to empower such an intellectually lazy, artistically unethical, and ultimately disrespectful effort.

Imagine for a moment that someone decides to list "The Greatest Writers of All Time." You think, "Hmm, will Shakespeare be higher than Cervantes? What about Tolstoy vs. Dostoyevsky? Homer? Baudelaire? Toni Morrison? Where will they fall?" Yes, it's a bar game. But it can be an interesting bar game that sparks good discussion and may even teach us something when we come across names we don't know. But when you look at the list, you see that Cervantes, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Homer and Baudelaire aren't even there! What the hell?!?!

That was my reaction, more or less, to Unnamed Corporate Magazine's "Greatest Guitarists of All Time." For one thing, I truly wanted to know how Jimi Hendrix matched up against the likes of Andrés Segovia or Django Reinhardt. Those three have always formed a kind of holy trinity of guitar-playing in my mind. How interesting to debate their various unique styles and abilities. And what about Eric Calpton vs. Paco de Lucía? Or Jimmy Page vs. Wes Montgomery?

Andrés Segovia, moments before squirting lighter fluid all over his guitar and setting it on fire.

But no. This was really just a list of the "Greatest Rock and Blues Guitarists, According to Our Limited Knowledge, Narrow Mindset, and Necessary Marketing Strategies." So, screw the classical guitarists, the jazz guys, the flamenco guitarists, the country-folk guys, the Brazilians, etc. But a list of "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" that doesn't include Andrés Segovia and Django Rheinhardt is like a list of "Greatest Artists of All Time" that doesn't include Rembrandt and Picasso. What's the damn point?!?!

The simple solution would be to drop the "Greatest" tag and simply say "Our Favorite Guitarists." Or, heck, just say the "Greatest Rock and Blues Guitarists of All Time." If you can't make an effort to produce a reasonable list of the greatest artists in a field, then why pretend you did? But then people like me wouldn't bother looking at it, would they? So, I help foster this disease by being unable to refrain from clicking on the link.

Perhaps the editors of such lists are afraid their readers won't know enough names if they put together a real "Greatest" list. Rather than try and expand an audience's knowledge of the world by introducing them to various important but lesser known figures, they prefer to keep their readers in a smaller, thinner, marketing-driven universe.

And what of my own compulsion to look at these lists? What do I long for so desperately that keeps me going back to them, even though I'm constantly disappointed and infuriated? Order in a chaotic world, perhaps? "Please, help me! There's war and famine and poverty and cancer! Tell me if Jimi or Django is #1!!! Help me sort out the confusion between Julian Bream, Mick Ronson and Chet Atkins!" If I can't figure out what I'm doing on this planet, I at least want to know that my gut instincts are right and that Charlie Christian was a more significant guitarist than the dude from Foreigner.

Django Reinhardt. As a teenager, he was injured in a fire in his gypsy caravan, leaving him with only two functioning fingers on his fret hand. He could still outplay everybody else.

Also, maybe I'm seeking approval, wanting to belong to the tribe. Is that why I get angry when I see that THE PUBLISHED LIST is so different from my own inner list? I might act intellectually smug and superior and call the list-makers idiots, but wasn't I a little shaky and upset when I read that viewers of the UK's Channel 4 had chosen Grease as "The Greatest Musical of All Time"? Was there something wrong with me? I hadn't even considered Grease a possibility! Maybe my values were skewed because I thought Singin' in the Rain or The Band Wagon were infinitely better. Oh my G-d, what if I'm a freak? At least tell me my own choices are somewhere on the list! What happens if all my favorites don't make the grade?! [Luckily, American Film Institute did choose Singin' in the Rain as the Greatest Musical, restoring - for the moment, at least - my shattered sense of belonging.]

Maybe that's why Unnamed Corporate Magazine doesn't even bother mentioning someone like Andrés Segovia. They know the power these lists hold over people like me. Why send some poor, suffering rock-and-roller to an early grave by listing Jimi Hendrix #2 behind a Spanish classical guitarist?

Finally, there's the whole question of why we feel the need to set up false competitions between different musicians, films, writers, etc. What is it in our culture that causes us to name one entity #1 and another, "lesser" entity, #2? Is this a Western trait? Global? It's all a bit odd, isn't it? Which doesn't stop me, of course, from reading one stupid list after another.

Chet Atkins. Married (and later divorced) One Day at a Time star Valerie Bertinelli, fought constantly with bandmate David Lee Roth, and recently entered rehab.

Actually, some people do make an effort. I found another list of "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" that was much more knowledgeable, holistic and respectful. That is to say, it fit my own concept of what a list of Greatest Guitarists should look like. The list-maker(s) even explained how they came up with their rankings:

They were picked for their importance in the guitar world including innovation, respect from other guitarists, influence on both other players as well as on styles of playing, impact, legendary status, and overall importance on shaping the guitar world. Plus for the playing abilities including technique, creativity, versatility, musical depth & expression both in composing & performing, live energy and improv skills, and originality.

So, here's Digital DreamDoor's Top 10 All Time Greatest Guitarists:

1. Andrés Segovia
2. Django Reinhardt
3. Jimi Hendrix
4. Chet Atkins
5. Wes Montgomery
6. T-Bone Walker
7. Charlie Christian
8. B.B. King
9. Robert Johnson
10. Joe Pass

I can quibble with the rankings (Chet Atkins at #4 and Joe Pass at #10 both seem too high to me), but that's part of the fun. At least they got the right names!

Segovia's role in developing the guitar as a serious instrument in the 20th century has to be taken into consideration. Without him, there wouldn't even BE a list of "100 Greatest Guitarists."

I might put Jimi #2, above Django, but it's hard to say. Hendrix always has an advantage over most other guitarists, because he died so young. We never had to hear his bad 1980s albums with electronic drums, or grimace through his Michelob ads, or watch him perform, fat and bald, on his PBS concert with the Boston Pops. He's forever trapped in amber as the sexy, brilliant, guitar god.

I thought it was interesting that Robert Johnson made the top 10 on both lists (#5 and #9). I've always known he was one of the key figures in the history of Blues, but I didn't realize he had such a reputation as a guitarist. That was a discovery for me. guess I'll haveto go back and listen to his recordings again.

Another discovery was Sabicas, listed at #16. I'm ashamed to say that despite living in Spain for 5 years, I had never heard of him. Now I find out he's one of the most important figures in Flamenco. I'm going to go home tonight and drink some vino tinto and bury my head in shame. Que verguenza. But that's one of the great parts of life - sudden and unexpected discoveries.

BTW, if you're a sicko list-lover, Digital DreamDoor has many, many lists of "Greatest" This-and-That in Music.

So, here's the World's Greatest Guitar Hero Andrés Segovia in action.

[Despite rumors, Segovia did NOT record George Harrison's solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," nor was he a member (at least officially) of The Spiders from Mars.]

Alas, Crystal, Eric only came in at #25, behind Paco de Lucía, who was at #21. The only other rock guitarist ahead of Clapton (besides Hendrix) was Jeff Beck at #17. Jimmy Page came in at #29. Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Page. Yawn. The Rock Guitar Pantheon hasn't changed in almost 40 years!!! I have a hard time believing that nobody's improved upon these old farts. Where are the young turks?!

Paco de Lucía's legendary collaboration with flamenco great Camarón de la Isla helped catapult the guitarist to fame.

To my surprise, Tomatito didn't make the list. He was the son of "Tomate" [really!] and played with Camarón de la Isla after Paco split to go on his own. He continues today both in flamenco and nuevo flamenco settings, as well as doing some work in rock and jazz. Guess the "Little Tomato" isn't that good. You decide. Here Tomatito blazes through some flamenco action.

Wes Montgomery shows some of his stuff in "Jingles." Notice that he isn't using a pick. He always played with his thumb.

This film of Django Reinhardt doesn't really show what he could do, but it's a lot of fun anyway.












Tolstoy & Chekhov's Rock and Roll Circus.

The two Russian axe masters gave the original Crosby, Stills and Nash recordings a much heavier, Black Sabbath sound. But creative differences with David Crosby and Stephen Stills led to major tension within the group. Finally, one night, in a coke-induced stupor, Crosby began waving his pistol around at Leo and Anton and screaming that they were just a couple of "commie pinko faggots." Jealous of Leo's attentions towards Joni Mitchell, the drug-addled Crosby then erased the two Russians' guitar licks from the tracks the group had already recorded. The two were later removed ignominously from the album cover.

The following summer, the Russian duo jammed with Clapton, Dostoyevsky and Ginger Baker, but plans for a super group never materialized.