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Elvis Presley
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Elvis Presley (disambiguation).
"Elvis"
and "King of Rock and Roll" redirect here. For other uses, see Elvis
(disambiguation) and King of Rock and Roll (disambiguation).
This
article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please
consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding
subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (June
2023)
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Presley in a publicity photograph for the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock
Born Elvis Aaron Presley[a]
January 8, 1935
Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S.
Died August 16, 1977 (aged 42)
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Cause of death Cardiac arrest
Resting place Graceland, Memphis
35°2′46″N 90°1′23″W
Occupations
Singer actor
Works
Albums singles songs recorded
Sun label film and television
Spouse Priscilla Presley
(m. 1967; div. 1973)
Children Lisa Marie Presley
Relatives Riley Keough (granddaughter)
Brandon Presley (second cousin)
Awards
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2018)
Musical career
Genres
Rock and roll pop rockabilly country gospel R&B blues
Instruments
Vocals guitar piano
Years active 1953–1977
Labels
Sun RCA Victor HMV Allied Artists Music Group
Military service[1]
Branch United States Army
Years of service 1958–1960
Rank Sergeant
Unit Headquarters Company, 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor, 3d Armored Division
Awards Good Conduct Medal
Signature
Elvis
Aaron Presley[a] (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often referred to
mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the
"King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant
cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized
interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style,
combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines
during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great
success and initial controversy.
Presley was born in Tupelo,
Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when
he was aged 13. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun
Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of
African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic
guitar, and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill
Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion
of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana
joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA
Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker,
who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA
single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a
number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA would sell ten
million Presley singles. With a series of successful network television
appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure
of the newly popular sound of rock and roll; though his performative
style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African
Americans[6] led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral
well-being of white American youth.[7]
In November 1956, Presley
made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in
1958, he relaunched his recording career two years later with some of
his most commercially successful work. Presley held few concerts,
however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to
making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically
derided. Some of his most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957),
Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). In 1968, following a
seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the
acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended
Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In
1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast
around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. However, years of prescription drug
abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and
Presley died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.
Having
sold roughly 500 million records worldwide, Presley is one of the
best-selling music artists of all time. He was commercially successful
in many genres, including pop, country, rhythm & blues, adult
contemporary, and gospel. He won three Grammy Awards, received the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into
multiple music halls of fame. He also holds several records, including
the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums
charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo
artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any
act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Life and career
1935–1953: early years
Childhood in Tupelo
Present-day
photograph of a whitewashed house, about 15 feet wide. Four banistered
steps in the foreground lead up to a roofed porch that holds a swing
wide enough for two. The front of the house has a door and a
single-paned window. The visible side of the house, about 30 feet long,
has double-paned windows.
Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi
Elvis
Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to
Vernon Presley and Gladys Love (née Smith) Presley in a two-room shotgun
house that his father built for the occasion.[8] Elvis' identical twin
brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was delivered stillborn thirty-five
minutes before him.[9] Presley became close to both parents and formed
an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an
Assembly of God church, where he found his initial musical
inspiration.[10]
A photo of Elvis's parents at the Historic Blue Moon Museum in Verona, Mississippi
Presley's
father was of Irish,[11] German,[12] Scottish, and English origins,[13]
and a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia.[8] Presley's
mother Gladys was Scots-Irish with some Norman French ancestry.[14] She
and the rest of the family believed that her great-great-grandmother,
Morning Dove White, was Cherokee.[15][16][17] This belief was restated
by Elvis's granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017.[18] Elaine Dundy, in her
biography, supports the belief.[19]
Vernon moved from one odd job
to the next, showing little ambition.[20][21] The family often relied
on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938 they lost
their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check. He was
jailed for eight months while Gladys and Elvis moved in with
relatives.[10]
In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at
East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as
"average".[22] He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after
impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country
song "Old Shep" during morning prayers. The contest, held at the
Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, was his
first public performance. The ten-year-old Presley stood on a chair to
reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep". He recalled placing fifth.[23]
A few months later, Presley received his first guitar for his birthday;
he had hoped for something else—by different accounts, either a bicycle
or a rifle.[24][25] Over the following year, he received basic guitar
lessons from two of his uncles and a pastor at the family's church.
Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I
learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was
very shy about it."[26]
In September 1946, Presley entered a new
school, Milam, for sixth grade; he was regarded as a loner. The
following year, he began bringing his guitar to school. He played and
sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played
hillbilly music.[27] Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on
the Tupelo radio station WELO. He was described as "crazy about music"
by Slim's younger brother, who was one of Presley's classmates and often
took him into the station. Slim supplemented Presley's guitar
instruction by demonstrating chord techniques.[28] When his protégé was
aged 12, Slim scheduled him for two on-air performances. Presley was
overcome by stage fright the first time but performed the following
week.[29]
Teenage life in Memphis
In November 1948, the family
moved to Memphis, Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in
rooming houses, they were granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public
housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts.[30] Enrolled at L. C.
Humes High School, Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade.
When his music teacher told him that he had no aptitude for singing, he
brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit, "Keep Them
Cold Icy Fingers Off Me", to prove otherwise. A classmate later recalled
that the teacher "agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she
didn't appreciate his kind of singing".[31] He was usually too shy to
perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him
as a "mama's boy".[32]
In 1950, Presley began practicing guitar
regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson, a neighbor. They and three
other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers, brothers Dorsey and
Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played
frequently around the Courts.[33] That September, Presley began working
as an usher at Loew's State Theater.[34] Other jobs followed at
Precision Tool, another stint at Loew's, and MARL Metal Products.[35]
During
his junior year, Presley began to stand out more among his classmates,
largely because of his appearance: he grew his sideburns and styled his
hair with rose oil and Vaseline. In his free time, he would head down to
Beale Street, the heart of Memphis' thriving blues scene, and gaze
longingly at the wild, flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers.
By his senior year, he was wearing those clothes.[36] Overcoming his
reticence about performing outside the Courts, he competed in Humes'
Annual "Minstrel" Show in April 1953. Singing and playing guitar, he
opened with "Till I Waltz Again with You", a recent hit for Teresa
Brewer. Presley recalled that the performance did much for his
reputation:
I wasn't popular in school ... I failed
music—only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent
show ... when I came onstage, I heard people kind of rumbling and
whispering and so forth, 'cause nobody knew I even sang. It was amazing
how popular I became in school after that.[37]
Presley, who
received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and
played by ear. He also visited record stores that provided jukeboxes and
listening booths to customers. He knew all of Hank Snow's songs,[38]
and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest
Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills.[39] The
Southern gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a
significant influence on his ballad-singing style.[40][41] Presley was a
regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown,
where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the
influence of African American spiritual music.[42] He adored the music
of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.[39]
Presley
listened to regional radio stations, such as WDIA, that played what were
then called "race records": spirituals, blues, and the modern,
backbeat-heavy sound of rhythm and blues.[43] Like some of his peers, he
may have attended blues venues only on nights designated for
exclusively white audiences—a necessity in the segregated South.[44]
Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African-American
musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas.[45][46] B.B. King
recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both
used to frequent Beale Street.[47] By the time he graduated from high
school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his
future.[48][49]
1953–1956: first recordings
Sam Phillips and Sun Records
See also: List of songs recorded by Elvis Presley on the Sun label
Elvis in a tuxedo
Presley in a Sun Records promotional photograph, 1954
In
August 1953, Presley checked into the offices of Memphis Recording
Service, the company run by Sam Phillips before he started Sun Records.
He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided
acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". He
later claimed that he intended the record as a birthday gift for his
mother, or that he was merely interested in what he "sounded like",
although there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a
nearby general store. Biographer Peter Guralnick argued that Presley
chose Sun in the hope of being discovered. Asked by receptionist Marion
Keisker what kind of singer he was, Presley responded, "I sing all
kinds." When she pressed him on who he sounded like, he repeatedly
answered, "I don't sound like nobody." After he recorded, Phillips asked
Keisker to note down the young man's name, which she did along with her
own commentary: "Good ballad singer. Hold."[50]
In January 1954,
Presley cut a second acetate at Sun—"I'll Never Stand in Your Way" and
"It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You"—but again nothing came of it.[51]
Not long after, he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet, the
Songfellows, explaining to his father, "They told me I couldn't
sing."[52] Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down
because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time.[53] In
April, Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck
driver.[54] His friend Ronnie Smith, after playing a few local gigs with
him, suggested he contact Eddie Bond, leader of Smith's professional
band, which had an opening for a vocalist. Bond rejected him after a
tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never
going to make it as a singer".[55]
Phillips, meanwhile, was
always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience
the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused. As Keisker
reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white
man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion
dollars.'"[56] In June, he acquired a demo recording by Jimmy Sweeney of
a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit Presley. The
teenaged singer came by the studio but was unable to do it justice.
Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew.
He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local
musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player
Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording
session.[57]
"That's All Right"
0:17
Presley transformed not
only the sound but the emotion of the song, turning what had been
written as a "lament for a lost love into a satisfied declaration of
independence."[58]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
The
session, held the evening of July 5, proved entirely unfruitful until
late in the night. As they were about to abort and go home, Presley took
his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number, Arthur Crudup's
"That's All Right". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started
singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill
picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started
playing with them. Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open
... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And we said,
'We don't know.' 'Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to
start, and do it again.'" Phillips quickly began taping; this was the
sound he had been looking for.[59]
Three days later, popular
Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam Phillips) played
"That's All Right" on his Red, Hot, and Blue show.[60] Listeners began
phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was. The interest was such
that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the remaining two
hours of his show. Interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what
high school he attended to clarify his color for the many callers who
had assumed that he was black.[61] During the next few days, the trio
recorded a bluegrass song, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky", again
in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged echo effect that Sam
Phillips dubbed "slapback". A single was pressed with "That's All Right"
on the A-side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the reverse.[62]
Early live performances and RCA Victor contract
The
trio played publicly for the first time at the Bon Air club on July 17,
1954—Presley still sporting his child-size guitar.[63] At the end of
the month, they appeared at the Overton Park Shell, with Slim Whitman
headlining. Here Elvis pioneered 'Rubber Legs', his signature style
dance movement that he is best known for.[64][65] A combination of his
strong response to rhythm and nervousness at playing before a large
crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed: his wide-cut pants
emphasized his movements, causing young women in the audience to start
screaming.[66] Moore recalled, "During the instrumental parts, he would
back off from the mike and be playing and shaking, and the crowd would
just go wild".[67] Black, a natural showman, whooped and rode his bass,
hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as "really a wild
sound, like a jungle drum or something".[67]
Soon after, Moore
and Black left their old band, the Starlite Wranglers, to play with
Presley regularly, and disc jockey/promoter Bob Neal became the trio's
manager. From August through October, they played frequently at the
Eagle's Nest club, a dance venue on the second floor of the Clearpool
recreation complex in Memphis. When Presley played his fifteen-minute
sets, teenagers rushed from the pool to fill the club, then left again
as the house western swing band resumed.[68] Presley quickly grew more
confident on stage. According to Moore, "His movement was a natural
thing, but he was also very conscious of what got a reaction. He'd do
something one time and then he would expand on it real quick."[69] Amid
these live performances, Presley returned to Sun studio for more
recording sessions.[70] Presley made what would be his only appearance
on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on October 2; after a polite audience
response, Opry manager Jim Denny told Phillips that his singer was "not
bad" but did not suit the program.[71][72]
Louisiana Hayride, radio commercial, and first television performances
In
November 1954, Presley performed on Louisiana Hayride—the Opry's chief,
and more adventurous, rival. The Shreveport-based show was broadcast to
198 radio stations in 28 states. Presley had another attack of nerves
during the first set, which drew a muted reaction. A more composed and
energetic second set inspired an enthusiastic response.[73] House
drummer D. J. Fontana brought a new element, complementing Presley's
movements with accented beats that he had mastered playing in strip
clubs.[74] Soon after the show, the Hayride engaged Presley for a year's
worth of Saturday-night appearances. Trading in his old guitar for $8
(and seeing it promptly dispatched to the garbage), he purchased a
Martin instrument for $175 (equivalent to $1,900 in 2022) and his trio
began playing in new locales, including Houston, Texas, and Texarkana,
Arkansas.[75]
Many fledgling performers, like Minnie Pearl,
Johnny Horton, and Johnny Cash, sang the praises of Louisiana Hayride
sponsor Southern Maid Donuts, including Presley, who developed a
lifelong love of donuts.[76] Presley made his singular product
endorsement commercial for the donut company, which was never released,
recording a radio jingle "in exchange for a box of hot glazed
doughnuts".[77][78] Presley made his first television appearance on the
KSLA-TV television broadcast of Louisiana Hayride. Soon after, he failed
an audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on the CBS television
network. By early 1955, Presley's regular Hayride appearances, constant
touring, and well-received record releases had made him a regional star,
from Tennessee to West Texas.[79][80]
In January, Neal signed a
formal management contract with Presley and brought him to the attention
of Colonel Tom Parker, whom he considered the best promoter in the
music business. Parker, born in the Netherlands, had immigrated
illegally to the U.S. and claimed to be from West Virginia; he had
acquired an honorary colonel's commission from the Louisiana governor
and country singer Jimmie Davis. Having successfully managed the top
country star Eddy Arnold, Parker was working with the new number-one
country singer, Hank Snow. Parker booked Presley on Snow's February
tour.[79][80] When the tour reached Odessa, Texas, a 19-year-old Roy
Orbison saw Presley for the first time: "His energy was incredible, his
instinct was just amazing. ... I just didn't know what to make of it.
There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."[38]
By
August, Sun had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty
and Bill"; on the latest recordings, the trio were joined by a drummer.
Some of the songs, like "That's All Right", were in what one Memphis
journalist described as the "R&B idiom of negro field jazz"; others,
like "Blue Moon of Kentucky", were "more in the country field", "but
there was a curious blending of the two different musics in both".[81]
This blend of styles made it difficult for Presley's music to find radio
airplay. According to Neal, many country-music disc jockeys would not
play it because Presley sounded too much like a black artist and none of
the R&B stations would touch him because "he sounded too much like a
hillbilly."[82] The blend came to be known as "rockabilly". At the
time, Presley was variously billed as "The King of Western Bop", "The
Hillbilly Cat", and "The Memphis Flash".[83]
Presley renewed
Neal's management contract in August 1955, simultaneously appointing
Parker as his special adviser.[84] The group maintained an extensive
touring schedule throughout the second half of the year.[85] Neal
recalled, "It was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis
from the teenaged boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy,
would practically hate him. There were occasions in some towns in Texas
when we'd have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody'd
always try to take a crack at him. They'd get a gang and try to waylay
him or something."[86] The trio became a quartet when Hayride drummer
Fontana joined as a full member. In mid-October, they played a few shows
in support of Bill Haley, whose "Rock Around the Clock" track had been a
number-one hit the previous year. Haley observed that Presley had a
natural feel for rhythm, and advised him to sing fewer ballads.[87]
At
the Country Disc Jockey Convention in early November, Presley was voted
the year's most promising male artist.[88] Several record companies had
by now shown interest in signing him. After three major labels made
offers of up to $25,000, Parker and Phillips struck a deal with RCA
Victor on November 21 to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an
unprecedented $40,000.[89][b] Presley, now aged 20, was legally still a
minor, so his father signed the contract.[90] Parker arranged with the
owners of Hill & Range Publishing, Jean and Julian Aberbach, to
create two entities, Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music, to handle all
the new material recorded by Presley. Songwriters were obliged to forgo
one-third of their customary royalties in exchange for having Presley
perform their compositions.[91][c] By December, RCA had begun to heavily
promote its new singer, and before month's end had reissued many of his
Sun recordings.[94]
1956–1958: commercial breakout and controversy
First national TV appearances and debut album
Billboard magazine advertisement, March 10, 1956
On
January 10, 1956, Presley made his first recordings for RCA in
Nashville.[95] Extending his by-now customary backup of Moore, Black,
Fontana, and Hayride pianist Floyd Cramer—who had been performing at
live club dates with Presley—RCA enlisted guitarist Chet Atkins and
three background singers, including Gordon Stoker of the popular
Jordanaires quartet, to fill in the sound.[96] The session produced the
moody, unusual "Heartbreak Hotel", released as a single on January
27.[95] Parker finally brought Presley to national television, booking
him on CBS's Stage Show for six appearances over two months. The
program, produced in New York City, was hosted on alternate weeks by big
band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. After his first
appearance, on January 28, Presley stayed in town to record at RCA
Victor's New York studio. The sessions yielded eight songs, including a
cover of Carl Perkins' rockabilly anthem "Blue Suede Shoes". In
February, Presley's "I Forgot to Remember to Forget", a Sun recording
initially released the previous August, reached the top of the Billboard
country chart.[97] Neal's contract was terminated, and, on March 2,
Parker became Presley's manager.[98]
RCA released Presley's
self-titled debut album on March 23. Joined by five previously
unreleased Sun recordings, its seven recently recorded tracks were of a
broad variety. There were two country songs and a bouncy pop tune. The
others would centrally define the evolving sound of rock and roll: "Blue
Suede Shoes"—"an improvement over Perkins' in almost every way",
according to critic Robert Hilburn—and three R&B numbers that had
been part of Presley's stage repertoire for some time, covers of Little
Richard, Ray Charles, and The Drifters. As described by Hilburn, these
"were the most revealing of all. Unlike many white artists ... who
watered down the gritty edges of the original R&B versions of songs
in the '50s, Presley reshaped them. He not only injected the tunes with
his own vocal character but also made guitar, not piano, the lead
instrument in all three cases."[99] It became the first rock and roll
album to top the Billboard chart, a position it held for ten weeks.[95]
While Presley was not an innovative guitarist like Moore or contemporary
African American rockers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, cultural historian
Gilbert B. Rodman argued that the album's cover image, "of Elvis having
the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a
crucial role in positioning the guitar ... as the instrument that best
captured the style and spirit of this new music."[100]
Milton Berle Show and "Hound Dog"
Presley signing autographs in Minneapolis in 1956
On
April 3, Presley made the first of two appearances on NBC's The Milton
Berle Show. His performance, on the deck of the USS Hancock in San
Diego, California, prompted cheers and screams from an audience of
sailors and their dates.[101] A few days later, a flight taking Presley
and his band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly
shaken when an engine died and the plane almost went down over
Arkansas.[102] Twelve weeks after its original release, "Heartbreak
Hotel" became Presley's first number-one pop hit. In late April he began
a two-week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las
Vegas Strip.[103] The shows were poorly received by the conservative,
middle-aged hotel guests—"like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne
party", wrote a critic for Newsweek.[104] Amid his Vegas tenure,
Presley, who had serious acting ambitions, signed a seven-year contract
with Paramount Pictures.[105] He began a tour of the Midwest in mid-May,
taking in fifteen cities in as many days.[106] He had attended several
shows by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Vegas and was struck by their
cover of "Hound Dog", a hit in 1953 for blues singer Big Mama Thornton
by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It became the new closing
number of his act.[107]
After a show in La Crosse, Wisconsin, an
urgent message on the letterhead of the local Catholic diocese's
newspaper was sent to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. It warned that
"Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ...
[His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of
teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to
gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm
Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose
abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."[108]
Presley's second
Milton Berle Show appearance came on June 5 at NBC's Hollywood studio,
amid another hectic tour. Milton Berle persuaded Presley to leave his
guitar backstage, advising, "Let 'em see you, son."[109] During the
performance, Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of "Hound Dog"
with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow, grinding version
accentuated with energetic, exaggerated body movements.[109] His
gyrations created a storm of controversy.[110] Television critics were
outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Presley has no
discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that,
consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria
in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body
... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of
the burlesque runway."[111] Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined
that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and
groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis
... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the
kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".[112]
Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation's most popular,
declared Presley "unfit for family viewing".[113] To Presley's
displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the
Pelvis", which he called "one of the most childish expressions I ever
heard, comin' from an adult".[114]
Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearance
Photo of Elvis and Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan and Presley during rehearsals for his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 26, 1956
The
Berle shows drew such high ratings that Presley was booked for a July 1
appearance on NBC's The Steve Allen Show in New York. Allen, no fan of
rock and roll, introduced a "new Elvis" in a white bow tie and black
tails. Presley sang "Hound Dog" for less than a minute to a basset hound
wearing a top hat and bow tie. As described by television historian
Jake Austen, "Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd ... [he]
set things up so that Presley would show his contrition".[115] Allen
later wrote that he found Presley's "strange, gangly, country-boy
charisma, his hard-to-define cuteness, and his charming eccentricity
intriguing" and simply worked him into the customary "comedy fabric" of
his program.[116] Just before the final rehearsal for the show, Presley
told a reporter, "I'm holding down on this show. I don't want to do
anything to make people dislike me. I think TV is important so I'm going
to go along, but I won't be able to give the kind of show I do in a
personal appearance."[117] Presley would refer back to the Allen show as
the most ridiculous performance of his career.[118] Later that night,
he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling, a popular local television show.
Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism to which
he was being subjected, Presley responded, "No, I haven't, I don't feel
like I'm doing anything wrong. ... I don't see how any type of music
would have any bad influence on people when it's only music. ... I mean,
how would rock 'n' roll music make anyone rebel against their
parents?"[112]
The next day, Presley recorded "Hound Dog", along
with "Any Way You Want Me" and "Don't Be Cruel". The Jordanaires sang
harmony, as they had on The Steve Allen Show; they would work with
Presley through the 1960s. A few days later, Presley made an outdoor
concert appearance in Memphis, at which he announced, "You know, those
people in New York are not gonna change me none. I'm gonna show you what
the real Elvis is like tonight."[119] In August, a judge in
Jacksonville, Florida, ordered Presley to tame his act. Throughout the
following performance, he largely kept still, except for wiggling his
little finger suggestively in mockery of the order.[120] The single
pairing "Don't Be Cruel" with "Hound Dog" ruled the top of the charts
for eleven weeks—a mark that would not be surpassed for thirty-six
years.[121] Recording sessions for Presley's second album took place in
Hollywood during the first week of September. Leiber and Stoller, the
writers of "Hound Dog", contributed "Love Me".[122]
Allen's show
with Presley had, for the first time, beaten CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show
in the ratings. Sullivan, despite his June pronouncement, booked Presley
for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.[123] The first, on
September 9, 1956, was seen by approximately 60 million viewers—a record
82.6 percent of the television audience.[124] Actor Charles Laughton
hosted the show, filling in while Sullivan was recovering from a car
accident.[113] Presley appeared in two segments that night from CBS
Television City in Los Angeles. According to legend, Presley was shot
only from the waist up. Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with
his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley "got some kind of device
hanging down below the crotch of his pants—so when he moves his legs
back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. ... I think it's a
Coke bottle. ... We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a
family show!"[125] Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, "As for his
gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots."[123] In
fact, Presley was shown head-to-toe in the first and second shows.
Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut, with
leg-concealing closeups when he danced, the studio audience reacted in
customary style: screaming.[126][127] Presley's performance of his
forthcoming single, the ballad "Love Me Tender", prompted a
record-shattering million advance orders.[128] More than any other
single event, it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that
made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented
proportions.[113]
Accompanying Presley's rise to fame, a cultural
shift was taking place that he both helped inspire and came to
symbolize. The historian Marty Jezer wrote that Presley began the
"biggest pop craze" since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra and brought
rock and roll to mainstream culture: "As Presley set the artistic pace,
other artists followed. ... Presley, more than anyone else, gave the
young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified
generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated
youth culture."[129]
Crazed crowds and film debut
Elvis performing on stage
Presley performing live at the Mississippi-Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo, September 26, 1956
"We're gonna do a sad song ..."
0:30
Presley's
definition of rock and roll included a sense of humor—here, during his
second Sullivan appearance, he introduces one of his signature numbers.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
The
audience response at Presley's live shows became increasingly fevered.
Moore recalled, "He'd start out, 'You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog,'
and they'd just go to pieces. They'd always react the same way. There'd
be a riot every time."[130] At the two concerts he performed in
September at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, fifty National
Guardsmen were added to the police detail to ensure that the crowd
would not cause a ruckus.[131] Elvis, Presley's second RCA album, was
released in October and quickly rose to number one on the billboard. The
album includes "Old Shep", which he sang at the talent show in 1945,
and which now marked the first time he played piano on an RCA session.
According to Guralnick, one can hear "in the halting chords and the
somewhat stumbling rhythm both the unmistakable emotion and the equally
unmistakable valuing of emotion over technique."[132] Assessing the
musical and cultural impact of Presley's recordings from "That's All
Right" through Elvis, rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that "these records,
more than any others, contain the seeds of what rock & roll was, has
been and most likely what it may foreseeably become."[133]
Presley
returned to The Ed Sullivan Show at its main studio in New York, hosted
this time by its namesake, on October 28. After the performance, crowds
in Nashville and St. Louis burned him in effigy.[113] His first motion
picture, Love Me Tender, was released on November 21. Though he was not
top-billed, the film's original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed to
capitalize on his latest number-one record: "Love Me Tender" had hit the
top of the charts earlier that month. To further take advantage of
Presley's popularity, four musical numbers were added to what was
originally a straight acting role. The film was panned by critics but
did very well at the box office.[105] Presley would receive top billing
on every subsequent film he made.[134]
On December 4, Presley
dropped into Sun Records, where Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were
recording, and had an impromptu jam session along with Johnny Cash.
Though Phillips no longer had the right to release any Presley material,
he made sure that the session was captured on tape. The results, none
officially released for twenty-five years, became known as the "Million
Dollar Quartet" recordings.[135] The year ended with a front-page story
in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Presley merchandise had
brought in $22 million on top of his record sales,[136] and Billboard's
declaration that he had placed more songs in the top 100 than any other
artist since records were first charted.[137] In his first full year at
RCA Victor, then the record industry's largest company, Presley had
accounted for over fifty percent of the label's singles sales.[128]
Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft notice
Presley
made his third and final Ed Sullivan Show appearance on January 6,
1957—on this occasion indeed shot only down to the waist. Some
commentators have claimed that Parker orchestrated an appearance of
censorship to generate publicity.[127][138] In any event, as critic
Greil Marcus describes, Presley "did not tie himself down. Leaving
behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows, he stepped
out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl. From the
make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, the overwhelmingly
sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik,
with all stops out."[113] To close, displaying his range and defying
Sullivan's wishes, Presley sang a gentle black spiritual, "Peace in the
Valley". At the end of the show, Sullivan declared Presley "a real
decent, fine boy".[139] Two days later, the Memphis draft board
announced that Presley would be classified 1-A and would probably be
drafted sometime that year.[140]
Each of the three Presley
singles released in the first half of 1957 went to number one: "Too
Much", "All Shook Up", and "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear". Already an
international star, he was attracting fans even where his music was not
officially released. Under the headline "Presley Records a Craze in
Soviet", The New York Times reported that pressings of his music on
discarded X-ray plates were commanding high prices in Leningrad.[141]
Between film shoots and recording sessions, Presley purchased an 18-room
mansion, Graceland, on March 19, 1957, for the amount of $102,500. The
mansion, which was about 9 miles (14 km) south of downtown Memphis,[142]
was for himself and his parents.[143][144] Before the purchase, Elvis
recorded Loving You—the soundtrack to his second film, which was
released in July. It was his third straight number-one album. The title
track was written by Leiber and Stoller, who were then retained to write
four of the six songs recorded at the sessions for Jailhouse Rock,
Presley's next film. The songwriting team effectively produced the
Jailhouse sessions and developed a close working relationship with
Presley, who came to regard them as his "good-luck charm".[145] "He was
fast," said Leiber. "Any demo you gave him he knew by heart in ten
minutes."[146] The title track became another number-one hit, as was the
Jailhouse Rock EP.[147]
Elvis embraces Judy Tyler
Presley and costar Judy Tyler in the trailer for Jailhouse Rock, released in October 1957
Presley
undertook three brief tours during the year, continuing to generate a
crazed audience response.[148] A Detroit newspaper suggested that "the
trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you're liable to get
killed".[149] Villanova students pelted the singer with eggs in
Philadelphia,[149] and in Vancouver the crowd rioted after the end of
the show, destroying the stage.[150] Frank Sinatra, who had inspired
both the swooning and screaming of teenage girls in the 1940s, condemned
the new musical phenomenon. In a magazine article, he decried rock and
roll as "brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious. ... It fosters almost
totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells
phoney and false. It is sung, played and written, for the most part, by
cretinous goons. ... This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore."[151]
Asked for a response, Presley said, "I admire the man. He has a right to
say what he wants to say. He is a great success and a fine actor, but I
think he shouldn't have said it. ... This is a trend, just the same as
he faced when he started years ago."[152]
Leiber and Stoller were
again in the studio for the recording of Elvis' Christmas Album. Toward
the end of the session, they wrote a song on the spot at Presley's
request: "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", an innuendo-laden blues.[153]
The holiday release stretched Presley's string of number-one albums to
four and would become the best-selling Christmas album ever in the
United States,[154][155] with eventual sales of over 20 million
worldwide.[156] After the session, Moore and Black—drawing only modest
weekly salaries, sharing in none of Presley's massive financial
success—resigned. Though they were brought back on a per diem basis a
few weeks later, it was clear that they had not been part of Presley's
inner circle for some time.[157]
On December 20, Presley received
his draft notice. He was granted a deferment to finish the forthcoming
film King Creole, in which $350,000 had already been invested by
Paramount and producer Hal Wallis. A couple of weeks into the new year,
"Don't", another Leiber and Stoller tune, became Presley's tenth
number-one seller. It had been only twenty-one months since "Heartbreak
Hotel" had brought him to the top for the first time. Recording sessions
for the King Creole soundtrack were held in Hollywood in mid-January
1958. Leiber and Stoller provided three songs and were again on hand,
but it would be the last time Presley and the duo worked closely
together.[158] As Stoller later recalled, Presley's manager and
entourage sought to wall him off: "He was removed. ... They kept him
separate."[159] A brief soundtrack session on February 11 marked another
ending—it was the final occasion on which Black was to perform with
Presley.[160] He died in 1965.[161]
1958–1960: military service and mother's death
Main article: Military career of Elvis Presley
Elvis being sworn into the US Army
Presley being sworn into the Army on March 24, 1958, at Fort Chaffee
On
March 24, 1958, Presley was drafted into the United States Army at Fort
Chaffee in Arkansas. His arrival was a major media event. Hundreds of
people descended on Presley as he stepped from the bus; photographers
then accompanied him into the installation.[162] Presley announced that
he was looking forward to his military service, saying that he did not
want to be treated any differently from anyone else: "The Army can do
anything it wants with me."[163]
Between March 28 and September
17, 1958, Presley completed basic and advanced military training at Fort
Hood in Texas, where he was temporarily assigned to Company A, 2d
Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor. During the two weeks' leave between
his basic and advanced training in early June, he recorded five songs in
Nashville.[164] In early August, Presley's mother was diagnosed with
hepatitis, and her condition rapidly worsened. Presley was granted
emergency leave to visit her and arrived in Memphis on August 12. Two
days later, she died of heart failure at age 46. Presley was devastated
and never the same;[165][166] their relationship had remained extremely
close—even into his adulthood, they would use baby talk with each other
and Presley would address her with pet names.[4]
Elvis Presley poses for the camera during his military service at a US base in Germany.
Presley, wearing the 3d Armored Division Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, poses atop a tank at Ray Barracks
On
October 1, 1958, Presley was assigned to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion,
32d Armor, 3d Armored Division, at Ray Barracks, West Germany, where he
served as an armor intelligence specialist.[1] On November 27, he was
promoted to private first class and on June 1, 1959, to specialist
fourth class. While on maneuvers, Presley was introduced to amphetamines
by another soldier. He became "practically evangelical about their
benefits", not only for energy but for "strength" and weight loss, and
many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging.[167] The Army
also introduced Presley to karate,[168] which he studied seriously,
training with Jürgen Seydel.[169][170] It became a lifelong interest,
which he later included in his live performances.[171][172][173] Fellow
soldiers have attested to Presley's wish to be seen as an able, ordinary
soldier despite his fame, and to his generosity. He donated his Army
pay to charity, purchased television sets for the base, and bought an
extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit.[174] Presley was
promoted to sergeant on February 11, 1960.[1]
While in Bad
Nauheim, Presley, aged 24 at the time, met 14-year-old Priscilla
Beaulieu. Priscilla said that due to their age difference when they met,
he told her: "Why, you’re just a baby.”[175] They would eventually
marry after a seven-and-a-half-year courtship. In her autobiography,
Priscilla said that Presley was concerned that his 24-month spell in the
military would ruin his career. In Special Services, he would have been
able to give musical performances and remain in touch with the public,
but Parker had convinced him that to gain popular respect, he should
serve his country as a regular soldier.[176] Media reports echoed
Presley's concerns about his career, but RCA producer Steve Sholes and
Freddy Bienstock of Hill and Range had carefully prepared for his
two-year hiatus. Armed with a substantial amount of unreleased material,
they kept up a regular stream of successful releases.[177] Between his
induction and discharge, Presley had ten top 40 hits, including "Wear My
Ring Around Your Neck", the bestselling "Hard Headed Woman", and "One
Night" in 1958, and "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" and the
number-one "A Big Hunk o' Love" in 1959.[178] RCA also generated four
albums compiling previously issued material during this period, most
successfully Elvis' Golden Records (1958), which hit number three on the
LP chart.[179]
1960–1968: focus on films
See also: Elvis Presley on film and television
Elvis Is Back
"It's Now or Never"
0:21
Presley
broke new stylistic ground and displayed his vocal range with this
number-one hit. The quasi-operatic ballad ends with Presley "soaring up
to an incredible top G sharp."[180]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Presley
returned to the U.S. on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged
three days later.[181] The train that carried him from New Jersey to
Tennessee was mobbed all the way, and Presley was called upon to appear
at scheduled stops to please his fans.[182] On the night of March 20, he
entered RCA's Nashville studio to cut tracks for a new album along with
a single, "Stuck on You", which was rushed into release and swiftly
became a number-one hit.[183] Another Nashville session two weeks later
yielded a pair of his bestselling singles, the ballads "It's Now or
Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", along with the rest of Elvis Is
Back! The album features several songs described by Greil Marcus as full
of Chicago blues "menace, driven by Presley's own super-miked acoustic
guitar, brilliant playing by Scotty Moore, and demonic sax work from
Boots Randolph. Elvis' singing wasn't sexy, it was pornographic."[184]
As a whole, the record "conjured up the vision of a performer who could
be all things", according to music historian John Robertson: "a
flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold; a tempestuous, dangerous
lover; a gutbucket blues singer; a sophisticated nightclub entertainer;
[a] raucous rocker".[185] Released only days after recording was
complete, it reached number two on the album chart.[186][187]
Presley with Juliet Prowse in G.I. Blues
Presley
returned to television on May 12 as a guest on The Frank Sinatra Timex
Special—ironic for both stars, given Sinatra's earlier excoriation of
rock and roll. Also known as Welcome Home Elvis, the show had been taped
in late March, the only time all year Presley performed in front of an
audience. Parker secured an unheard-of $125,000 fee for eight minutes of
singing. The broadcast drew an enormous viewership.[188]
G.I.
Blues, the soundtrack to Presley's first film since his return, was a
number-one album in October. His first LP of sacred material, His Hand
in Mine, followed two months later; it reached number 13 on the U.S. pop
chart and number 3 in the United Kingdom, remarkable figures for a
gospel album. In February 1961, Presley performed two shows for a
benefit event in Memphis, on behalf of twenty-four local charities.
During a luncheon preceding the event, RCA presented him with a plaque
certifying worldwide sales of over 75 million records.[189] A
twelve-hour Nashville session in mid-March yielded nearly all of
Presley's next studio album, Something for Everybody.[190] As described
by John Robertson, it exemplifies the Nashville sound, the restrained,
cosmopolitan style that would define country music in the 1960s.
Presaging much of what was to come from Presley himself over the next
half-decade, the album is largely "a pleasant, unthreatening pastiche of
the music that had once been Elvis' birthright".[191] It would be his
sixth number-one LP. Another benefit concert, raising money for a Pearl
Harbor memorial, was staged on March 25 in Hawaii. It was to be
Presley's last public performance for seven years.[192]
Lost in Hollywood
Parker
had by now pushed Presley into a heavy filmmaking schedule, focused on
formulaic, modestly budgeted musical comedies. Presley initially
insisted on pursuing higher roles, but when two films in a more dramatic
vein—Flaming Star (1960) and Wild in the Country (1961)—were less
commercially successful, he reverted to the formula. Among the
twenty-seven films he made during the 1960s, there were a few further
exceptions.[193] His films were almost universally panned; critic Andrew
Caine dismissed them as a "pantheon of bad taste".[194] Nonetheless,
they were virtually all profitable. Hal Wallis, who produced nine of
them, declared, "A Presley picture is the only sure thing in
Hollywood."[195]
Of Presley's films in the 1960s, fifteen were
accompanied by soundtrack albums and another five by soundtrack EPs. The
films' rapid production and release schedules—Presley frequently
starred in three a year—affected his music. According to Jerry Leiber,
the soundtrack formula was already evident before Presley left for the
Army: "three ballads, one medium-tempo [number], one up-tempo, and one
break blues boogie".[196] As the decade wore on, the quality of the
soundtrack songs grew "progressively worse".[197] Julie Parrish, who
appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966), says that Presley disliked
many of the songs chosen for his films.[198] The Jordanaires' Gordon
Stoker describes how he would retreat from the studio microphone: "The
material was so bad that he felt like he couldn't sing it."[199] Most of
the film albums featured a song or two from respected writers such as
the team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. But by and large, according to
biographer Jerry Hopkins, the numbers seemed to be "written on order by
men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll".[200] Regardless
of the songs' quality, it has been argued that Presley generally sang
them well, with commitment.[201] Critic Dave Marsh heard the opposite:
"Presley isn't trying, probably the wisest course in the face of
material like 'No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car' and 'Rock-A-Hula
Baby'."[133]
In the first half of the decade, three of Presley's
soundtrack albums were ranked number one on the pop charts, and a few of
his most popular songs came from his films, such as "Can't Help Falling
in Love" (1961) and "Return to Sender" (1962). ("Viva Las Vegas", the
title track to the 1964 film, was a minor hit as a B-side, and became
truly popular only later.) But, as with artistic merit, the commercial
returns steadily diminished. During a five-year span—1964 through
1968—Presley had only one top-ten hit: "Crying in the Chapel" (1965), a
gospel number recorded back in 1960. As for non-film albums, between the
June 1962 release of Pot Luck and the November 1968 release of the
soundtrack to the television special that signaled his comeback, only
one LP of new material by Presley was issued: the gospel album How Great
Thou Art (1967). It won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Sacred
Performance. As Marsh described, Presley was "arguably the greatest
white gospel singer of his time [and] really the last rock & roll
artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as
his secular songs".[202]
Shortly before Christmas 1966, more
than seven years since they first met, Presley proposed to Priscilla
Beaulieu. They were married on May 1, 1967, in a brief ceremony in their
suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.[203] The flow of formulaic
films and assembly-line soundtracks rolled on. It was not until October
1967, when the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a
new Presley album, that RCA executives recognized a problem. "By then,
of course, the damage had been done", as historians Connie Kirchberg and
Marc Hendrickx put it. "Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music
lovers and a has-been to all but his most loyal fans."[204]
1968–1973: comeback
Elvis: the '68 Comeback Special
Main article: Singer Presents...Elvis
Presley,
wearing a tight black leather jacket with Napoleonic standing collar,
black leather wristbands, and black leather pants, holds a microphone
with a long cord. His hair, which looks black as well, falls across his
forehead. In front of him is an empty microphone stand. Behind,
beginning below stage level and rising up, audience members watch him. A
young woman with long black hair in the front row gazes up
ecstatically.
The '68 Comeback Special produced "one of the most
famous images" of Presley.[205] Taken on June 29, 1968, it was adapted
for the cover of Rolling Stone in July 1969.[205][206]
Presley's
only child, Lisa Marie, was born on February 1, 1968, during a period
when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career.[207] Of the eight
Presley singles released between January 1967 and May 1968, only two
charted in the top 40, and none higher than number 28.[208] His
forthcoming soundtrack album, Speedway, would rank at number 82 on the
Billboard chart. Parker had already shifted his plans to television,
where Presley had not appeared since the Sinatra Timex show in 1960. He
maneuvered a deal with NBC that committed the network to both finance a
theatrical feature and broadcast a Christmas special.[209]
Recorded
in late June in Burbank, California, the special, simply called Elvis,
aired on December 3, 1968. Later known as the '68 Comeback Special, the
show featured lavishly staged studio productions as well as songs
performed with a band in front of a small audience—Presley's first live
performances since 1961. The live segments saw Presley dressed in tight
black leather, singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style
reminiscent of his early rock and roll days. Director and co-producer
Steve Binder had worked hard to produce a show that was far from the
hour of Christmas songs Parker had originally planned.[210] The show,
NBC's highest-rated that season, captured forty-two percent of the total
viewing audience.[211] Jon Landau of Eye magazine remarked, "There is
something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way
back home. He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of
rock 'n' roll singers. He moved his body with a lack of pretension and
effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy."[212] Marsh
calls the performance one of "emotional grandeur and historical
resonance".[213]
By January 1969, the single "If I Can Dream",
written for the special, reached number 12. The soundtrack album rose
into the top ten. According to friend Jerry Schilling, the special
reminded Presley of what "he had not been able to do for years, being
able to choose the people; being able to choose what songs and not being
told what had to be on the soundtrack. ... He was out of prison,
man."[211] Binder said of Presley's reaction, "I played Elvis the
60-minute show, and he told me in the screening room, 'Steve, it's the
greatest thing I've ever done in my life. I give you my word I will
never sing a song I don't believe in.'"[211]
From Elvis in Memphis and the International
"Power of My Love"
0:27
Beginning
with his American Sound recordings, soul music became a central element
in Presley's fusion of styles. Here, he revels in lyrics full of sexual
innuendos.[214]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Buoyed
by the experience of the Comeback Special, Presley engaged in a
prolific series of recording sessions at American Sound Studio, which
led to the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis. Released in June 1969, it
was his first secular, non-soundtrack album from a dedicated period in
the studio in eight years. As described by Marsh, it is "a masterpiece
in which Presley immediately catches up with pop music trends that had
seemed to pass him by during the movie years. He sings country songs,
soul songs and rockers with real conviction, a stunning
achievement."[215] The album featured the hit single "In the Ghetto",
issued in April, which reached number three on the pop chart—Presley's
first non-gospel top ten hit since "Bossa Nova Baby" in 1963. Further
hit singles were culled from the American Sound sessions: "Suspicious
Minds", "Don't Cry Daddy", and "Kentucky Rain".[216]
Presley was
keen to resume regular live performing. Following the success of the
Comeback Special, offers came in from around the world. The London
Palladium offered Parker US$28,000 (equivalent to $223,000 in 2022) for a
one-week engagement. He responded, "That's fine for me, now how much
can you get for Elvis?"[217] In May, the brand-new International Hotel
in Las Vegas, boasting the largest showroom in the city, announced that
it had booked Presley. He was scheduled to perform fifty-seven shows
over four weeks, beginning July 31. Moore, Fontana, and the Jordanaires
declined to participate, afraid of losing the lucrative session work
they had in Nashville. Presley assembled new, top-notch accompaniment,
led by guitarist James Burton and including two gospel groups, The
Imperials and Sweet Inspirations.[218] Costume designer Bill Belew,
responsible for the intense leather styling of the Comeback Special,
created a new stage look for Presley, inspired by his passion for
karate.[219] Nonetheless, Presley was nervous: his only previous Las
Vegas engagement, in 1956, had been dismal. Parker, who intended to make
Presley's return the show business event of the year, oversaw a major
promotional push. For his part, International Hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian
arranged to send his own plane to New York to fly in rock journalists
for the debut performance.[220]
Presley took to the stage without
introduction. The audience of 2,200, including many celebrities, gave
him a standing ovation before he sang a note and another after his
performance. A third followed his encore, "Can't Help Falling in Love"
(a song that would be his closing number for much of his remaining
life).[221] At a press conference after the show, when a journalist
referred to him as "The King", Presley gestured toward Fats Domino, who
was taking in the scene. "No," Presley said, "that's the real king of
rock and roll."[222] The next day, Parker's negotiations with the hotel
resulted in a five-year contract for Presley to play each February and
August, at an annual salary of $1 million.[223] Newsweek commented,
"There are several unbelievable things about Elvis, but the most
incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade
like shooting stars."[224] Rolling Stone called Presley "supernatural,
his own resurrection."[225] In November, Presley's final non-concert
film, Change of Habit, opened. The double album From Memphis to
Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis came out the same month; the first LP
consisted of live performances from the International, the second of
more cuts from the American Sound sessions. "Suspicious Minds" reached
the top of the charts—Presley's first U.S. pop number-one in over seven
years, and his last.[226]
Cassandra Peterson, later television's
Elvira, met Presley during this period in Las Vegas, where she was
working as a showgirl. She recalled of their encounter, "He was so
anti-drug when I met him. I mentioned to him that I smoked marijuana,
and he was just appalled. He said, 'Don't ever do that again.'"[227]
Presley was not only deeply opposed to recreational drugs, he also
rarely drank. Several of his family members had been alcoholics, a fate
he intended to avoid.[228]
Back on tour and meeting Nixon
Presley
returned to the International early in 1970 for the first of the year's
two-month-long engagements, performing two shows a night. Recordings
from these shows were issued on the album On Stage.[229] In late
February, Presley performed six attendance-record–breaking shows at the
Houston Astrodome.[230] In April, the single "The Wonder of You" was
issued—a number one hit in the UK, it topped the U.S. adult contemporary
chart, as well. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) filmed rehearsal and concert
footage at the International during August for the documentary Elvis:
That's the Way It Is. Presley was performing in a jumpsuit, which would
become a trademark of his live act. During this engagement, he was
threatened with murder unless US$50,000 (equivalent to $377,000 in 2022)
was paid. Presley had been the target of many threats since the 1950s,
often without his knowledge.[231] The FBI took the threat seriously and
security was stepped up for the next two shows. Presley went onstage
with a Derringer in his right boot and a .45 caliber pistol in his
waistband, but the concerts succeeded without any incidents.[232][233]
The
album That's the Way It Is, produced to accompany the documentary and
featuring both studio and live recordings, marked a stylistic shift. As
music historian John Robertson noted, "The authority of Presley's
singing helped disguise the fact that the album stepped decisively away
from the American-roots inspiration of the Memphis sessions towards a
more middle-of-the-road sound. With country put on the back burner, and
soul and R&B left in Memphis, what was left was very classy, very
clean white pop—perfect for the Las Vegas crowd, but a definite
retrograde step for Elvis."[234] After the end of his International
engagement on September 7, Presley embarked on a week-long concert tour,
largely of the South, his first since 1958. Another week-long tour, of
the West Coast, followed in November.[235]
A mutton-chopped Presley,
wearing a long velour jacket and a giant buckle like that of a boxing
championship belt, shakes hands with a balding man wearing a suit and
tie. They are facing camera and smiling. Five flags hang from poles
directly behind them.
Presley meets US President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office, December 21, 1970
On
December 21, 1970, Presley engineered a meeting with U.S. President
Richard Nixon at the White House, where he expressed his patriotism and
explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help
combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred. He asked Nixon
for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to add to similar
items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his
patriotic efforts. Nixon, who apparently found the encounter awkward,
expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young
people and that it was, therefore, important that he "retain his
credibility".[236] Presley told Nixon that the Beatles, whose songs he
regularly performed in concert during the era,[237] exemplified what he
saw as a trend of anti-Americanism.[238] Presley and his friends
previously had a four-hour get-together with the Beatles at his home in
Bel Air, California, in August 1965. On hearing reports of the meeting,
Paul McCartney later said that he "felt a bit betrayed. ... The great
joke was that we were taking [illegal] drugs, and look what happened to
him", a reference to Presley's early death linked to prescription drug
abuse.[239] Later Elvis would call the White House to speak with
President Jimmy Carter to request a presidential pardon for a friend who
had not yet been tried.[240]
The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce
named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the
Nation on January 16, 1971.[241] Not long after, the City of Memphis
named the stretch of Highway 51 South on which Graceland is located
"Elvis Presley Boulevard". The same year, Presley became the first rock
and roll singer to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award (then known
as the Bing Crosby Award) by the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences, the Grammy Award organization.[242][243] Three new, non-film
Presley studio albums were released in 1971, as many as had come out
over the previous eight years. Best received by critics was Elvis
Country, a concept record that focused on genre standards.[244] The
biggest seller was Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas, "the
truest statement of all", according to Greil Marcus. "In the midst of
ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling
sincerity and humility, one could find Elvis tom-catting his way through
six blazing minutes of "Merry Christmas Baby", a raunchy old Charles
Brown blues. [...] If [Presley's] sin was his lifelessness, it was his
sinfulness that brought him to life".[245]
Marriage breakdown and Aloha from Hawaii
See also: Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite
Presley (center) with friends Bill Porter (left) and Paul Anka (right) backstage at the Las Vegas Hilton on August 5, 1972
MGM
again filmed Presley in April 1972, this time for Elvis on Tour, which
went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film for that
year's Golden Globe Awards. His gospel album He Touched Me, released
that month, would earn him his second Grammy Award for Best
Inspirational Performance, for that year's Grammy Awards. A
fourteen-date tour commenced with an unprecedented four consecutive
sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden.[246] The evening
concert on July 10 was recorded and issued in an LP form a week later.
Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden became one of Presley's
biggest-selling albums. After the tour, the single "Burning Love" was
released—Presley's last top ten hit on the U.S. pop chart. "The most
exciting single Elvis has made since 'All Shook Up'", wrote rock critic
Robert Christgau. "Who else could make 'It's coming closer, the flames
are now licking my body' sound like an assignation with James Brown's
backup band?"[247]
High-collared white jumpsuit resplendent with red, blue, and gold eagle motif in sequins
Presley came up with his outfit's eagle motif, as "something that would say 'America' to the world"[248]
Presley
and his wife, meanwhile, had become increasingly distant, barely
cohabiting. In 1971, an affair he had with Joyce Bova
resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion.[249] He
often raised the possibility of Joyce moving into Graceland, saying that
he was likely to leave Priscilla.[250] The Presleys separated on
February 23, 1972, after Priscilla disclosed her relationship with Mike
Stone, a karate instructor Presley had recommended to her. Priscilla
related that when she told him, Presley "grabbed ... and forcefully made
love to" her, declaring, "This is how a real man makes love to his
woman".[251] She later stated in an interview that she regretted her
choice of words in describing the incident, and said it had been an
overstatement.[252] Five months later, Presley's new girlfriend, Linda
Thompson, a songwriter and one-time Memphis beauty queen, moved in with
him.[253] Presley and his wife filed for divorce on August 18.[254]
According to Joe Moscheo of the Imperials, the failure of Presley's
marriage "was a blow from which he never recovered".[255] At a rare
press conference that June, a reporter had asked Presley whether he was
satisfied with his image. Presley replied, "Well, the image is one thing
and the human being another ... it's very hard to live up to an
image."[256]
In January 1973, Presley performed two benefit
concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a groundbreaking
television special, Aloha from Hawaii, which would be the first concert
by a solo artist to be aired globally. The first show served as a
practice run and backup should technical problems affect the live
broadcast two days later. On January 14, Aloha from Hawaii aired live
via satellite to prime-time audiences in Japan, South Korea, Thailand,
the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to U.S.
servicemen based across Southeast Asia. In Japan, where it capped a
nationwide Elvis Presley Week, it smashed viewing records. The next
night, it was simulcast to twenty-eight European countries, and in April
an extended version finally aired in the U.S., where it won a
fifty-seven percent share of the TV audience.[257] Over time, Parker's
claim that it was seen by one billion or more people[258] would be
broadly accepted,[259][260][261] but that figure appeared to have been
sheer invention.[262] Presley's stage costume became the most recognized
example of the elaborate concert garb with which his latter-day persona
became closely associated. As described by Bobbie Ann Mason, "At the
end of the show, when he spreads out his American Eagle cape, with the
full stretched wings of the eagle studded on the back, he becomes a god
figure."[263] The accompanying double album, released in February, went
to number one and eventually sold over 5 million copies in the U.S.[264]
It was Presley's last U.S. number-one pop album during his
lifetime.[265]
At a midnight show that same month, four men
rushed onto the stage in an apparent attack. Security personnel came to
Presley's defense, and he ejected one invader from the stage himself.
Following the show, Presley became obsessed with the idea that the men
had been sent by Mike Stone, Priscilla's lover, to kill him. Though they
were shown to have been only overexuberant fans, Presley raged,
"There's too much pain in me ... Stone [must] die." His outbursts
continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him,
despite administering large doses of medication. After another two full
days of raging, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, felt compelled to
get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley
decided, "Aw hell, let's just leave it for now. Maybe it's a bit
heavy."[266]
1973–1977: health deterioration and death
Medical crises and last studio sessions
Presley's
divorce was finalized on October 9, 1973.[267] By then, his health was
in serious decline. Twice during the year he overdosed on barbiturates,
spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first
incident. Towards the end of 1973, he was hospitalized, semi-comatose
from the effects of a pethidine addiction. According to his primary care
physician, George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "felt that by getting drugs
from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something
off the street".[268] Since his comeback, he had staged more live shows
with each passing year, and 1973 saw 168 concerts, his busiest schedule
ever.[269] Despite his failing health, he undertook another intensive
touring schedule in 1974.[270]
Presley's condition declined
precipitously that September. Keyboardist Tony Brown remembered his
arrival at a University of Maryland concert: "He fell out of the
limousine, to his knees. People jumped to help, and he pushed them away
like, 'Don't help me.' He walked on stage and held onto the mic for the
first thirty minutes like it was a post. Everybody's looking at each
other like, 'Is the tour gonna happen'?"[271] Guitarist John Wilkinson
recalled, "He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so f***ed up. ... It
was obvious he was drugged. It was obvious there was something terribly
wrong with his body. It was so bad the words to the songs were barely
intelligible. ... I remember crying. He could barely get through the
introductions."[272]
RCA, which had always enjoyed a steady
stream of product from Presley, began to grow anxious as his interest in
the recording studio waned. After a session in December 1973 that
produced eighteen songs, enough for almost two albums, Presley made no
official studio recordings in 1974.[273] Parker delivered RCA another
concert record, Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis.[274] Recorded
on March 20, it included a version of "How Great Thou Art" that won
Presley his third and final Grammy Award for Best Inspirational
Performance at that year's Grammy Awards.[275][276] All three of his
competitive Grammy wins – out of fourteen total nominations – were for
gospel recordings.[276] Presley returned to the recording studio in
Hollywood in March 1975, but Parker's attempts to arrange another
session toward the end of the year were unsuccessful.[277] In 1976, RCA
sent a mobile recording unit to Graceland that made possible two
full-scale recording sessions at Presley's home.[278] However, the
recording process had become a struggle for him.[279]
"Hurt"
0:19
An
R&B hit for Roy Hamilton in 1955 and a pop hit for blue-eyed soul
singer Timi Yuro in 1961, Presley's deep soul version was picked up by
country radio in 1976.[280]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Final months
Journalist
Tony Scherman wrote that, by early 1977, "Presley had become a
grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Grossly
overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopia he daily ingested, he was
barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."[281]
According to Andy Greene of Rolling Stone, Presley's final performances
were mostly "sad, sloppy affairs where a bloated, drugged Presley
struggled to remember his lyrics and get through the night without
collapsing ... Most everything from the final three years of his life is
sad and hard to watch."[282] In Alexandria, Louisiana, he was on stage
for less than an hour and "was impossible to understand".[283] On March
31, he canceled a performance in Baton Rouge, unable to get out of his
hotel bed; four shows had to be canceled and rescheduled.[284]
Despite
the accelerating deterioration of his health, Presley fulfilled most of
his touring commitments. According to Guralnick, fans "were becoming
increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go
right past Presley, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his
room and his spiritualism books".[285] Presley's cousin, Billy Smith,
recalled how he would sit in his room and chat for hours, sometimes
recounting favorite Monty Python sketches and his past escapades, but
more often gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of the
billionaire recluse Howard Hughes.[286]
"Way Down", Presley's
last single issued during his lifetime, was released on June 6, 1977.
That month, CBS taped two concerts for a television special, Elvis in
Concert, to be broadcast in October. In the first, shot in Omaha on June
19, Presley's voice, Guralnick writes, "is almost unrecognizable, a
small, childlike instrument in which he talks more than sings most of
the songs, casts about uncertainly for the melody in others, and is
virtually unable to articulate or project".[287] Two days later, in
Rapid City, South Dakota, "he looked healthier, seemed to have lost a
little weight, and sounded better, too", though, by the conclusion of
the performance, his face was "framed in a helmet of blue-black hair
from which sweat sheets down over pale, swollen cheeks".[287] Presley's
final concert was held in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena, on June
26, 1977.[288]
A long, ground-level gravestone reads "Elvis Aaron
Presley", followed by the singer's dates, the names of his parents and
daughter, and several paragraphs of smaller text. In the background is a
small round pool, with a low decorative metal fence and several
fountains.
Presley's gravestone at Graceland
Death
See also: Elvis sightings
On
August 16, 1977, Presley was scheduled on an evening flight out of
Memphis to Portland, Maine, to begin another tour. That afternoon,
however, his fiancée Ginger Alden discovered him in an unresponsive
state on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion.[289] Biographer
Joel Williamson suggests that "involving a reaction to the codeine" he
had taken "and attempts to move his bowels—he experienced pain and
fright while sitting on the toilet. Alarmed, he stood up ... and fell
face down in the fetal position." Drooling on the rug and "unable to
breathe, he died."[290] Attempts to revive him failed, and he was
pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3:30 p.m.[291] He was 42
years old.[292]
President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that
credited Presley with having "permanently changed the face of American
popular culture".[293] Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to
view the open casket. One of Presley's cousins, Billy Mann, accepted
US$18,000 (equivalent to $87,000 in 2022) to secretly photograph the
body; the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer's
biggest-selling issue ever.[294] Alden struck a $105,000 (equivalent to
$507,000 in 2022) deal with the Enquirer for her story, but settled for
less when she broke her exclusivity agreement.[295] Presley left her
nothing in his will.[296]
Presley's funeral was held at Graceland
on Thursday, August 18. Outside the gates, a car plowed into a group of
fans, killing two young women and critically injuring a third.[297]
About 80,000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill
Cemetery, where Presley was buried next to his mother.[298] Within a few
weeks, "Way Down" topped the country and UK singles chart.[299][300]
Following an attempt to steal Presley's body in late August, the remains
of both Presley and his mother were exhumed and reburied in Graceland's
Meditation Garden on October 2. Presley is buried alongside his
parents, daughter, grandson and his paternal grandmother in the
Meditation Garden at Graceland.[295]
Cause of death
While an
autopsy, undertaken the same day Presley died, was still in progress,
Memphis medical examiner Jerry Francisco announced that the immediate
cause of death was cardiac arrest. Asked if drugs were involved, he
declared that "drugs played no role in Presley's death".[301] In fact,
"drug use was heavily implicated" in Presley's death, writes Guralnick.
The pathologists conducting the autopsy thought it possible, for
instance, that he had suffered "anaphylactic shock brought on by the
codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to
have had a mild allergy". A pair of lab reports filed two months later
strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; one
reported "fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant
quantity".[302] In 1979, forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht conducted a
review of the reports and concluded that a combination of depressants
had resulted in Presley's accidental death.[301] Forensic historian and
pathologist Michael Baden viewed the situation as complicated: "Elvis
had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug
habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a
judgment call."[303]
The competence and ethics of two of the
centrally involved medical professionals were seriously questioned.
Francisco had offered a cause of death before the autopsy was complete;
claimed the underlying ailment was cardiac arrhythmia, a condition that
can be determined only in someone who is still alive; and denied drugs
played any part in Presley's death before the toxicology results were
known.[301] Allegations of a cover-up were widespread.[303] While a 1981
trial of Presley's main physician, George C. Nichopoulos, exonerated
him of criminal liability for his death, the facts were startling: "In
the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than
10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics: all in Elvis'
name." Nichopoulos' license was suspended for three months. It was
permanently revoked in the 1990s after the Tennessee Medical Board
brought new charges of over-prescription.[268]
In 1994, the
Presley autopsy report was reopened. Joseph Davis, who had conducted
thousands of autopsies as Miami-Dade County coroner,[304] declared at
its completion, "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a
death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart
attack."[268] More recent research has revealed that Francisco did not
speak for the entire pathology team. Other staff "could say nothing with
confidence until they got the results back from the laboratories, if
then. That would be a matter of weeks." One of the examiners, E. Eric
Muirhead, "could not believe his ears. Francisco had not only presumed
to speak for the hospital's team of pathologists, he had announced a
conclusion that they had not reached. ... Early on, a meticulous
dissection of the body ... confirmed [that] Elvis was chronically ill
with diabetes, glaucoma, and constipation. As they proceeded, the
doctors saw evidence that his body had been wracked over a span of years
by a large and constant stream of drugs. They had also studied his
hospital records, which included two admissions for drug detoxification
and methadone treatments."[305] According to biographer Frank Coffey and
Dan Warlick, one of the physicians who were present at the autopsy,
Presley's death was caused by a Valsalva maneuver due to constipation as
a result of drug abuse.[306] When using the toilet, "the strain of
attempting to defecate compressed the singer's abdominal aorta, shutting
down his heart."[307]
Later developments
Between 1977 and
1981, six of Presley's posthumously released singles were top-ten
country hits.[299] Graceland was opened to the public in 1982.
Attracting over half a million visitors annually, it became the
second-most-visited home in the United States, after the White
House.[308] The residence was declared a National Historic Landmark in
2006.[309]
Presley has been inducted into five music halls of
fame: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Country Music Hall of
Fame (1998), the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001), the Rockabilly Hall
of Fame (2007), and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame (2012). In 1984, he
received the W. C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy
of Country Music's first Golden Hat Award. In 1987, he received the
American Music Awards' Award of Merit.[310]
A Junkie XL remix of
Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" (credited as "Elvis Vs JXL") was
used in a Nike advertising campaign during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It
topped the charts in over twenty countries and was included in a
compilation of Presley's number-one hits, ELV1S, which was also an
international success. The album returned Presley to the top of the
Billboard chart for the first time in almost three decades.[311]
In
2003, a remix of "Rubberneckin'", a 1969 recording of Presley's, topped
the U.S. sales chart, as did a 50th-anniversary re-release of "That's
All Right" the following year.[312] The latter was an outright hit in
Britain, debuting at number three on the pop chart; it also made the top
ten in Canada.[313] In 2005, another three reissued singles, "Jailhouse
Rock", "One Night"/"I Got Stung", and "It's Now or Never", went to
number one in the UK. They were part of a campaign that saw the
re-release of all eighteen of Presley's previous chart-topping UK
singles. The first, "All Shook Up", came with a collectors' box that
made it ineligible to chart again; each of the other seventeen reissues
hit the British top five.[314]
In 2005, Forbes magazine named
Presley the top-earning deceased celebrity for the fifth straight year,
with a gross income of $45 million.[315] He was placed second in
2006,[316] returned to the top spot the next two years,[317][318] and
ranked fourth in 2009.[319] The following year, he was ranked second,
with his highest annual income ever—$60 million—spurred by the
celebration of his 75th birthday and the launch of Cirque du Soleil's
Viva Elvis show in Las Vegas.[320] In November 2010, Viva Elvis: The
Album was released, setting his voice to newly recorded instrumental
tracks.[321][322] As of mid-2011, there were an estimated 15,000
licensed Presley products,[323] and he was again the
second-highest-earning deceased celebrity.[324] Six years later, he
ranked fourth with earnings of $35 million, up $8 million from 2016 due
in part to the opening of a new entertainment complex, Elvis Presley's
Memphis, and hotel, The Guest House at Graceland.[325]
In 2018,
RCA/Legacy released Elvis Presley – Where No One Stands Alone, a new
album focused on Elvis' love of gospel music. Produced by Joel
Weinshanker, Lisa Marie Presley and Andy Childs, the album introduced
newly recorded instrumentation along with vocals from singers who had
performed in the past with Elvis. It also included a reimagined duet
with Lisa Marie, on the album's title track.[326]
In 2022, Baz
Luhrmann's film Elvis, a biographical film about Presley's life, was
released in theaters. Presley is portrayed by Austin Butler and Parker
by Tom Hanks. As of August 2022, the film had grossed $261.8 million
worldwide on a $85 million budget, becoming the second-highest-grossing
music biopic of all-time behind Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and the
fifth-highest-grossing Australian-produced film. For his portrayal of
Elvis, Butler won the Golden Globe and was nominated for the Oscar for
Best Actor.[327] In January 2023, on what would have been Presley's 88th
birthday, his 1962 Lockheed 1329 JetStar sold at an auction for
$260,000. The plane sold at the Mecum Kissimmee Collector Car auction in
Florida.[328]
Artistry
Influences
Presley's earliest
musical influence came from gospel. His mother recalled that from the
age of two, at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the
family, "he would slide down off my lap, run into the aisle and scramble
up to the platform. There he would stand looking at the choir and
trying to sing with them."[329] In Memphis, Presley frequently attended
all-night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium, where groups such as
the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that, Guralnick suggests,
sowed the seeds of Presley's future stage act:
The Statesmen
were an electric combination ... featuring some of the most thrillingly
emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the
entertainment world ... dressed in suits that might have come out of the
window of Lansky's. ... Bass singer Jim Wetherington, known universally
as the Big Chief, maintained a steady bottom, ceaselessly jiggling
first his left leg, then his right, with the material of the pants leg
ballooning out and shimmering. "He went about as far as you could go in
gospel music," said Jake Hess. "The women would jump up, just like they
do for the pop shows." Preachers frequently objected to the lewd
movements ... but audiences reacted with screams and swoons.[330]
As
a teenager, Presley's musical interests were wide-ranging, and he was
deeply informed about both white and African-American musical idioms.
Though he never had any formal training, he had a remarkable memory, and
his musical knowledge was already considerable by the time he made his
first professional recordings aged 19 in 1954. When Jerry Leiber and
Mike Stoller met him two years later, they were astonished at his
encyclopedic understanding of the blues,[331] and, as Stoller put it,
"He certainly knew a lot more than we did about country music and gospel
music."[159] At a press conference the following year, he proudly
declared, "I know practically every religious song that's ever been
written."[150]
Musicianship
Presley played guitar, bass, and
piano; he received his first guitar when he was 11 years old. He could
not read or write music and had no formal lessons, and played everything
by ear.[332] Presley often played an instrument on his recordings and
produced his own music. Presley played rhythm acoustic guitar on most of
his Sun recordings and his 1950s RCA albums. He played electric bass
guitar on "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" after his bassist Bill
Black had trouble with the instrument.[333] Presley played the bass line
including the intro. Presley played piano on songs such as "Old Shep"
and "First in Line" from his 1956 album Elvis.[334] He is credited with
playing piano on later albums such as From Elvis in Memphis and "Moody
Blue", and on "Unchained Melody", which was one of the last songs that
he recorded.[335] Presley played lead guitar on one of his successful
singles called "Are You Lonesome Tonight".[336] In the 68 Comeback
Special, Elvis took over on lead electric guitar, the first time he had
ever been seen with the instrument in public, playing it on songs such
as "Baby What You Want Me to Do" and "One Night".[337] Presley played
the back of his guitar on some of his hits such as "All Shook Up",
"Don't Be Cruel", and "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear", providing
percussion by slapping the instrument to create a beat.[338] The album
Elvis is Back! features Presley playing a lot of acoustic guitar on
songs such as "I Will Be Home Again" and "Like a Baby".[339]
Musical styles and genres
Photo of Elvis and the Jordanaires
Presley with his longtime vocal backup group, the Jordanaires, March 1957
Presley
was a central figure in the development of rockabilly, according to
music historians. "Rockabilly crystallized into a recognizable style in
1954 with Elvis Presley's first release, on the Sun label," writes Craig
Morrison.[340] Paul Friedlander described rockabilly as "essentially
... an Elvis Presley construction", with the defining elements as "the
raw, emotive, and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling
[of] the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar [of]
country".[341] In "That's All Right", the Presley trio's first record,
Scotty Moore's guitar solo, "a combination of Merle Travis–style country
finger-picking, double-stop slides from acoustic boogie, and
blues-based bent-note, single-string work, is a microcosm of this
fusion".[341] While Katherine Charlton calls Presley "rockabilly's
originator",[342] Carl Perkins, another pioneer of rock'n'roll, said
that "[Sam] Phillips, Elvis, and I didn't create rockabilly".[343]
According to Michael Campbell, the first major rockabilly song was
recorded by Bill Haley.[344] In Moore's view, "It had been there for
quite a while, really. Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of
thing up around Jackson, and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been
playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old."[345]
At
RCA Victor, Presley's rock and roll sound grew distinct from rockabilly
with group chorus vocals, more heavily amplified electric guitars[346]
and a tougher, more intense manner.[347] While he was known for taking
songs from various sources and giving them a rockabilly/rock and roll
treatment, he also recorded songs in other genres from early in his
career, from the pop standard "Blue Moon" at Sun Records to the country
ballad "How's the World Treating You?" on his second RCA Victor LP to
the blues of "Santa Claus Is Back in Town". In 1957, his first gospel
record was released, the four-song EP Peace in the Valley. Certified as a
million-seller, it became the top-selling gospel EP in recording
history.[348] Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of
his life.
"Run On"
0:29
From How Great Thou Art (1967), a
traditional song popular in the black gospel tradition. The arrangement
evokes "the percussive style of the 1930s Golden Gate
Quartet."[349][350]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
After
his return from military service in 1960, Presley continued to perform
rock and roll, but the characteristic style was substantially toned
down. His first post-Army single, the number-one hit "Stuck on You", is
typical of this shift. RCA Victor publicity referred to its "mild rock
beat"; discographer Ernst Jorgensen calls it "upbeat pop".[351] The
number five "She's Not You" (1962) "integrates the Jordanaires so
completely, it's practically doo-wop".[352] The modern blues/R&B
sound captured with success on Elvis Is Back! was essentially abandoned
for six years until such 1966–67 recordings as "Down in the Alley" and
"Hi-Heel Sneakers".[353] Presley's output during most of the 1960s
emphasized pop music, often in the form of ballads such as "Are You
Lonesome Tonight?", a number-one in 1960. "It's Now or Never", which
also topped the chart that year, was a classically influenced variation
of pop based on the Neapolitan song "'O sole mio" and concluding with a
"full-voiced operatic cadence".[354] These were both dramatic numbers,
but most of what Presley recorded for his many film soundtracks was in a
much lighter vein.[355]
While Presley performed several of his
classic ballads for the '68 Comeback Special, the sound of the show was
dominated by aggressive rock and roll. He recorded few new straight rock
and roll songs thereafter; as he explained, they had become "hard to
find".[356] A significant exception was "Burning Love", his last major
hit on the pop charts. Like his work of the 1950s, Presley's subsequent
recordings reworked pop and country songs, but in markedly different
permutations. His stylistic range now began to embrace a more
contemporary rock sound as well as soul and funk. Much of Elvis in
Memphis, as well as "Suspicious Minds", cut at the same sessions,
reflected this new rock and soul fusion. In the mid-1970s, many of his
singles found a home on country radio, the field where he first became a
star.[357]
Vocal style and range
Publicity photo of Elvis playing guitar
Publicity photo for the CBS program Stage Show, January 16, 1956
The
developmental arc of Presley's singing voice, as described by critic
Dave Marsh, goes from "high and thrilled in the early days, [to] lower
and perplexed in the final months."[358] Marsh credits Presley with the
introduction of the "vocal stutter" on 1955's "Baby Let's Play
House".[359] When on "Don't Be Cruel", Presley "slides into a 'mmmmm'
that marks the transition between the first two verses," he shows "how
masterful his relaxed style really is."[360] Marsh describes the vocal
performance on "Can't Help Falling in Love" as one of "gentle insistence
and delicacy of phrasing", with the line "'Shall I stay' pronounced as
if the words are fragile as crystal".[361]
Jorgensen calls the
1966 recording of "How Great Thou Art" "an extraordinary fulfillment of
his vocal ambitions", as Presley "crafted for himself an ad-hoc
arrangement in which he took every part of the four-part vocal, from
[the] bass intro to the soaring heights of the song's operatic climax",
becoming "a kind of one-man quartet".[362] Guralnick finds "Stand by Me"
from the same gospel sessions "a beautifully articulated, almost
nakedly yearning performance", but, by contrast, feels that Presley
reaches beyond his powers on "Where No One Stands Alone", resorting "to a
kind of inelegant bellowing to push out a sound" that Jake Hess of the
Statesmen Quartet had in his command. Hess himself thought that while
others might have voices the equal of Presley's, "he had that certain
something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime."[363]
Guralnick attempts to pinpoint that something: "The warmth of his voice,
his controlled use of both vibrato technique and natural falsetto
range, the subtlety and deeply felt conviction of his singing were all
qualities recognizably belonging to his talent but just as recognizably
not to be achieved without sustained dedication and effort."[364]
Marsh
praises his 1968 reading of "U.S. Male", "bearing down on the hard guy
lyrics, not sending them up or overplaying them but tossing them around
with that astonishingly tough yet gentle assurance that he brought to
his Sun records."[365] The performance on "In the Ghetto" is, according
to Jorgensen, "devoid of any of his characteristic vocal tricks or
mannerisms", instead relying on the exceptional "clarity and sensitivity
of his voice".[366] Guralnick describes the song's delivery as of
"almost translucent eloquence ... so quietly confident in its
simplicity".[367] On "Suspicious Minds", Guralnick hears essentially the
same "remarkable mixture of tenderness and poise", but supplemented
with "an expressive quality somewhere between stoicism (at suspected
infidelity) and anguish (over impending loss)".[368]
Music critic
Henry Pleasants observes that "Presley has been described variously as a
baritone and a tenor. An extraordinary compass ... and a very wide
range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of
opinion."[369] He identifies Presley as a high baritone, calculating his
range as two octaves and a third, "from the baritone low G to the tenor
high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D-flat.
Presley's best octave is in the middle, D-flat to D-flat, granting an
extra full step up or down."[369] In Pleasants' view, his voice was
"variable and unpredictable" at the bottom, "often brilliant" at the
top, with the capacity for "full-voiced high Gs and As that an opera
baritone might envy".[369] Scholar Lindsay Waters, who figures Presley's
range as two-and-a-quarter octaves, emphasizes that "his voice had an
emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts, grunts,
grumbles, and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness
and surrender, to fear. His voice can not be measured in octaves, but
in decibels; even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate
whispers that are hardly audible at all."[370] Presley was always "able
to duplicate the open, hoarse, ecstatic, screaming, shouting, wailing,
reckless sound of the black rhythm-and-blues and gospel singers", writes
Pleasants, and also demonstrated a remarkable ability to assimilate
many other vocal styles.[369]
Public image
Relationship with the African-American community
When
Dewey Phillips first aired "That's All Right" on Memphis' WHBQ, many
listeners who contacted the station by phone and telegram to ask for it
again assumed that its singer was black.[61] From the beginning of his
national fame, Presley expressed respect for African-American performers
and their music, and disregard for the norms of segregation and racial
prejudice then prevalent in the South. Interviewed in 1956, he recalled
how in his childhood he would listen to blues musician Arthur Crudup—the
originator of "That's All Right"—"bang his box the way I do now, and I
said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt,
I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw."[45] The Memphis World, an
African-American newspaper, reported that Presley, "the rock 'n' roll
phenomenon", "cracked Memphis' segregation laws" by attending the local
amusement park on what was designated as its "colored night".[45] Such
statements and actions led Presley to be generally hailed in the black
community during the early days of his stardom.[45] In contrast, many
white adults "did not like him, and condemned him as depraved.
Anti-negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism. Regardless
of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase
'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural
embodiment of sex."[6]
Despite the largely positive view of
Presley held by African Americans, a rumor spread in mid-1957 that he
had at some point announced, "The only thing Negroes can do for me is
buy my records and shine my shoes." A journalist with the national
African American weekly Jet, Louie Robinson, pursued the story. On the
set of Jailhouse Rock, Presley granted Robinson an interview, though he
was no longer dealing with the mainstream press. He denied making such a
statement: "I never said anything like that, and people who know me
know that I wouldn't have said it. ... A lot of people seem to think I
started this business. But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I
came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people.
Let's face it: I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I know that."[371]
Robinson found no evidence that the remark had ever been made, and on
the contrary elicited testimony from many individuals indicating that
Presley was anything but racist.[45][372] Blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter,
who had heard the rumor before he visited Graceland one evening,
reported of Presley, "He showed me every courtesy, and I think he's one
of the greatest."[373] Though the rumored remark was discredited, it was
still being used against Presley decades later.[374]
The
persistence of such attitudes was fueled by resentment over the fact
that Presley, whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to
African-American sources, achieved the cultural acknowledgement and
commercial success largely denied his black peers.[372] Into the 21st
century, the notion that Presley had "stolen" black music still found
adherents.[example needed][374][375] Notable among African-American
entertainers expressly rejecting this view was Jackie Wilson, who
argued, "A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's
music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his
stage mannerisms from Elvis."[376] Moreover, Presley also acknowledged
his debt to African-American musicians throughout his career. Addressing
his '68 Comeback Special audience, he said, "Rock 'n' roll music is
basically gospel or rhythm and blues, or it sprang from that. People
have been adding to it, adding instruments to it, experimenting with it,
but it all boils down to [that]."[377] Nine years earlier, he had said,
"Rock 'n' roll has been around for many years. It used to be called
rhythm and blues."[378]
Sex symbol
Film poster with Presley on the
left, holding a young woman around the waist, her arms draped over his
shoulders. To the right, five young women wearing bathing suits and
holding guitars stand in a row. The one in front taps Presley on the
shoulder. Along with title and credits is the tagline "Climb aboard your
dreamboat for the fastest-movin' fun 'n' music!"
Poster for the film Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), visualizing Presley's sex symbol image
Presley's
physical attractiveness and sexual appeal were widely acknowledged. "He
was once beautiful, astonishingly beautiful", according to critic Mark
Feeney.[379] Television director Steve Binder, no fan of Presley's music
before he oversaw the 1968 Comeback Special, reported, "I'm straight as
an arrow and I got to tell you, you stop, whether you're male or
female, to look at him. He was that good looking. And if you never knew
he was a superstar, it wouldn't make any difference; if he'd walked in
the room, you'd know somebody special was in your presence."[380] His
performance style, as much as his physical beauty, was responsible for
Presley's eroticized image. Writing in 1970, critic George Melly
described him as "the master of the sexual simile, treating his guitar
as both phallus and girl".[381] In his Presley obituary, Lester Bangs
credited him as "the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy
to the popular arts in America".[382] Ed Sullivan's declaration that he
perceived a soda bottle in Presley's trousers was echoed by rumors
involving a similarly positioned toilet roll tube or lead bar.[383]
While
Presley was marketed as an icon of heterosexuality, some cultural
critics have argued that his image was ambiguous. In 1959, Sight and
Sound's Peter John Dyer described his onscreen persona as "aggressively
bisexual in appeal".[384] Brett Farmer places the "orgasmic gyrations"
of the title dance sequence in Jailhouse Rock within a lineage of
cinematic musical numbers that offer a "spectacular eroticization, if
not homoeroticization, of the male image".[385] In the analysis of
Yvonne Tasker, "Elvis was an ambivalent figure who articulated a
peculiar feminised, objectifying version of white working-class
masculinity as aggressive sexual display."[386]
Reinforcing
Presley's image as a sex symbol were the reports of his dalliances with
various Hollywood stars and starlets, from Natalie Wood in the 1950s to
Connie Stevens and Ann-Margret in the 1960s to Candice Bergen and Cybill
Shepherd in the 1970s. June Juanico of Memphis, one of Presley's early
girlfriends, later blamed Parker for encouraging him to choose his
dating partners with publicity in mind.[227] Presley never grew
comfortable with the Hollywood scene, and most of these relationships
were insubstantial.[387]
Equestrian
Presley kept several
horses at Graceland, initially because of Priscilla Presley. "He got me
my first horse as a Christmas present – Domino," said Priscilla.[388]
The horse named Palomino Rising Sun was Presley' favorite horse, and
there are many photographs of Presley riding him.[389]
Legacy
Further
information: Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, Cultural depictions of
Elvis Presley, Elvis has left the building, and List of songs about or
referencing Elvis Presley
I know he invented rock and roll,
in a manner of speaking, but ... that's not why he's worshiped as a god
today. He's worshiped as a god today because in addition to inventing
rock and roll he was the greatest ballad singer this side of Frank
Sinatra—because the spiritual translucence and reined-in gut sexuality
of his slow weeper and torchy pop blues still activate the hormones and
slavish devotion of millions of female human beings worldwide.
—Robert Christgau
December 24, 1985[390]
Presley's
rise to national attention in 1956 transformed the field of popular
music and had a huge effect on the broader scope of popular
culture.[391] As the catalyst for the cultural revolution that was rock
and roll, he was central not only to defining it as a musical genre but
in making it a touchstone of youth culture and rebellious attitude.[392]
With its racially mixed origins—repeatedly affirmed by Presley—rock and
roll's occupation of a central position in mainstream American culture
facilitated a new acceptance and appreciation of black culture.[393]
In
this regard, Little Richard said of Presley, "He was an integrator.
Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened
the door for black music."[394] Al Green agreed: "He broke the ice for
all of us."[395]
President Jimmy Carter remarked on Presley's
legacy in 1977: "His music and his personality, fusing the styles of
white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face
of American popular culture. His following was immense, and he was a
symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and
good humor of his country."[293] Presley also heralded the vastly
expanded reach of celebrity in the era of mass communication: at the age
of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network
television, he was regarded as one of the most famous people in the
world.[396]
A group of Elvis impersonators in 2005
Presley's
name, image, and voice are recognized around the world.[397] He has
inspired a legion of impersonators.[398] In polls and surveys, he is
recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and
influential Americans.[d] American composer and conductor Leonard
Bernstein said, "Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the
twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything and he changed
everything—music, language, clothes. It's a whole new social
revolution—the sixties came from it."[407] John Lennon said that
"Nothing really affected me until Elvis."[408] Bob Dylan described the
sensation of first hearing Presley as "like busting out of jail".[395]
Presley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd
For
much of his adult life, Presley, with his rise from poverty to riches
and fame, had seemed to epitomize the American Dream.[409][410] In his
final years, and following the revelations about his circumstances after
his death, he became a symbol of excess and gluttony.[411][412]
Increasing attention was paid to his appetite for the rich, heavy
Southern cooking of his upbringing, foods such as chicken-fried steak
and biscuits and gravy.[413][414] In particular, his love of fried
peanut butter, banana, and (sometimes) bacon sandwiches,[415][413] now
known as "Elvis sandwiches",[416] came to symbolize this
characteristic.[417] According to the media scholar Robert Thompson, the
sandwich also signified Presley's enduring all-American appeal: "He
wasn't only the king, he was one of us."[418]
Since 1977, there
have been numerous alleged sightings of Presley. A long-standing
conspiracy theory among some fans is that he faked his death.[419][420]
Adherents cite alleged discrepancies in the death certificate, reports
of a wax dummy in his original coffin, and accounts of Presley planning a
diversion so he could retire in peace.[421] An unusually large number
of fans have domestic shrines devoted to Presley and journey to sites
with which he is connected, however faintly.[422] Every August 16, the
anniversary of his death, thousands of people gather outside Graceland
and celebrate his memory with a candlelight ritual.[423] "With Elvis, it
is not just his music that has survived death", writes Ted Harrison.
"He himself has been raised, like a medieval saint, to a figure of
cultic status. It is as if he has been canonized by acclamation."[422]
On
the 25th anniversary of Presley's death, The New York Times asserted,
"All the talentless impersonators and appalling black velvet paintings
on display can make him seem little more than a perverse and distant
memory. But before Elvis was camp, he was its opposite: a genuine
cultural force. ... Elvis' breakthroughs are underappreciated because in
this rock-and-roll age, his hard-rocking music and sultry style have
triumphed so completely."[424] Not only Presley's achievements but his
failings as well, are seen by some cultural observers as adding to the
power of his legacy, as in this description by Greil Marcus:
Elvis Presley is a supreme figure in American life, one whose presence,
no matter how banal or predictable, brooks no real comparisons. ... The
cultural range of his music has expanded to the point where it includes
not only the hits of the day, but also patriotic recitals, pure country
gospel, and really dirty blues. ... Elvis has emerged as a great artist,
a great rocker, a great purveyor of schlock, a great heart throb, a
great bore, a great symbol of potency, a great ham, a great nice person,
and, yes, a great American.[425]
Achievements
Having sold about 500 million records worldwide, Presley is one of the best-selling music artists of all time.[426]
Presley
holds the records for most songs charting in Billboard's top 40
(115)[427][428][429] and top 100 (152), according to chart statistician
Joel Whitburn,[429][430] 139 according to Presley historian Adam
Victor.[428][429] Presley's rankings for top ten and number-one hits
vary depending on how the double-sided "Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel" and
"Don't/I Beg of You" singles, which precede the inception of Billboard's
unified Hot 100 chart, are analyzed.[e] According to Whitburn's
analysis, Presley holds the record with 38, tying with Madonna;[427] per
Billboard's current assessment, he ranks second with 36.[431] Whitburn
and Billboard concur that the Beatles hold the record for most
number-one hits with 20, and that Mariah Carey is second with 19.[432]
Whitburn has Presley with 18:[427] Billboard has him third with 17.[433]
According to Billboard, Presley has 79 cumulative weeks at number one:
alone at 80, according to Whitburn and the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame,[434][435] with only Mariah Carey having more with 91 weeks.[436]
He holds the records for most number-one singles on the UK chart with 21
and singles reaching the top ten with 76.[437][438]
As an album
artist, Presley is credited by Billboard with the record for the most
albums charting in the Billboard 200: 129, far ahead of second-place
Frank Sinatra's 82. He also holds the record for most time spent at
number one on the Billboard 200: 67 weeks.[439] In 2015 and 2016, two
albums setting Presley's vocals against music by the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, If I Can Dream and The Wonder of You, both reached number one
in the United Kingdom. This gave him a new record for number-one UK
albums by a solo artist with 13, and extended his record for longest
span between number-one albums by anybody—Presley had first topped the
British chart in 1956 with his self-titled debut.[440]
As of
2023, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) credits
Presley with 146.5 million certified album sales in the US, third all
time behind the Beatles and Garth Brooks.[441] He holds the records for
most gold albums (101, nearly twice as many as second-place Barbra
Streisand's 51),[442] and most platinum albums (57).[443] His 25
multi-platinum albums is second behind the Beatles' 26.[444] His total
of 197 album certification awards (including one diamond award), far
outpaces the Beatles' second-best 122.[445] He has the 9th-most gold
singles (54, tied with Justin Bieber),[446] and the 16th-most platinum
singles (27).[447]
In 2012, the spider Paradonea presleyi was
named in his honor.[448] In 2018, President Donald Trump awarded Presley
the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.[449]
Discography
Main articles: Elvis Presley albums discography, Elvis Presley singles discography, and List of songs recorded by Elvis Presley
A
vast number of recordings have been issued under Presley's name. The
total number of his original master recordings has been variously
calculated as 665[428] and 711.[379] His career began and he was most
successful during an era when singles were the primary commercial medium
for pop music. In the case of his albums, the distinction between
"official" studio records and other forms is often blurred. For most of
the 1960s, his recording career focused on soundtrack albums. In the
1970s, his most heavily promoted and bestselling LP releases tended to
be concert albums.
Filmography
Main article: Elvis Presley on film and television
Films starred
Love Me Tender (1956)
Loving You (1957)
Jailhouse Rock (1957)
King Creole (1958)
G.I. Blues (1960)
Flaming Star (1960)
Wild in the Country (1961)
Blue Hawaii (1961)
Follow That Dream (1962)
Kid Galahad (1962)
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962)
It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)
Fun in Acapulco (1963)
Kissin' Cousins (1964)
Viva Las Vegas (1964)
Roustabout (1964)
Girl Happy (1965)
Tickle Me (1965)
Harum Scarum (1965)
Frankie and Johnny (1966)
Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)
Spinout (1966)
Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)
Double Trouble (1967)
Clambake (1967)
Stay Away, Joe (1968)
Speedway (1968)
Live a Little, Love a Little (1968)
Charro! (1969)
The Trouble with Girls (1969)
Change of Habit (1969)
Elvis: That's the Way It Is (1970)
Elvis on Tour (1972)
TV concert specials
Elvis (1968)
Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite (1973)
Elvis in Concert (1977)
See also
Elvis Presley Enterprises
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists by number of UK Albums Chart number ones
List of artists by number of UK Singles Chart number ones
List of bestselling music artists
Personal relationships of Elvis Presley
Explanatory notes
Although
some pronounce his surname /ˈprɛzli/ PREZ-lee, Presley himself
pronounced it /ˈprɛsli/ PRESS-lee, as did his family and those who
worked with him.[2]
The correct spelling of his middle name has
long been a matter of debate. The physician who delivered him wrote
"Elvis Aaron Presley" in his ledger.[3] The state-issued birth
certificate reads "Elvis Aron Presley". The name was chosen after the
Presleys' friend and fellow congregation member Aaron Kennedy, though a
single-A spelling was probably intended by Presley's parents to parallel
the middle name of Presley's stillborn brother, Jesse Garon.[4] It
reads Aron on most official documents produced during his lifetime,
including his high school diploma, RCA Victor record contract, and
marriage license, and this was generally taken to be the proper
spelling.[5] In 1966, Presley expressed the desire to his father that
the more traditional biblical rendering, Aaron, be used henceforth,
"especially on legal documents".[3] Five years later, the Jaycees
citation honoring him as one of the country's Outstanding Young Men used
Aaron. Late in his life, he sought to officially change the spelling to
Aaron and discovered that state records already listed it that way.
Knowing his wishes for his middle name, Aaron is the spelling his father
chose for Presley's tombstone, and it is the spelling his estate has
designated as official.[5]
Of the $40,000, $5,000 covered back royalties owed by Sun.[89]
In
1956–57, Presley was also credited as a co-writer on several songs
where he had no hand in the writing process: "Heartbreak Hotel"; "Don't
Be Cruel"; all four songs from his first film, including the title
track, "Love Me Tender"; "Paralyzed"; and "All Shook Up".[92] (Parker,
however, failed to register Presley with such musical licensing firms as
ASCAP and its rival BMI, which eventually denied Presley annuity from
songwriter's royalties.) Presley received credit on two other songs to
which he did contribute: he provided the title for "That's Someone You
Never Forget" (1961), written by his friend and former Humes schoolmate
Red West; they collaborated with another friend, guitarist Charlie
Hodge, on "You'll Be Gone" (1962).[93]
VH1 ranked Presley No. 8 among
the "100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll" in 1998.[399] The BBC
ranked him as the No. 2 "Voice of the Century" in 2001.[400] Rolling
Stone placed him No. 3 in its list of "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest
Artists of All Time" in 2004.[401] CMT ranked him No. 15 among the "40
Greatest Men in Country Music" in 2005.[402] The Discovery Channel
placed him No. 8 on its "Greatest American" list in 2005.[403] Variety
put him in the top ten of its "100 Icons of the Century" in 2005.[404]
The Atlantic ranked him No. 66 among the "100 Most Influential Figures
in American History" in 2006.[405] Rolling Stone ranked him No. 17 on
its 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[406]
Whitburn follows actual Billboard history in considering the four songs
on the "Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog" and "Don't/I Beg of You" singles as
distinct. He tallies each side of the former single as a number-one
(Billboard's sales chart had "Don't Be Cruel" at number one for five
weeks, then "Hound Dog" for six) and reckons "I Beg of You" as a top
ten, as it reached number eight on the old Top 100 chart. Billboard now
considers both singles as unified items, ignoring the historical sales
split of the former and its old Top 100 chart entirely. Whitburn thus
analyzes the four songs as yielding three number ones and a total of
four top tens. Billboard now states that they yielded just two number
ones and a total of two top tens, voiding the separate chart appearances
of "Hound Dog" and "I Beg of You".
Allen, Lew (2007). Elvis and the Birth of Rock. Genesis. ISBN 978-1-905662-00-5.
Bennet, Mark (August 15, 2017). "Elvis impersonator reviews his career
highlights, wardrobe". Daily Herald of Arlington Heights. Retrieved
February 2, 2018.
"Elvis Presley: Chart History – Classical
Albums". Billboard. 2018. Archived from the original on May 7, 2018.
Retrieved January 9, 2018.
Bloom, Nate (2010). "The Jews Who
Wrote Christmas Songs". InterfaithFamily.com. Archived from the original
on November 9, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2011.
Cantor, Louis
(2005). Dewey and Elvis: The Life and Times of a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay.
University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02981-3.
"Elvis Presley Fast Facts". CNN. December 22, 2020 [May 12, 2017]. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
Dickerson, James L. (2001). Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of
Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager. Cooper Square Press. ISBN
978-0-8154-1267-0.
Gatto, Kimberly; Racimo, Victoria (2017). All
the King's Horses: the Equestrian Life of Elvis Presley. Regnery
History. ISBN 978-1-62157-603-7.
Goldman, Albert (1981). Elvis. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-023657-8.
Goldman, Albert (1990). Elvis: The Last 24 Hours. St. Martin's. ISBN 978-0-312-92541-3.
Klein, George (2010). Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll
Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley. Virgin Books.
ISBN 978-0-307-45274-0
Marcus, Greil (1991). Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-41718-1.
Marcus, Greil (2000). Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in
a Land of No Alternative. Picador. ISBN 978-0-571-20676-6.
Mawer, Sharon (2007a). "Album Chart History – 1974". The Official UK
Charts Company. Archived from the original on December 17, 2007.
Retrieved February 1, 2010.
Mawer, Sharon (2007b). "Album Chart
History – 1977". The Official UK Charts Company. Archived from the
original on April 15, 2008. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
Nash, Alanna (2010). Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him. It Books. ISBN 978-0-06-169984-9.
Roy, Samuel (1985). Elvis: Prophet of Power. Branden, ISBN 978-0-8283-1898-3.
"Southern Genealogy Yields Surprises". Voice of America. October 27, 2009. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
Whitburn, Joel (2007). Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Albums (6th ed.). Record Research. ISBN 978-0-89820-166-6.
Whitburn, Joel (2008). Joel Whitburn Presents Hot Country Albums:
Billboard 1964 to 2007. Record Research. ISBN 978-0-89820-173-4.
Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler as told to Steve Dunleavy (1977).
Elvis: What Happened? Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-345-27215-7.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elvis Presley.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Elvis Presley.
Elvis Presley at Curlie
Elvis Presley at IMDb
Elvis Presley at the TCM Movie Database
Elvis Presley at AllMovie
Elvis The Music official record label site
Elvis Presley Interviews on officially sanctioned Elvis Australia site
"The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the Rock-a-billies" episode of 1968 Pop Chronicles radio series
vte
Elvis Presley
Albums Singles Songs Films and television Personal relationships Cultural depictions Cultural impact
Studio albums
Elvis Presley Elvis (1956 album) Elvis' Christmas Album Elvis Is Back!
His Hand in Mine Something for Everybody Pot Luck How Great Thou Art
From Elvis in Memphis From Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis
That's the Way It Is Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) Love Letters
from Elvis Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas Elvis Now He
Touched Me Elvis (1973 album) Raised on Rock / For Ol' Times Sake Good
Times Promised Land Today From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis,
Tennessee Moody Blue
Soundtrack albums
Loving You
King Creole G.I. Blues Blue Hawaii Girls! Girls! Girls! It Happened at
the World's Fair Fun in Acapulco Kissin' Cousins Roustabout Girl Happy
Harum Scarum Frankie and Johnny Paradise Hawaiian Style Spinout Double
Trouble Clambake Speedway Viva Elvis Elvis Presley: The Searcher
EPs
Love Me Tender Peace in the Valley Jailhouse Rock Flaming Star Follow
That Dream Kid Galahad Viva Las Vegas Tickle Me Easy Come, Easy Go
Live albums
Elvis (1968 album) From Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis On
Stage As Recorded at Madison Square Garden Aloha from Hawaii via
Satellite Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis Having Fun with Elvis
on Stage Elvis in Concert An Afternoon in the Garden
Budget albums
Elvis Sings Flaming Star Let's Be Friends Almost in Love C'mon Everybody I Got Lucky Elvis' 40 Greatest Pure Gold
Compilation albums
Elvis' Golden Records For LP Fans Only A Date with Elvis 50,000,000
Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3 Elvis for
Everyone! Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4 Elvis: A Legendary Performer
Volume 1 Elvis: A Legendary Performer Volume 2 The Sun Sessions Welcome
to My World Mahalo from Elvis Elvis: A Legendary Performer Volume 3
Greatest Hits Volume 1 Elvis' Gold Records Volume 5 Amazing Grace: His
Greatest Sacred Performances Command Performances: The Essential 60s
Masters II Elvis 56 Tiger Man Memories: The '68 Comeback Special Sunrise
Suspicious Minds: The Memphis 1969 Anthology The 50 Greatest Hits
ELV1S: 30 #1 Hits 2nd to None Elvis at Sun Hitstory Elvis Inspirational
Elvis Rock Elvis Christmas The Essential Elvis Presley Christmas Duets
If I Can Dream Way Down in the Jungle Room The Wonder of You Where No
One Stands Alone
Box sets
Worldwide 50 Gold Award
Hits Vol. 1 The King of Rock 'n' Roll: The Complete 50's Masters From
Nashville to Memphis: The Essential '60s Masters Walk a Mile in My
Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters Peace in the Valley: The Complete
Gospel Recordings Live in Las Vegas Today, Tomorrow, and Forever Elvis
the King The Complete '68 Comeback Special The Complete Elvis Presley
Masters
Biographical media
Elvis (1979 film) Elvis
(1990 series) Elvis Meets Nixon Elvis (2005 miniseries) Elvis &
Nixon Elvis (2022 film) Agent Elvis (2023 series) Priscilla
Documentaries
The Pied Piper of Cleveland Elvis: That's the Way It Is Elvis on Tour
This Is Elvis The New Gladiators Elvis Presley: The Searcher
TV specials
The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis Elvis ('68 Comeback
Special) Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite Elvis in Concert
Stage shows
Cooking with Elvis All Shook Up Elvis. The Musical Elvis: The Concert Viva Elvis The Elvis Dead
Related people
Lisa Marie Presley (daughter) Riley Keough (granddaughter) Priscilla
Presley (ex-wife) Brandon Presley (second cousin) Sam Phillips The Blue
Moon Boys The Jordanaires The Imperials The Sweet Inspirations TCB Band
J. D. Sumner Stephen H. Sholes June Juanico Memphis Mafia Colonel Tom
Parker George C. Nichopoulos Judy Spreckels Linda Thompson Ginger Alden
Larry Geller
Related articles
Graceland Audubon
Street House Impersonators Elvis and Gladys Elvis and Me Elvis: What
Happened? Elvis-A-Rama Museum Sun recordings Million Dollar Quartet
Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley Songs about Elvis Elvis Presley
Enterprises Elvis Presley Lake "Elvis has left the building" Elvis Radio
FBI files on Elvis Presley Military service Eight Elvises Triple Elvis
Elvis Presley's Pink Cadillac Elvis Presley's guitars Elvis Presley
Forever stamp Elvis sightings Elvis sandwich Fool's Gold Loaf Elvis'
Greatest s*** List of memorials
Category
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Elvis Presley singles
1954
"That's All Right" / "Blue Moon of Kentucky" "Good Rockin' Tonight" /
"I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine" "Milkcow Blues Boogie" / "You're a
Heartbreaker"
1955
"I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" / "Baby Let's Play House" "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" / "Mystery Train"
1956
"Heartbreak Hotel" / "I Was the One" "I Want You, I Need You, I Love
You" / "My Baby Left Me" "Don't Be Cruel" / "Hound Dog" "Blue Suede
Shoes" / "Tutti Frutti" "Money Honey" "I Got a Woman" "Tryin' to Get to
You" "Blue Moon" "I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')" / "I'm Gonna
Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" "Shake, Rattle and Roll" / "Lawdy
Miss Clawdy" "Love Me Tender" / "Any Way You Want Me"
1957
"Too Much" / "Playing for Keeps" "All Shook Up" / "That's When Your
Heartaches Begin" "Peace in the Valley" "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" /
"Loving You" "Paralyzed" (UK) "Jailhouse Rock" / "Treat Me Nice" "Party"
/ "Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do!" (UK)
1958
"Don't" /
"I Beg of You" "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck" / "Doncha' Think It's
Time" "Hard Headed Woman" / "Don't Ask Me Why" "King Creole" (UK) "One
Night" / "I Got Stung"
1959
"I Need Your Love Tonight" / "A Fool Such as I" "A Big Hunk o' Love" / "My Wish Came True"
1960
"Stuck on You" / "Fame and Fortune" "It's Now or Never" / "A Mess of Blues" "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" / "I Gotta Know"
1961
"Surrender" / "Lonely Man" "I Feel So Bad" / "Wild in the Country"
"(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" / "Little Sister" "Can't Help
Falling in Love" / "Rock-A-Hula Baby"
1962
"Good
Luck Charm" / "Anything That's Part of You" "She's Not You" / "Just Tell
Her Jim Said Hello" "King of the Whole Wide World" "Return to Sender" /
"Where Do You Come From"
1963
"One Broken Heart
for Sale" / "They Remind Me Too Much of You" "(You're the) Devil in
Disguise" "Bossa Nova Baby" / "Witchcraft"
1964
"Kissin' Cousins" / "It Hurts Me" "Kiss Me Quick" / "Suspicion" "Viva
Las Vegas" / "What'd I Say" "Such a Night" / "Never Ending" "Ask Me" /
"Ain't That Loving You Baby" "Blue Christmas"
1965
"Do the Clam" / "You'll Be Gone" "Crying in the Chapel "(Such an) Easy
Question" / "It Feels So Right" "I'm Yours" / "(It's a) Long Lonely
Highway" "Puppet on a String" / "Wooden Heart"
1966
"Tell Me Why" / "Blue River" "Frankie and Johnny" / "Please Don't Stop
Loving Me" "Love Letters" "Spinout" / "All That I Am" "If Every Day Was
Like Christmas"
1967
"Indescribably Blue" / "Fools
Fall in Love" "You Gotta Stop" / "The Love Machine" (UK) "Long Legged
Girl (with the Short Dress On)" / "That's Someone You Never Forget"
"There's Always Me" / "Judy" "Big Boss Man" / "You Don't Know Me"
1968
"Guitar Man" "U.S. Male" / "Stay Away" "We Call on Him" / "You'll Never
Walk Alone" "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby" / "Let Yourself Go"
"Almost in Love" / "A Little Less Conversation" "If I Can Dream" / "Edge
of Reality"
1969
"Memories" / "Charro" "How Great
Thou Art" "In the Ghetto" / "Any Day Now" "Clean Up Your Own Backyard"
"Suspicious Minds" / "You'll Think of Me" "Don't Cry Daddy"
"Rubberneckin'"
1970
"Kentucky Rain" "The Wonder
of You" / "Mama Liked the Roses" "I've Lost You" / "The Next Step Is
Love" "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" / "Patch It Up" "I Really
Don't Want to Know" / "There Goes My Everything"
1971
"Rags to Riches" "Life" / "Only Believe" "I'm Leavin'" "It's Only Love"
/ "The Sound of Your Cry" "Merry Christmas Baby" / "O Come All Ye
Faithful"
1972
"Until It's Time for You to Go" /
"We Can Make the Morning" "He Touched Me" / "Bosom of Abraham" "An
American Trilogy" / "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" "Burning Love"
/ "It's a Matter of Time" "Separate Ways" / "Always on My Mind"
1973
"Steamroller Blues" / "Fool" "Raised on Rock" / "For Ol' Times Sake"
1974
"Take Good Care of Her" / "I've Got a Thing About You, Baby" "If You
Talk in Your Sleep" / "Help Me" "Promised Land" / "It's Midnight"
1975
"My Boy" / "Thinking About You" "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" "Bringing It Back" / "Pieces of My Life"
1976
"For the Heart" / "Hurt" "Moody Blue" / "She Thinks I Still Care"
1977
"Way Down" / "Pledging My Love" "My Way" / "America the Beautiful"
1978
"Unchained Melody" / "Softly as I Leave You"
Posthumous
singles
"Puppet on a String" / "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" (1978) "Are You
Sincere" / "Solitaire" "There's a Honky Tonk Angel (Who'll Take Me Back
In)" / "I Got a Feelin' in My Body" "Guitar Man" "Loving Arms" / You
Asked Me To" "You'll Never Walk Alone / "There Goes My Everything"
(1982) "The Elvis Medley" "I Was the One" / "Wear My Ring Around Your
Neck" (1983) "Heartbreak Hotel" (1996) "Blue Christmas" (1998) "A Little
Less Conversation" (JXL remix) "Rubberneckin'" (Paul Oakenfold Remix)
"I'll Be Home for Christmas" (with Carrie Underwood) (2008) "Blue
Christmas" (with Martina McBride) (2008) "I Got a Feelin' in My Body"
(Tommie Sunshine & Wuki Remix)
Category
Awards for Elvis Presley
vte
American Music Award of Merit
Bing Crosby (1974) Berry Gordy (1975) Irving Berlin (1976) Johnny Cash
(1977) Ella Fitzgerald (1978) Perry Como (1979) Benny Goodman (1980)
Chuck Berry (1981) Stevie Wonder (1982) Kenny Rogers (1983) Michael
Jackson (1984) Loretta Lynn (1985) Paul McCartney (1986) Elvis Presley
(1987) The Beach Boys (1988) Willie Nelson (1989) Neil Diamond (1990)
Merle Haggard (1991) James Brown (1992) Bill Graham (1993) Whitney
Houston (1994) Prince (1995) Tammy Wynette (1996) Little Richard (1997)
Frank Sinatra (1998) Billy Joel (1999) Gloria Estefan (2000) Janet
Jackson (2001) Garth Brooks (2002) Alabama (2003) Bon Jovi (2004) Annie
Lennox (2008) Sting (2016)
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Best-selling singles by year in the United Kingdom
1950s
1952: "Here in My Heart" – Al Martino 1953: "I Believe" – Frankie Laine
1954: "Secret Love" – Doris Day 1955: "Rose Marie" – Slim Whitman 1956:
"I'll Be Home" – Pat Boone 1957: "Diana" – Paul Anka 1958: "Jailhouse
Rock" – Elvis Presley 1959: "Living Doll" – Cliff Richard (UK)
1960s
1960: "It's Now or Never" – Elvis Presley 1961: "Wooden Heart" – Elvis
Presley 1962: "I Remember You" – Frank Ifield (UK) 1963: "She Loves You"
– The Beatles (UK) 1964: "Can't Buy Me Love" – The Beatles (UK) 1965:
"Tears" – Ken Dodd (UK) 1966: "Green, Green Grass of Home" – Tom Jones
(UK) 1967: "Release Me" – Engelbert Humperdinck (UK) 1968: "Hey Jude" –
The Beatles (UK) 1969: "Sugar, Sugar" – The Archies
1970s
1970: "The Wonder of You" – Elvis Presley / "In the Summertime" – Mungo
Jerry (UK) 1971: "My Sweet Lord" – George Harrison (UK) 1972: "Amazing
Grace" – Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (UK) 1973: "Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Round the Ole Oak Tree" – Dawn featuring Tony Orlando 1974: "Tiger Feet"
– Mud (UK) 1975: "Bye Bye Baby" – Bay City Rollers (UK) 1976: "Save
Your Kisses for Me" – Brotherhood of Man (UK) 1977: "Mull of Kintyre" /
"Girls' School" – Wings (UK) 1978: "Rivers of Babylon" / "Brown Girl in
the Ring" – Boney M. 1979: "Bright Eyes" – Art Garfunkel
1980s
1980: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" – The Police (UK) 1981: "Tainted
Love" – Soft Cell (UK) / "Don't You Want Me" – The Human League (UK)
1982: "Come On Eileen" – Dexys Midnight Runners (UK) 1983: "Karma
Chameleon" – Culture Club (UK) 1984: "Do They Know It's Christmas?" –
Band Aid (UK) 1985: "The Power of Love" – Jennifer Rush 1986: "Don't
Leave Me This Way" – The Communards (UK) 1987: "Never Gonna Give You Up"
– Rick Astley (UK) 1988: "Mistletoe and Wine" – Cliff Richard (UK)
1989: "Ride on Time" – Black Box
1990s
1990:
"Unchained Melody" – The Righteous Brothers 1991: "(Everything I Do) I
Do It for You" – Bryan Adams 1992: "I Will Always Love You" – Whitney
Houston 1993: "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" – Meat
Loaf 1994: "Love Is All Around" – Wet Wet Wet (UK) 1995: "Unchained
Melody" – Robson & Jerome (UK) 1996: "Killing Me Softly" – Fugees
1997: "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" / "Candle in the Wind
1997" – Elton John (UK) 1998: "Believe" – Cher 1999: "...Baby One More
Time" – Britney Spears
2000s
2000: "Can We Fix
It?" – Bob the Builder (UK) 2001: "It Wasn't Me" – Shaggy featuring
Rikrok (UK) 2002: "Anything Is Possible" / "Evergreen" – Will Young (UK)
2003: "Where Is the Love?" – Black Eyed Peas 2004: "Do They Know It's
Christmas?" – Band Aid 20 (UK) 2005: "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" –
Tony Christie featuring Peter Kay (UK) 2006: "Crazy" – Gnarls Barkley
2007: "Bleeding Love" – Leona Lewis (UK) 2008: "Hallelujah" – Alexandra
Burke (UK) 2009: "Poker Face" – Lady Gaga
2010s
2010: "Love the Way You Lie" – Eminem featuring Rihanna 2011: "Someone
like You" – Adele (UK) 2012: "Somebody That I Used to Know" – Gotye
featuring Kimbra 2013: "Blurred Lines" – Robin Thicke featuring T.I.
& Pharrell Williams 2014: "Happy" – Pharrell Williams 2015: "Uptown
Funk" – Mark Ronson (UK) featuring Bruno Mars 2016: "One Dance" – Drake
featuring Wizkid and Kyla (UK) 2017: "Shape of You" – Ed Sheeran (UK)
2018: "One Kiss" – Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa (UK) 2019: "Someone You
Loved" – Lewis Capaldi (UK)
2020s
2020: "Blinding Lights" – The Weeknd 2021: "Bad Habits" – Ed Sheeran (UK) 2022: "As It Was" – Harry Styles (UK)
vte
Country Music Hall of Fame 1990s
Tennessee Ernie Ford (1990) Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (1991) George
Jones (1992) Frances Preston (1992) Willie Nelson (1993) Merle Haggard
(1994) Roger Miller (1995) Jo Walker-Meador (1995) Patsy Montana (1996)
Buck Owens (1996) Ray Price (1996) Harlan Howard (1997) Brenda Lee
(1997) Cindy Walker (1997) George Morgan (1998) Elvis Presley (1998)
E.W. "Bud" Wendell (1998) Tammy Wynette (1998) Johnny Bond (1999) Dolly
Parton (1999) Conway Twitty (1999)
vte
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
1963–1990
1963
Bing Crosby 1965
Frank Sinatra 1966
Duke Ellington 1967
Ella Fitzgerald 1968
Irving Berlin 1971
Elvis Presley 1972
Louis Armstrong Mahalia Jackson 1984
Chuck Berry Charlie Parker 1985
Leonard Bernstein 1986
Benny Goodman The Rolling Stones Andrés Segovia 1987
Roy Acuff Benny Carter Enrico Caruso Ray Charles Fats Domino Woody
Herman Billie Holiday B.B. King Isaac Stern Igor Stravinsky Arturo
Toscanini Hank Williams 1989
Fred Astaire Pablo Casals Dizzy
Gillespie Jascha Heifetz Lena Horne Leontyne Price Bessie Smith Art
Tatum Sarah Vaughan 1990
Nat King Cole Miles Davis Vladimir Horowitz Paul McCartney
1991–2000
1991
Marian Anderson Bob Dylan John Lennon Kitty Wells 1992
James Brown John Coltrane Jimi Hendrix Muddy Waters 1993
Chet Atkins Little Richard Thelonious Monk Bill Monroe Pete Seeger Fats Waller 1994
Bill Evans Aretha Franklin Arthur Rubinstein 1995
Patsy Cline Peggy Lee Henry Mancini Curtis Mayfield Barbra Streisand 1996
Dave Brubeck Marvin Gaye Georg Solti Stevie Wonder 1997
Bobby "Blue" Bland The Everly Brothers Judy Garland Stéphane Grappelli
Buddy Holly Charles Mingus Oscar Peterson Frank Zappa 1998
Bo Diddley The Mills Brothers Roy Orbison Paul Robeson 1999
Johnny Cash Sam Cooke Otis Redding Smokey Robinson Mel Tormé 2000
Harry Belafonte Woody Guthrie John Lee Hooker Mitch Miller Willie Nelson
2001–2010
2001
The Beach Boys Tony Bennett Sammy Davis Jr. Bob Marley The Who 2002
Count Basie Rosemary Clooney Perry Como Al Green Joni Mitchell 2003
Etta James Johnny Mathis Glenn Miller Tito Puente Simon & Garfunkel 2004
Van Cliburn The Funk Brothers Ella Jenkins Sonny Rollins Artie Shaw Doc Watson 2005
Eddy Arnold Art Blakey The Carter Family Morton Gould Janis Joplin Led
Zeppelin Jerry Lee Lewis Jelly Roll Morton Pinetop Perkins The Staple
Singers 2006
David Bowie Cream Merle Haggard Robert Johnson Jessye Norman Richard Pryor The Weavers 2007
Joan Baez Booker T. & the M.G.'s Maria Callas Ornette Coleman The Doors The Grateful Dead Bob Wills 2008
Burt Bacharach The Band Cab Calloway Doris Day Itzhak Perlman Max Roach Earl Scruggs 2009
Gene Autry The Blind Boys of Alabama The Four Tops Hank Jones Brenda Lee Dean Martin Tom Paxton 2010
Leonard Cohen Bobby Darin David "Honeyboy" Edwards Michael Jackson Loretta Lynn André Previn Clark Terry
2011–2020
2011
Julie Andrews Roy Haynes Juilliard String Quartet The Kingston Trio Dolly Parton Ramones George Beverly Shea 2012
The Allman Brothers Band Glen Campbell Antônio Carlos Jobim George
Jones The Memphis Horns Diana Ross Gil Scott-Heron 2013
Glenn Gould Charlie Haden Lightnin' Hopkins Carole King Patti Page Ravi Shankar The Temptations 2014
The Beatles Clifton Chenier The Isley Brothers Kraftwerk Kris Kristofferson Armando Manzanero Maud Powell 2015
Bee Gees Pierre Boulez Buddy Guy George Harrison Flaco Jiménez The Louvin Brothers Wayne Shorter 2016
Ruth Brown Celia Cruz Earth, Wind & Fire Herbie Hancock Jefferson Airplane Linda Ronstadt Run-DMC 2017
Shirley Caesar Ahmad Jamal Charley Pride Jimmie Rodgers Nina Simone Sly Stone The Velvet Underground 2018
Hal Blaine Neil Diamond Emmylou Harris Louis Jordan The Meters Queen Tina Turner 2019
Black Sabbath George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic Billy Eckstine
Donny Hathaway Julio Iglesias Sam & Dave Dionne Warwick 2020
Chicago Roberta Flack Isaac Hayes Iggy Pop John Prine Public Enemy Sister Rosetta Tharpe
2021–present
2021
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five Lionel Hampton Marilyn Horne Salt-N-Pepa Selena Talking Heads 2022
Bonnie Raitt 2023
Bobby McFerrin Nirvana Ma Rainey Slick Rick Nile Rodgers The Supremes Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson
vte
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Class of 1986
Performers
Chuck Berry James Brown Ray Charles Sam Cooke Fats Domino The Everly Brothers
Don Everly, Phil Everly Buddy Holly Jerry Lee Lewis Little Richard Elvis Presley
Early influences
Robert Johnson Jimmie Rodgers Jimmy Yancey
Non-performers
(Ahmet Ertegun Award)
Alan Freed Sam Phillips
Lifetime achievement
John Hammond
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Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson was a
multitalented singer and dancer who enjoyed a chart-topping career both
with the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist.
By Biography.Com Editors And Colin McEvoyUPDATED: APR 11, 2023
michael jackson file photos by kevin mazur
KMazur//Getty Images
Jump to:
Who Was Michael Jackson?
Quick Facts
Early Life and Family
The Jackson 5
Emerging Solo Career
"Thriller" (1982)
The Height of Stardom
Continued Career Success and Abuse Allegations
Career Decline and Criminal Charges
Wives and Children
Death
Memorials and Legacy
Quotes
1958-2009
Who Was Michael Jackson?
Known
as the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson was a best-selling American
singer, songwriter, and dancer. As a child, Jackson became the lead
singer of his family’s popular Motown group, the Jackson 5. He went on
to a solo career of astonishing worldwide success, delivering No. 1 hits
from the albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. Thriller remains one
of the best-selling albums in history. In his later years, Jackson was
dogged by allegations of child molestation. The 13-time Grammy Award
winner died in 2009 at age 50 of a drug overdose just before launching a
comeback tour.
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Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Michael Joseph Jackson
BORN: August 29, 1958
DIED: June 25, 2009
BIRTHPLACE: Gary, Indiana
SPOUSES: Lisa Marie Presley (1994-1996) and Debbie Rowe (1996-2000)
CHILDREN: Michael “Prince,” Paris, and Prince “Blanket”
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo
Early Life and Family
a young michael jackson wearing a vest, long sleeve shirt, black pants, and boots, sitting on the ground outside against a tree
Michael Jackson, pictured in 1970 as a pre-teen, began his professional singing career at age 5.
Getty Images
Michael
Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana. He was
the eighth of 10 children born to Joseph Jackson, a crane operator, and
Katherine Jackson, a homemaker and a devout Jehovah’s Witness. Both of
Jackson’s parents previously had musical aspirations themselves:
Katherine played clarinet and piano and had aspired to be a country
singer, while Joseph was a guitarist who performed in local R&B
bands. They encouraged their children to pursue musical ambitions, and
Jackson’s career in music began at the age of 5 under his father’s
encouragement.
Almost all of Jackson’s siblings made marks in the
music industry, including Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya,
Marlon, Randy, and Janet Jackson. (His brother Brandon, Marlon’s twin,
died shortly after birth.) Joseph pushed his children hard to succeed,
making them rehearse five hours a day after school, and was reportedly
known to become violent with them. He was said to beat them with a belt
buckle or electric kettle cord and to order them to break a branch off a
tree if they got a dance step wrong so he could hit them with it.
The Jackson 5
tito
jackson, marlon jackson, michael jackson, jackie jackson, and jermaine
jackson of the jackson 5 sing and dance on stage during a performance,
tito and jermaine are playing guitar and michael is holding and singing
into a microphone
The Jackson 5, seen performing around 1969,
included brothers Tito Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Michael Jackson, Jackie
Jackson, and Jermaine Jackson.
Getty Images
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Joseph
molded his sons into a musical group in the early 1960s that would
later become known as the Jackson 5. At first, the Jackson Family group
consisted of Jackson’s older brothers Tito, Jermaine, and Jackie.
Jackson joined his siblings when he was 5 years old and emerged as the
group’s lead vocalist. He showed remarkable range and depth for such a
young performer, impressing audiences with his ability to convey complex
emotions. They officially became the Jackson 5 when older brother
Marlon joined the group.
Watch This Is It, the dramatic
documentary with rare behind-the-scenes footage of Michael creating and
preparing for his sold out shows that would have taken place in London's
O2 Arena.
Jackson and his brothers spent endless hours
rehearsing and polishing their act. At first, the Jackson 5 played local
gigs and built a strong following. They recorded one single on their
own, “Big Boy,” with the B-side “You’ve Changed,” but the record failed
to generate much interest. The group moved on to working as the opening
act for R&B artists such as Gladys Knight and The Pips, James Brown,
and Sam and Dave. Many of these performers were signed to the legendary
Motown record label, and the Jackson 5 eventually caught the attention
of Motown founder Berry Gordy.
Impressed by the group, Gordy
signed the group to his label in early 1969. Jackson and his brothers
moved to Los Angeles, where they lived with Gordy and with Diana Ross of
the Supremes as they got settled. The Jackson 5 made its first
television appearance during the 1969 Miss Black American Pageant,
performing a cover of “It’s Your Thing.” Their first album, Diana Ross
Presents the Jackson 5, hit the charts in December 1969, with the single
“I Want You Back” reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart shortly
afterward.
More chart-topping singles quickly followed, such as
“ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There.” For several years,
Jackson and the Jackson 5 maintained a busy tour and recording schedule,
under the supervision of Gordy and his Motown staff. The group became
so popular that it even had its own self-titled cartoon show, which ran
from 1971 to 1972. Jackson also popularized the “robot dance” after
using the move during a 1973 performance of the song “Dancing Machine”
on The Mike Douglas Show.
Despite the group’s great success,
there was trouble brewing behind the scenes. Tensions mounted between
Gordy and Joseph over the management of his children’s careers, with the
Jacksons wanting more creative control over their material. The group
officially severed ties with Motown in 1976, though Jermaine remained
with the label to pursue his solo career. Now calling themselves the
Jacksons, the group signed a new recording deal with Epic Records. By
the release of its third album for the label, Destiny (1978), the
brothers had emerged as talented songwriters.
Emerging Solo Career
michael jackson wearing a purple suit and white shirt, looking off camera, with two women behind him
Michael Jackson in 1979
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WRITTEN BY MICHAEL JACKSON, HIMSELF
Moonwalk: A Memoir
Moonwalk: A Memoir
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Jackson
began his solo career while simultaneously performing with the Jackson
5. He released his debut solo album at age 13 with Got to Be There
(1971), making the charts with the title track. He had his first solo
No. 1 single with the title track from his sophomore album Ben (1972),
which he recorded for the 1972 film of the same name about a killer rat.
Jackson followed those albums with Music and Me (1973) and Forever,
Michael (1975), the latter of which was his last album with Motown
Records.
As Jackson’s stardom rose, he tried his hand at acting,
and the experience left its mark on his music, too. Jackson portrayed
the Scarecrow in the Sidney Lumet–directed film The Wiz (1977), starring
alongside Diana Ross and Nipsey Russell. While living in New York City
to make the film, Jackson frequently visited the Studio 54 nightclub and
was exposed to early hip-hop music, which contributed to his beatboxing
in future songs like “Working Night and Day.”
Jackson achieved
his solo career breakthrough with Off the Wall (1979), his first album
with Epic Records and his first produced by Quincy Jones, whom he met
while working on The Wiz. An infectious blend of pop and funk, Off the
Wall featured the Grammy Award–winning single “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get
Enough,” along with such hits as “Rock with You,” “She’s Out of My
Life,” and the title track. Critics felt the album moved Jackson from
the pop music of his youth into a more complex sound, and some have
called it one of the best pop albums ever made.
Jackson was still
performing with his brothers at this time, and the overwhelmingly
positive response to Off the Wall helped the Jacksons as a group. Their
album Triumph (1980) sold more than 1 million copies, and the brothers
went on an extensive tour to support the recording. At the same time,
Jackson continued exploring more ways to branch out on his own. In 1983,
Jackson embarked on his final tour with his brothers to support the
album Victory (1984). Jackson’s duet with Mick Jagger called “State of
Shock” was the most successful single from the album.
"Thriller" (1982)
michael jackson wearing a red coat and white shirt, singing on a stage into a microphone
Michael Jackson’s already successful career skyrocketed in the early 1980s after the release of Thriller.
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Jackson
achieved unparalleled success with the release of his six solo album
Thriller (1982), which as of August 2021 was still recognized by
Guinness World Records as the best-selling album of all time, having
sold 67 million copies worldwide and 34 million units in the United
States alone. The album stayed on the charts for 80 weeks after its
release, holding the No. 1 spot for 37 weeks, and generated seven Top 10
hits, including “Thriller,” “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Human Nature,”
“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” and “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing).”
The
album garnered 12 Grammy Award nominations and notched eight wins, both
records at the time. Jackson also filmed an elaborate music video was
for the album’s title track. Directed by filmmaker John Landis, the
14-minute “Thriller” mini-movie features a horror plot that culminates
with Jackson dancing with dozens of zombies in an abandoned city street.
Following its debut on MTV on December 2, 1983, it was hailed as one of
the greatest music videos of all time and became the first music video
to be selected for the National Film Registry in 2009.
On a 1983
television special honoring Motown, Jackson performed his No. 1 hit
“Billie Jean” and debuted the moonwalk, which became one of his
signature moves. The dance step, which R&B musician Jeffrey Daniel
had taught him three years earlier, involves the dancer gliding
backwards despite bodily actions that suggest forward motion. The
much-lauded dance performance further boosted sales for the
already-successful Thriller album. The New York Times hailed Jackson as a
“musical phenomenon,” writing: “In the world of pop music, there is
Michael Jackson and there is everybody else.”
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The Height of Stardom
Jackson
signed a record-breaking $5 million promotional deal with PepsiCo in
November 1983, launching the brand’s youth-targeted New Generation
campaign. However, Jackson ended up filing a lawsuit against Pepsi when,
during filming of a simulated concert for a commercial, pyrotechnics
accidentally set Jackson’s hair on fire, resulting in second- and
third-degree burns on his scalp. Jackson had surgery to repair his
injuries and is believed to have begun experimenting with plastic
surgery around this time. His face, especially his nose, would become
dramatically altered in the coming years.
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In
1985, Jackson showed his altruistic side by working with Lionel Richie
to co-write “We Are the World,” a charity single for the non-profit
organization USA for Africa. A veritable who’s who of music stars
participated in the project, including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Willie
Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, and Tina Turner. It became one of the
top-selling singles of all time and raised, by some accounts, more than
$75 million for humanitarian aid to fight poverty in Africa.
Five
years after Thriller, Jackson released his highly-anticipated follow-up
album Bad (1987). Although unable to duplicate the phenomenal sales of
Thriller, Bad still reached the top of the charts and became the first
album to feature five No. 1 hits with “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,”
“Bad,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Man in the Mirror,” and “Dirty
Diana.” Filmmaker Martin Scorsese directed the title track’s music
video, which featured a then-unknown Wesley Snipes and involved an
elaborate story about delinquent teenagers and gang violence. Jackson
spent more than a year on the road, playing concerts to promote the
album.
In 1988, Jackson bought 2,700 acres of property in Los
Olivos, California, for $17 million and had it converted into Neverland
Ranch, a home and private amusement park that he owned until 2005. Named
after the fantasy island from the Peter Pan story, it included a zoo,
train, Ferris wheel, and 50-seat movie theater. Several exotic pets were
kept at the ranch, including Jackson’s famous pet chimpanzee Bubbles.
Around
the late 1980s, rumors began swirling that Jackson was lightening the
color of his skin to appear more white and sleeping in a special oxygen
chamber to increase his lifespan. In 1993, Jackson agreed to a rare
television interview with Oprah Winfrey to quell rumors. He explained
that the change in his skin tone was the result of a skin condition
known as vitiligo, and he opened up about the abuse he suffered from his
father.
Continued Career Success and Abuse Allegations
michael
jackson stands on stage at the super bowl xxxviii halftime show, he
wears a black outfit with gold accents and a white sleeve up to his
right elbow, behind him are musicians, pyrotechnics and the crowd
Michael Jackson performed the Super Bowl XXXVII halftime show in 1993.
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In
1991, Jackson released his eighth solo album Dangerous, his first
without Quincy Jones in 16 years. The album marked a different direction
for Jackson and mixed various genres, including R&B, funk, gospel,
hip-hop, rock, industrial, and classical. It included the hit single
“Black or White,” with an accompanying music video directed by Landis
and featuring a cameo appearance by child star Macaulay Culkin. The
final minutes of the video featured Jackson making sexual gesturing and
violently damaging cars and buildings, which drew criticism from some
viewers. Jackson issued an apology and edited the video to remove these
elements.
Jackson’s music continued to enjoy widespread
popularity in the following years. In 1993, he performed at several
important events, including the halftime show of Superbowl XXVII.
However, 1993 also saw the first of several child molestation
allegations against Jackson, when a 13-year-old boy claimed that the
music star had fondled him. Jackson was known to have sleepovers with
boys at his Neverland Ranch, but this was the first public charge of
wrongdoing. The police searched the ranch, but said they found no
evidence to support the claim. The following year, Jackson settled the
case out of court with the boy’s family.
In the 2003 television
documentary Living with Michael Jackson, British journalist Martin
Bashir spent several months with the singer, even getting him to discuss
his relationships with children. Jackson admitted that he continued to
have children sleep over at his ranch, even after the 1993 allegations
and that sometimes he slept with the children in his bed. “Why can’t you
share your bed? That’s the most loving thing to do, to share your bed
with someone,” Jackson told Bashir.
Career Decline and Criminal Charges
michael jackson wears blue tinted sunglasses, a black suit and tie, and a neutral expression, he is standing in a crowd
Michael Jackson faced many controversies in his life, including a 2005 criminal trial in which he was acquitted of all charges.
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Jackson’s
musical career began to decline with the lukewarm reception to HIStory:
Past, Present, and Future, Book I (1995). The two-disc album featured a
greatest hits compilation on disc one and new material on disc two that
included collaborations with Janet Jackson, The Notorious B.I.G.,
Shaquille O’Neal, and Slash. HIStory was considered Jackson’s most
personal album, with lyrics pertaining to his child abuse allegations
and anger of his treatment by the media. The record spawned two hits,
“You Are Not Alone” and his duet with sister Janet, “Scream.” The
spaceship-themed video for the latter song cost a record-setting $7
million to produce and earned a Grammy Award for its slick effects.
Another track from the album, “They Don’t Care About Us,” brought
Jackson intense criticism for using an anti-Semitic term.
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In
2001, Jackson released Invincible, his final studio album prior to his
death. It cost $30 million to produce, making it the most expensive
album ever made. The album touched upon such topics as isolation, social
issues, and Jackson’s continued objections to the media. Despite
debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, it received mixed reviews
from critics. Invincible was released as Jackson was having legal issues
with Sony over the rights to his master recordings, which escalated
when Jackson called Sony Music Chairman Tommy Mottola a racist who
exploits Black artists.
By the turn of the century, Jackson was
increasingly becoming known for his eccentricities, which included
wearing a surgical mask in public. In 2002, Jackson made headlines when
he seemed confused and disoriented on stage at the MTV Video Music
Awards. In 2002, he received enormous criticism for dangling his baby
son Blanket over a balcony while greeting fans in Berlin, Germany. In a
later interview, Jackson explained that “We were waiting for thousands
of fans down below, and they were chanting they wanted to see my child,
so I was kind enough to let them see. I was doing something out of
innocence.”
In 2003, Jackson encountered more legal woes when he
was arrested on charges related to incidents with a 13-year-old boy. He
faced 10 counts in total, including lewd conduct with a minor,
conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment, and extortion.
The resulting 2005 trial was a media circus, with fans, detractors and
camera crews surrounding the courthouse. More than 130 people testified,
and Jackson’s accuser described via videotape how he had been given
wine and molested. However, the jury found problems with his testimony,
as well as that of his mother. Jackson was found not guilty of all
charges on June 14, 2005.
Wives and Children
lisa marie
presley and michael jackson stand outside, smiling, with both wearing
black s***s and hats, and michael jackson making a peace sign with his
left hand
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson pose for a photo at the Palace of Versailles on September 5, 1994, in France.
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In
August 1994, Jackson announced that he had married Lisa Marie Presley,
daughter of rock icon Elvis Presley. The union proved to be short-lived,
as they divorced in 1996. Some thought that the marriage was a
publicity ploy to restore Jackson’s image after child molestation
allegations.
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RELATED STORY
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson
Odd Couple: Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson
Later
in 1996, Jackson wed nurse Debbie Rowe. Jackson and Rowe had two
children through artificial insemination: son Michael Joseph Jackson
Jr., born in 1997 and known as Prince Jackson, and daughter Paris
Michael Katherine Jackson, born in 1998. When Rowe and Jackson divorced
in 1999, Michael received full custody of their two children. Jackson
would go on to have a third child, Prince Michael Jackson II who went by
“Blanket” and now “Bigi,” with an unknown surrogate in 2002.
Death
several
people sit on the ground around michael jackson's star on the hollywood
walk of fame, with flowers and candles on the star
Fans of Michael
Jackson sit vigil at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame following
the singer’s death on June 25, 2009, in Los Angeles, California.
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Jackson
died on June 25, 2009, at the age of 50, after suffering a cardiac
arrest in his Los Angeles home. CPR attempts failed, and he was rushed
to the hospital, where he died later that morning. In February 2010, an
official coroner’s report revealed Jackson’s cause of death was acute
propofol intoxication, or a lethal overdose on a prescription drug
cocktail including the sedatives midazolam, diazepam, and lidocaine.
Aided
by his personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson had been taking
sedative drugs to help him sleep at night. Murray told police that he
believed Jackson had developed a particular addiction to propofol, which
Jackson referred to as his “milk.” Murray reportedly administered
propofol by IV in the evenings, in 50-milligram dosages, and was
attempting to wean the pop star off the drug around the time of his
death.
A police investigation revealed that Murray was not
licensed to prescribe most controlled drugs in the state of California.
The steps he took to save Jackson also came under scrutiny, as evidence
showed that the standard of care for administering propofol had not been
met, and the recommended equipment for patient monitoring, precision
dosing, and resuscitation had not been present. As a result, Jackson’s
death was ruled a homicide. Murray was convicted of involuntary
manslaughter on November 7, 2011, receiving a four-year maximum prison
sentence.
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In 2013,
the Jackson family launched a wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live,
the entertainment company that promoted Jackson’s planned comeback
series in 2009. They believed that the company had failed to effectively
protect the singer while he was under Murray’s care. Jackson family
lawyers sought up to $1.5 billion—an estimation of what Jackson could
have earned to that point—but in October 2013, a jury determined that
AEG wasn’t responsible for the singer’s death.
Memorials and Legacy
jermaine
jackson, wearing a black suit and yellow tie, sings into a microphone
on a stage, with a large photo of michael jackson projected onto the
wall behind him, and several flowers and a coffin in front of him
Jermaine Jackson speaks at his brother Michael’s public memorial service held at Staples Center on July 7, 2009, in Los Angeles.
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On
July 7, 2009, a televised memorial was held for Jackson’s fans at the
Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. While 17,500 free tickets were
issued to fans via lottery, an estimated 1 billion viewers watched the
memorial on television or online. Jackson’s death resulted in an
outpouring of public grief and sympathy. Memorials were erected around
the world, including one at the arena where he was set to perform and
another at his childhood home in Gary, Indiana. The Jackson family held a
private funeral on September 3, 2009, at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park
in Glendale, California, for immediate family members and 200 guests.
Celebrity mourners included Jackson’s ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley and
actor Elizabeth Taylor.
Over the course of his career, Jackson
had notched 38 Grammy Award nominations and 13 wins, including Album of
the Year for Thriller, Record of the Year for “Beat It,” Song of the
Year for “We Are The World,” and his first Grammy in 1980 for Best Male
R&B Vocal Performance on “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.” Among his
other awards and honors are the 1993 Grammy Legend Award, his 2001
induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and The Recording
Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Michael Jackson's This Is It
Michael Jackson's This Is It
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A
documentary of Jackson’s preparations for his final tour, entitled This
Is It, was released in October 2009. The film, which features a
compilation of interviews, rehearsals, and backstage footage of its
star, made $23 million in its opening weekend and went on to make $261
million worldwide.
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A
handful of posthumous albums were released in the years after Jackson’s
death. The first, Michael, was released in December 2010 amid
controversy about whether the singer actually performed some of the
tracks. Brother Randy was among those who questioned the authenticity of
the recordings, but the Jackson estate later refuted the claims,
according to The New York Times. The second album, Xscape (2014),
featured R&B star and Jackson protege Usher performing the single
“Love Never Felt So Good.” The album debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top
200 Album chart.
michael jackson rehearses for his planned shows in london at the staples center on june 23, 2009 in los angeles, california
Michael
Jackson rehearses for his planned shows in London at the Staples Center
on June 23, 2009, in Los Angeles, California. Jackson died two days
later at the age of 50.
Getty Images
Since his death, Jackson has
been profiled in multiple biographies and inspired the creation of two
Cirque du Soleil shows. He was posthumously honored with the 2018
Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation Legacy Award for Humanitarian Service,
with children Paris and Prince Michael accepting on his behalf.
Jackson’s
debts have been settled thanks to his earlier investment in the
Sony/ATV Music catalog, which includes the publishing rights for songs
of industry heavyweights such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and
Taylor Swift. The Jackson estate sold its share of Sony/ATV in 2016 for
$750 million, and two years later, the estate received another $287.5
million for its stake in EMI Music Publishing. Additionally, Jackson’s
earning power lasted well past his final days. In October 2017, Forbes
announced that Jackson had topped the publication’s list of top-earning
dead celebrities for the fifth straight year, earning $75 million.
Accusations
of sexual abuse against Jackson resurfaced in early 2019 with the
airing of Leaving Neverland at the Sundance Film Festival, followed by
an HBO broadcast. The four-hour documentary explores the recollections
of two men who describe how the pop star lured them into his orbit when
they were boys, gaining the trust of their parents, before coercing them
into sexual activities in hotel rooms and at his Neverland Ranch. The
Jackson estate called the two accusers “serial perjurers” and launched a
$100 million lawsuit against HBO. As of December 2020, the suit planned
to go into arbitration.
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Quotes
Being
onstage is magic. There’s nothing like it. You feel the energy of
everybody who’s out there. You feel it all over your body.
Being an entertainer, you just can’t tell who is your friend.
Being
mobbed hurts. You feel like you’re spaghetti among thousands of hands.
They’re just ripping you and pulling your hair. And you feel that any
moment you’re gonna just break.
I hate to take credit for the songs
I’ve written. I feel that somewhere, someplace, it’s been done, and I’m
just a courier bringing it into the world. I really believe that. I love
what I do. I’m happy at what I do. It’s escapism.
Why can’t you share your bed? That’s the most loving thing to do, to share your bed with someone.
If
you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world
knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt
with.
I always want to know what makes good performers fall to pieces.
My father would rehearse with a belt in his hand. You couldn’t mess up.
Magic is easy if you put your heart into it.
I
wouldn’t be happy doing just one kind of music or label ourselves. I
like doing something for everybody... I don’t like our music to be
labeled. Labels are like... racism.
What I’m asking is whether this
is still a country where a peculiar person such as Michael Jackson can
get a fair shake and be considered innocent until proven guilty... or is
this just a 21st century American barnyard where we all feel free to
turn on the moonwalking rooster... and peck it to death?
Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us!
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Colin
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BLACK HISTORY
black and white image of rosa parks
Rosa Parks
louis armstrong smling while holding his trumpet
11 Notable Artists From The Harlem Renaissance
tupac shakur in a white shirt and black vest, with a black bandana on his head
Tupac Shakur
mitch mcconnell official senate photo
Mitch McConnell
lorraine hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry
james baldwin
James Baldwin
august wilson
August Wilson
henrietta lacks smiling for a photo with her hands on her hips
Henrietta Lacks
web du bois
W.E.B. Du Bois And Booker T. Washington’s Clash
George Washington Carver Photo
7 Facts On George Washington Carver
Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston circa 1994 in New York City
Whitney Houston And Bobby Brown’s Relationship
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston’s Friendship With Robyn Crawford
100 Greatest Artists
The Beatles, Eminem and more of the best of the best
BY ROLLING STONE
DECEMBER 3, 2010
Best Artists of all time 100 Rolling Stone
Rolling Stones in London circa 1960s. REX
IN
2004 — 50 years after Elvis Presley walked into Sun Studios and cut
“That’s All Right” — Rolling Stone celebrated rock & roll’s first
half-century in grand style, assembling a panel of 55 top musicians,
writers and industry executives (everyone from Keith Richards to
?uestlove of the Roots) and asking them to pick the most influential
artists of the rock & roll era. The resulting list of 100 artists,
published in two issues of Rolling Stone in 2004 and 2005, and updated
in 2011, is a broad survey of rock history, spanning Sixties heroes (the
Beatles) and modern insurgents (Eminem), and touching on early pioneers
(Chuck Berry) and the bluesmen who made it all possible (Howlin’ Wolf).
The
essays on these top 100 artists are by their peers: singers, producers
and musicians. In these fan testimonials, indie rockers pay tribute to
world-beating rappers (Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on Jay-Z), young
pop stars honor stylistic godmothers (Britney Spears on Madonna) and
Billy Joel admits that Elton John “kicks my ass on piano.” Rock &
roll is now a music with a rich past. But at its best, it is still the
sound of forward motion. As you read this book, remember: This is what
we have to live up to.
OLAF HAJEK
100
Talking Heads
By Dave Sitek
When
I was a kid, I was really into hardcore punk. Hardcore was very rigid.
Talking Heads was the first band I remember telling my punk friends
about, saying, "Yo, check this out! This four-chord thing we're doing?
We're missing out on something!"
The first song I really liked
was "Once in a Lifetime." MTV had just started to sink its claws into
people, and that song was like an anthem for coked-up adults trying to
make sense of their world. Remain in Light was this combination of
ambient music and strong lyrics and incredibly inventive percussion and
bass parts. I was a kid, but I still thought, "I should have been
involved in that record!" It's amazing.
They had so many things
going on. If you listen to a Talking Heads bass line, you think the
song's going one way, and then you listen to the drums and you think
it's going a different way, and then you listen to David Byrne's lyrics
and you're like, "This is a completely different song from what I
thought it was going to be." And then the guitars come in, and then the
ambience comes in — it's like several songs all blending into one. If
Talking Heads were around a cool idea, they would make it their own. I
feel like they saw Brian Eno, their producer, as another instrument.
The
town that I grew up in was called Columbia, in Maryland. It was a
planned community with man-made lakes. David Byrne's parents lived there
for a while. It presented this facade that everything around us is
solid and real and going to be here forever, even though we know we
created it. Byrne's lyrics spoke to the artifice of the American
landscape. The American Dream has a lot of back alleys, and he was
showing those things, and I felt like, here's a guy trying to talk to me
about something I had seen firsthand.
I think the artist's
primary responsibility is to reflect what life was like in their time.
Talking Heads did that. I'm all over the map emotionally and
spiritually, like most people are, so different Talking Heads records
speak to me at different times, but with Remain in Light and Fear of
Music, the grit of modern living is there. What they're addressing still
applies.
They weren't always complex, either — there's some
stuff where it's just bare-bones essentials. "This Must Be the Place" is
probably one of the most important songs in my entire life. I find the
lyrics really calming. The song is simple, but when you look at all the
elements and how they're put together and where the downbeat is, it's
kind of … clever is not even really the word. Genius, maybe?
ILLUSTRATION BY SHAWN BARBER
99
Carl Perkins
By Tom Petty
Carl
Perkins' songs will outlive us all. On tracks like "Blue Suede Shoes"
and "Honey Don't!" he took that country-picking thing into the rock
world. He was an amazing guitar player: If you want to play Fifties rock
& roll, you can either play like Chuck Berry, or you can play like
Carl Perkins.
Considering how important he is to rock history,
many people don't know about him. But the right people did. The Beatles
covered five of Carl's songs on record. Carl was actually there in the
studio when the Beatles cut some of them. Listen to the guitar break in
"All My Loving": George Harrison told me that the Beatles would study
the B sides of Carl's records to learn everything they could from him.
Carl
was the real deal — a true rockabilly cat. He told me about picking
cotton when he was a kid and learning the blues from an older black
field hand he knew. Carl would go home from the fields, be practicing a
Roy Acuff country type of thing on his guitar, and then he would start
bending the notes. He told me his father would actually get mad, saying,
"Play that thing right, boy, or don't play it at all." But it was
organic with Carl. He took it to the honky-tonks — the real honky-tonks
where people would be drinking out of a jug. It sounds like a cliché
now, that rock music was born out of cornfields and honky- tonks, but
with Carl it was all true.
He didn't get the breaks he deserved;
hard luck seemed to follow him around. He had a terrible car crash on
the way to The Ed Sullivan Show when "Blue Suede Shoes" was breaking
really big. Elvis ended up covering the song and took a lot of the glory
there. Some people might not know that Carl played guitar with Johnny
Cash for 10 years on the road. At a certain point in the Sixties, things
got tough for Carl — he had a drinking problem, which he eventually
overcame — and he went back into the lead-guitar business.
Carl
himself was a very bright guy, and very funny. He once told me, "Tom, I
like you so much — if I lived by you, I'd cut your grass." That warmth
and wit came through in his music. He was not the kind of guy to blow
his own horn; he was very humble. When we did a long stand at the
Fillmore in the late Nineties, I talked Carl into sitting in with us.
Backstage, Carl was very nervous about coming out with us. He said,
"They may not know who I am." I told him, "Carl, they're going to know
you and love you." When Carl hit the stage, he just ripped the room
apart. Neil Young was there that night, and he was shaking his head.
Carl was that good.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA VENTURA
98
Curtis Mayfield
By Boz Scaggs
If,
in the late Fifties and early Sixties, you were drawn to that place on
the AM radio dial where the rhythms, the grooves and the beautiful
sounds of African-American soul were playing, you would have found
Curtis Mayfield. Many of us first heard him as backing vocalist in the
Impressions behind Jerry Butler, singing "For Your Precious Love." But
he really came into focus in Butler's next big hit, "He Will Break Your
Heart," which was written by Mayfield and features his strumming
electric guitar to a saucy tango beat that you can hear echoing in Ben
E. King's "Spanish Harlem."
After that he was front and center,
singing the lead about a "Gypsy Woman" in an exotic brew of castanets
and dark minor chords. At one point, after the lyric "She danced around
and round to a guitar melody," he fired off an accent on his guitar that
resonated for years for many of us who tried to emulate him — she cast
her spell and he followed, with the rest of us close behind. You can
clearly hear his influence in the monumental "Little Wing," by Jimi
Hendrix.
But it was his voice that reached the higher ground. It
burned with the abandon of the blues singer and an almost feminine
longing, at once powerful and deeply personal. Women responded
overwhelmingly to his profoundly respectful and sensitive approach. When
he sang "The Wonder of You," the vulnerability and passion got in real
close. They knew he knew.
At first, he made a gospel-like call to
rise up, get on board, get ready. "I know you can make it," he exhorted
to soul-stirring harmonizing. He later took the voice of activism,
calling out diseases of urban America and challenging people to see what
was going on, a plea Marvin Gaye would take up, too. The full range of
his powers can be heard in the soundtrack to Superfly. It hits you in
waves: driving rhythms with brass and strings countered by
down-in-the-alley funk.
He was a dynamic performer right up until
he was disabled in an accident onstage in New York in 1990. I only met
him once, after a show in San Francisco. He was funny, gracious to all,
had a beautiful smile and a genuine way about him — a gentle and humble
man at heart.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
97
R.E.M.
By Colin Meloy
I
first heard R.E.M. in 1986, a song tacked on to the end of a demos
collection of a Eugene, Oregon, band that my uncle, then in school at U
of O, sent to me for Christmas. The song was called "Superman," a bit of
meticulously crafted bubblegum that was so simple and honest and funny
that my entire nascent library of cassettes (chiefly: Yaz, Scritti
Politti and Depeche Mode) seemed to be rendered obsolete in the span of
the track's three minutes. I was fully hooked. Little did I know:
Becoming enamored with indie bands in Helena, Montana, in the late 1980s
was kind of like developing a taste for beluga caviar in rationing-era
postwar Britain.
By the time Lifes Rich Pageant was gracing the
yellow Sony Sports boomboxes of the world, R.E.M. was totally a going
concern. The following year brought Document, and that landed them a
video on MTV, even. Still, in Helena, being an R.E.M. fan meant being
part of a tiny community. A community that, as far as I could tell,
consisted of exactly one person. Then Green came around, and suddenly
this band was on a major label, playing arenas, and every human in
America with two ears and access to radio was being demanded to "Stand."
I listened to Chronic Town — procured on a recent family vacation to
Los Angeles — on my Walkman backstage during rehearsal for the school
production of Guys and Dolls, rehearsing the conversation in my head:
"What are you listening to?" they'd ask.
"R.E.M.," I'd reply.
"Oh — they do that song 'Stand.'"
"Yeah," I'd reply casually, "I'm not really into that song — this is their first EP. It's, like, from 1982."
It
was well-rehearsed, but it never actually happened. I had to suffer the
philistines — stealing my band — silently. But still: To be an ardent
R.E.M. fan, happy to venture beyond the pale of the radio singles, was a
rare thing. Middle school was brutal for me, and I clung to my music
like a life raft. Murmur, Reckoning … even Dead Letter Office, with its
beer-soaked goofs and discarded B sides, provided a much-needed
insulation against the cruel, Queensr che-and-Garth-Brooks-listening
world. "When I was young and full of grace/And spirited, a
rattlesnake/When I was young and fever fell/My spirit? I will not
tell…." However inscrutable Michael Stipe's lyrics were, they always
gave language to this weird, agonizing metamorphosis taking place in my
head. I was desperately searching for like-minded kids, but with every
semester that went by, I felt like my isolation only grew.
My
parents, at a loss, suggested I get involved in the local community
theater's after-school program. I was initially skeptical, but I agreed
to give it a shot. As I climbed the stone steps toward the theater's
entrance, the doors flew open and out walked a girl I'd never seen
before — someone from the high school, maybe — wearing a gauzy sundress
and a notable lack of hair spray in her long hair. But the thing that
caught my eye: She was wearing a Fables of the Reconstruction T-shirt. I
was floored. She smiled shyly — probably more embarrassed at my gaping
than anything — and walked by.
I'd been given the signal. A
wayward fugitive, stumbling through the door of some Provençal cafe, his
hat and coat soaking wet from the journey. The customers turn and look,
each more untrusting than the next. Till a flash of a badge or the wave
of a ribbon can be seen from the farthest table, and he knows: This is
it. You're in the resistance now, son.
ILLUSTRATION BY DALE STEPHANOS
96
Diana Ross and the Supremes
By Antonio "L.A." Reid
For
almost 30 years — my entire career, really — all I've been doing is
trying to discover another Diana Ross. I obviously still have my work
cut out for me. She was gorgeous and skinny — and this was back in the
Twiggy days, when skinny was new — and she had that big, beautiful hair.
And, of course, she was glamorous: I remember all those furs, diamonds
and early bling-bling. Everything about her — her mannerisms, her look,
her aura — exuded stardom.
The Supremes were the epitome of the
Motown sound. People look at Ross and say she had great songs, she was a
good-looking girl, behind her she had Berry Gordy — who, in my book, is
the greatest record man who ever lived — she had all these things.
Holland, Dozier and Holland were amazing songwriters, just pure melody
men. As we all know now, the unsung heroes were the Motown house band,
the Funk Brothers. They could take those great songs and give them
sound. "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "Stop!
In the Name of Love," "I Hear a Symphony" — at the time, people thought
those songs were disposable. And now we realize that they're true
masterpieces. They're so alive. Everything about the songs was great,
even the intros — every one of them had a distinctive, memorable intro,
which was a hook in and of itself. And, of course, there were two other
wonderful singers in the Supremes, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.
But
at the end of the day, Diana Ross' voice would come on the air and give
you chill bumps. It had such presence, terrific tone, and was so
identifiable. She didn't sing like Aretha Franklin — she wasn't a gospel
singer — but she was a stylist, and you always believed her. She was
captivating, romantic. When she asked, "Where did our love go?" she
sounded like she was begging.
To this day, I believe that her
voice could work on contemporary radio. She set the road map for the
success of Janet Jackson, Madonna — anybody who could sing but wasn't a
real crooner like Aretha or Patti LaBelle or Gladys Knight. I still ask
artists in the studio to "sing this like Diana Ross would." So far, no
one has.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA GORCHOV
95
Lynyrd Skynyrd
By Al Kooper
In
1972, the radio was logjammed with progressive rock like you wouldn't
believe — Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis — I was searching for a great
three-chord band to produce. And so, that year, I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd
making their Atlanta debut at a very dangerous club on Peachtree Street
called Funocchio's. They were playing a weeklong engagement, and each
night I'd hear another great original song from them and knew I'd found
the band I was searching for.
As I got to know them, I marveled
at their work ethic. They had a shack on the swamp in their native
Jacksonville, Florida, where they rehearsed constantly, honing their
original material into polished, shining steel. They may have had three
guitar players, but they understood restraint. Of all the bands I'd come
across in my life, they were the finest arrangers. "Sweet Home Alabama"
sounds like seasoned studio musicians twice their age.
Ronnie
Van Zant was Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don't mean to demean the roles the others
played in the group's success, but it never would have happened without
him. His lyrics were a big part of it — like Woody Guthrie and Merle
Haggard before him, Ronnie knew how to cut to the chase. And Ronnie ran
that band with an iron hand. I have never seen such internal discipline
in a band. One example: These guys composed all of their guitar solos.
Most bands improvised solos each time they performed or recorded. Not
them. Ronnie's dream was that they would sound exactly the same every
time they took the stage.
After three or four albums, Lynyrd
Skynyrd transcended the Southern-rock tag. They became one of the
greatest rock & roll bands in history. They feared no one. On their
very first national tour, they opened for the Who. And got encores!
When
Ronnie went down in that terrible 1977 plane crash, the forward
progress of the band ended. After the survivors all healed, they
miraculously reassembled. Ronnie's kid brother Johnny took over, and you
had to rub your eyes to make sure it wasn't Ronnie. But while the band
could duplicate the majesty of past live shows (and still can), the
heart and soul of the band was gone forever.
ILLUSTRATION BY N. VETRI
94
Nine Inch Nails
By David Bowie
When
the gods of nasty sounds tacked audition cards to the trees around town
encouraging the brutes of industrial rock to brawl for the crown, a
small lad with a tuba was probably not what they had in mind for a
contender. His name was Michael Trent Reznor, and he also played sax and
piano and learned early in life how to engineer a recording-studio
console. He produced a terrific debut album called Pretty Hate Machine.
Melodically oriented — and, because of record-company contractual
problems, supported by what became a three-year tour — it birthed the
first real mainstream breakthrough for industrial rock, selling over a
million copies.
Following Brian Eno's example, Reznor unpacked
his synth and threw away the manual. In making The Downward Spiral, he
encouraged the computer to misconstrue input, willed it to spew out
bloated, misshapen shards of sound that pierced and lacerated the
listener. As a companion piece to Baudelaire's "To the Reader" — the
preface to his Flowers of Evil — and second to the Velvet Underground,
there has never been better soul-lashing in rock.
I had a strange
dream a few years back. Lou Reed, myself and a friend known as Warren
Peace were having dinner in one of those old-style Greenwich Village
places where Pollock was supposed to have fought other painters. Our
meal was served by one of the members of Einstúrzende Neubauten. I
slowly became aware of the house music and that it was infuriatingly
familiar. Our waiter, Blixa Bargeld, leaned in to me and whispered, "The
music is a birthday surprise for Lou. Trent Reznor remixed this version
of Metal Machine Music as a present."
As he said this, strands,
splodges and blots from a Pollock early-Fifties "drip" painting
materialized in front of our faces. While the music got louder, the
paint hurtled around us faster and faster till we ran nauseous from the
cafe, chased by infernal screaming lavender, blue and black snakes.
And
that is it, really. Trent's music, built as it is on the history of
industrial and mechanical sound experiments, contains a beauty that
attracts and repels in equal measure: Nietzsche's "God is dead" to a
nightclubbing beat. And always lifted, at the most needy moment, by a
tantalizing melody.
I cannot believe that Spiral was released
nearly 20 years ago now. It still sounds incredible today. And, no, no
one ever calls him Mickey.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSEPH ADOLPHE
93
Booker T. and the MGs
By Isaac Hayes
Booker
T. and the MGs had that Southern funk flavor. Motown took care of the
North with their polished sound, but the MGs were gritty and raw, and
they could really groove. You can hear their sound reverberating
throughout the whole industry today — especially since hip-hop guys
sample so much of what they did back then. They were an integrated band —
half white, half black. There was a "cotton curtain" back in the
Sixties: Bands were all segregated in Memphis. But the MGs were like a
family. That integration was a sign of things to come.
The MGs
made a name for themselves with all those great instrumentals, like
"Green Onions," but they were the house band at Stax/Volt, so they had
real adaptive ability. Otis Redding had his sound, Sam and Dave had
theirs, Albert King had his own thing. But it was always Booker T. and
the MGs playing. When I did my first sessions at Stax, I learned
everything about record production from those guys.
In the MGs,
Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn were the rock & rollers, but
they also had the country thing covered, as well as the blues. Most
guitar players like to go crazy, but Steve picked his spots, and when he
spoke, it was profound. Duck was a great bass player, and very funny —
one of them good old Southern beer-drinking boys.
Al Jackson's
father was a drummer, so Al had a background of rhythm. Al had a little
jazz flavor along with those R&B grooves. You know when I did
"Shaft," with those 16th notes on the high-hat? That was actually a
break Al played on Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness." That stuck
with me.
Booker T. pioneered a lot of sounds on the organ. When
you heard him play, you knew it couldn't be anyone else. I remember one
time, Booker accidentally had two dates booked at the same time, so he
took some other band and went somewhere in Kansas, and I went with the
MGs to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I had to go pose as Booker T.
Halfway through, some guy yells out, "Hey, man, that guy ain't no Booker
T.! He ain't got no hair!" We said, "Oh, s***." But the groove took
over, and that calmed them down.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
92
Guns n’ Roses
By Joe Perry
Guns
n' Roses revived our kind of rock. I remember someone handing me a copy
of Appetite for Destruction and saying, "You've got to hear these guys —
they're the new big thing." Bands like Bon Jovi and Whitesnake were big
then, but Guns n' Roses were different. They dug down a little deeper
into rock's roots. I heard a lot of Aerosmith in them, which meant I
also heard a lot of bands that came before us. And I remember being a
little jealous, because they were really hitting the nail on the head.
They
opened up for us in 1988, and one of the things that impressed me was
how much personality they put across, even when they weren't playing.
Axl knew how to work an audience. They used to have to go out there and
tape foam rubber around everything that Axl could touch — from his
teleprompter to his mic stand — to make sure he wouldn't break anything,
or hurt himself. I think people saw that he was basically just let out
of the cage. Part of the thrill was wondering what he was going to do
next.
They were called metal at the time, but they weren't: Metal
isn't sexy, but rock is. To put it another way: You can have the rock,
but you need the roll. Songs like "Paradise City" and "Welcome to the
Jungle" were just simple enough; the chorus lines came right when you
wanted them. Slash plays what's needed for the song, as opposed to
trying to make the tune a showcase for his technique. Guns n' Roses'
music wasn't full of the overblown gymnastics that a lot of guys were
doing then — their stuff is just very tasty. Duff McKagan is like the
bass player in AC/DC: His parts were fairly simple, but they made the
band an unstoppable force. Izzy Stradlin was also important. Guns n'
Roses played as a gang, which is just what you want.
Guns n'
Roses are still an example of how a band can move rock forward.
Sometimes you think, "How can you top anything by the Yardbirds, or
Zeppelin, or the Stones?" And then you hear Guns n' Roses, and it's
inspiring. You can think that it's all been written, but it hasn't.
There's another way to twist those three chords around, to make it sound
new, fresh and rebellious.
JODY HEWGILL
91
Tom Petty
By Stevie Nicks
In
1976, I'd been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom
Petty's debut. I became a fan right then. I loved the way Tom's Florida
swamp-dog voice sounded in cahoots with Mike Campbell's guitar and
Benmont Tench's keyboards. Tom had the same influences we had — the
Byrds, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash — but he dropped in lots of
serious old blues. And Tom is such a great singer and so charismatic
onstage. I became such a fan that if I hadn't been in a band myself, I
would have joined that one.
When I started doing my first solo
album, Bella Donna, my first thought was, "Who produces Tom Petty?" When
they said Jimmy Iovine, I got Jimmy, because I wanted my solo work to
be as much like Tom's as possible.
I first met Tom in the studio,
and he was pretty much what I expected. There's not a fake bone in his
body. Jimmy and Tom decided to give me "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around,"
which they had written with Campbell. When they showed it to me, I was
like, "Is this the right thing to do? I only get 11 songs and one of
them won't be mine." And both Tom and Jimmy said to me, in a brutally
honest way, "You don't have a single on this record. And here's a single
for you."
Tom is a great and loyal friend, but he's also honest
like that. In 1994, I had just gotten out of rehab, and Tom and I had
dinner. I wanted to make a new record but I was scared. I said to him,
"Will you help me write a song or two?" I didn't really expect the
reaction I got, which was, "No, I won't. You are one of the premier
songwriters in this business. Go home and turn off the radio. Don't be
influenced by anything. Just write some great songs — that's what you
do." He reinforced that I was still Stevie Nicks. I wrote a song about
him I've never recorded, but I will someday. It goes, "Sometimes he's my
best friend, even when he's not around."
In 2006, I did 27 shows
with him. Tom made me a little platinum sheriff's badge that had
24-karat gold and diamonds across the top and said "To Our Honorary
Heartbreaker, Stevie Nicks." On the back it says "To the Only Girl in
Our Band." I keep it on my black velvet top hat. It goes with me
everywhere. It's probably the most beautiful piece of jewelry a man has
ever given me, ever.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARC BURCKHARDT
90
Carlos Santana
By Henry Garza of Los Lonely Boys
Carlos
Santana's music is a family thing for Chicanos. It's what you listen to
when you're all hanging out: Drinking some beers, listening to "Oye
Como Va" and cooking some barbecue is the best thing in the world. His
music hits right to the pump — right to the heart. He's a pioneer of
Latin rock & roll: His music was something new, but it was
intertwined with everything else that was out there at the time —
Sixties rock, Latin jazz and more. We're trying to do the same thing
with Los Lonely Boys — make a lot of different types of music into
something our own — but he did that first. He incorporated his culture
into the music, and he mixed English and Spanish in the lyrics.
Everything
on a song like "Black Magic Woman" works: the keyboards, the congos,
the drums, the vocals. Carlos isn't the lead singer, but he is the
maestro. Of course, the best thing about all his albums is his guitar.
He's one of the greatest players who ever lived. His guitar has a very
distinctive sound — it's like a fingerprint. His tone just bleeds
through everything. His playing is both simple and complicated — he can
communicate with just one or two notes. He speaks languages through his
music that people can understand in any country, any language.
Those
first three albums — Santana, Abraxas, Santana III — are really special
to me. You could hear his ethnicity in his music — even when he's
playing like some blues cat, he still sounds like Santana. And his music
always has that rhythm. It makes you want to get your girlfriend and go
to a dance in your lowrider. Some people were confused after that by
his Seventies music, when he became jazzier. But he was just
experimenting, learning more. And then his comeback with Supernatural
shows how enduring his talent is.
Santana has a really good
message to send to the human spirit. He once said to us, "You want to be
like emissaries of light. When you're up on that stage or when you
record, you want to be a tool that light shines through to everybody."
You don't want to dwell in darkness. You want to go toward the light. And Santana is the light.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES MILLER
89
The Yardbirds
By Steven Tyler
Listen
to "Somebody," a song I wrote for Aerosmith's first album: It's all
from the Yardbirds. They were the s*** to us, out of all the British
bands in the Sixties. The Yardbirds were a bit of a mystery. They had an
eclecticism — the Gregorian chant-ness of the vocals, the melodic
diversity, the way they used guitar feedback. I loved that weirdness.
In
the Sixties, I was in a band called Chain Reaction. We got to know the
Yardbirds because they played at Staples High School in Westport,
Connecticut, in 1966. We had a friend, Henry Smith, who had been our
manager for a while, and he had gone to school there. He called me and
said, "Steven, the Yardbirds are playing here, and you can open up." It
was the lineup with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, who was playing bass on
that tour. We waited all day for them to arrive. I grabbed their amps,
they grabbed ours. We carried each other's gear in, because back then,
that's what you did. Hence began the rumor that I was a roadie for the
Yardbirds.
They did "Shapes of Things," "Beck's Boogie," among
other songs. I was in such awe. They played like no other band. They
weren't concerned with clothes or looks or hit singles. Their thing was
"What do we do with these sounds?" They did things with harmonics —
minor thirds and fifths — that created this ethereal, monstrous sound.
You
hear it in every song — the way they could take the blues and turn it
into a pop song like "For Your Love," then something psychedelic like
"Shapes of Things," which has that weird middle. You can hear the click
when Beck hits his fuzz box. Page, in the end, was the one who took
those ideas all the way with Led Zeppelin. The two shows I remember
where I just sat with my mouth open was that Yardbirds show, and Led
Zeppelin at the Boston Tea Party in 1969.
As a singer, the thing I
got out of the Yardbirds was that you don't have to have a great voice.
It's all about attitude. He was a white boy who pushed it to the max.
And he was a great harmonica player. You never heard Jagger hanging out
on a single note the way Keith Relf could.
The shame is, I know
how great the Yardbirds were. But I don't think everyone else knows it.
The Yardbirds' music is a gold mine waiting to be stumbled upon.
Aerosmith did, because we grew up in that era. The riff in "Walk This
Way" is just us trying to explore the blues in the Yardbirds model. What
the Yardbirds did is something you don't hear in today's
blue-plate-special, cookie-cutter music. Everything is so canned and
sliced up now. This was back when a band was a band. You had all those
personalities, and they were all truly playing together. And I don't
hear that today. The day of those bands, that wild stepping out, is
gone.
OWEN SMITH
88
Jay-Z
By Ezra Koenig
Somewhere
between LOL and FML there was "TRL." MTV's Total Request Live debuted
in September 1998. The early TRL charts were dominated by 'N Sync, the
Backstreet Boys, Korn and their respective biters. Then, six weeks in,
Jay-Z's "Can I Get A … " video debuted at Number 10. It wasn't the
beginning of his career as a rapper, but it was the beginning of his
career as a major force in pop music.
Mainstream radio and TV
presented the late-Nineties teenager with a weirdly extreme choice
between aggro rock played by men in tank tops and mushy ballads sung by
slightly smaller men in tank tops; Jay-Z presented a much-needed
alternative. This is not to say that Jay-Z never wore tank tops, but he
was (and continues to be) an exceedingly rare combination of
intelligence, weirdness, seriousness and pop appeal. Go look back at
those TRL charts and it's not hard to tell why a generation of
musicians, critics and fans became so deeply connected to the lyrics of a
dude who, supposedly, was describing a world that at least 50 percent
of his fans "couldn't relate to."
In my lifetime, Jay-Z has, by
far, been the most artful and exciting musician to consistently make
hits, and I mean real hits — Top 10 singles deep into his career, like
"Empire State of Mind." How many artists make it 15 years without
embarrassing themselves, let alone while maintaining their relevancy?
I
remember getting chills watching him perform "On to the Next One" at
Coachella. He was wearing all black and standing in front of a giant
video wall. I interpret that song as both an ode to creative ingenuity
and a critique of infinite-growth capitalism. Admittedly, I was reading a
lot about peak oil at the time, but c'mon, who else can inspire a crowd
of 100,000 to throw their arms in the air while offering each
individual brain in that crowd the opportunity to think critically about
language and the state of the world today?
His lyrics are deep
enough to demand exegesis (see: Decoded), at times, cute and playful
enough to be memorized by every "mean girl" at my high school (see: his
verse on Mariah Carey's "Heartbreaker"). On "Public Service
Announcement," he described himself as being like "Che Guevara with
bling on." Some people found this to be in bad taste, but it doesn't
feel too off the mark to me. At the very least, I don't think anyone
will take issue with the next line: "I'm complex."
ILLUSTRATION BY N. VETRI
87
Gram Parsons
By Keith Richards
Like
I know the blues, Gram Parsons knew country music — every nuance, every
great country song that was ever written. And he could express it all —
the music from Nashville and Bakersfield, California, the stuff from
Texas — in his singing and songwriting. But he also had intelligence and
honesty. That's the kind of guy I like to hang with. Also, he loved to
get stoned. At the time, that was an added plus.
I first met Gram
in 1968, when the Byrds were appearing in London — I think it was a
club called Blazes. I knew the Byrds from Mr. Tambourine Man on; the
Stones had worked some shows in California with them back then. But when
I saw them at Blazes with Gram, I could see this was a radical turn. I
went backstage, and we hooked up. Then the Byrds came through London
again, on their way to South Africa. I was like, "Man, we don't go
there." The sanctions and the embargo were on. So he quit the Byrds,
right there and then. Of course, he's got nowhere to stay, so he moved
in with me.
Basically, we hung around together, like musicians
do. We'd spend hours and hours at the piano, swapping ideas. Gram and I
both loved the songs of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant — the Everly
Brothers stuff they wrote. We both loved that melancholy, high-lonesome
s***. We were always looking for the next heart-tugger, looking to pull
that extra heartstring.
As a songwriter, Gram worked very much
like I do, which is to knock out a couple of chords, start to spiel and
see how far it can go, rather than sitting around with a piece of paper
and a pen, trying to make things fit neatly together. But he would also
work very hard — harder than I ever did — on honing it down.
Mick
and Gram never really clicked, mainly because the Stones are such a
tribal thing. At the same time, Mick was listening to what Gram was
doing. Mick's got ears. Sometimes, while we were making Exile on Main
Street in France, the three of us would be plonking away on Hank
Williams songs while waiting for the rest of the band to arrive. Gram
had the biggest repertoire of country songs you could imagine. He was
never short of a song.
The drugs and drinking — he was no better
or worse than the rest of us. He just made that one fatal mistake —
taking that one hit after he cleaned up, still thinking he could take
the same amount. And it was too f***ing much. But he didn't get into
dope because of us. He knew his stuff before he met us.
I think
he was just getting into his stride when he died. His actual output —
the number of records he made and sold — was pretty minimal. But his
effect on country music is enormous. This is why we're talking about him
now. But we can't know what his full impact could have been. If Buddy
Holly hadn't gotten on that plane, or Eddie Cochran hadn't turned the
wrong corner, think of what stuff we could have looked forward to, and
be hearing now. It would be phenomenal.
In a way, it's a matter
of lost love. Gram was everything you wanted in a singer and a
songwriter. He was fun to be around, great to play with as a musician.
And that motherf***er could make chicks cry. I have never seen another
man who could make hardened old waitresses at the Palomino Club in Los
Angeles shed tears the way he did.
It was all in the man. I miss him so.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARCO VENTURA
86
Tupac Shakur
By 50 Cent
Every
rapper who grew up in the Nineties owes something to Tupac. People
either try to emulate him in some way, or they go in a different
direction because they didn't like what he did. But whatever you think
of him, he definitely developed his own style: He didn't sound like
anyone who came before him.
My favorite Tupac album is The Don
Killuminati. It was recorded after he was shot and spent time in prison.
It was like a doctor told him he was going to die, and he was trying to
get it all down on paper. That's something the average rapper just
could not do: build an entire album around that concept, and stay in
that negative space. Everybody knows that they're going to die. But
after you're in a life-threatening situation, you think about it a
little more.
Tupac's aggressive records are my favorite. "Hail
Mary" is just perfect: "Picture paragraphs unloaded/Wise words being
quoted." Most artists now just aren't smart enough to write that, or
honest enough to write a line like, "I ain't a killer but don't push
me." These days rappers will just tell you, "I'll kill you."
Tupac
was like a camera. It's incredible how much he wrote — how much he
documented. To me, 'Pac was more of a poet than a rapper. You can always
tell when you're hearing Tupac verse. He wrote those lyrics without any
music. Notorious B.I.G. was more melody-driven — I'm sure he wrote his
s*** without a pen, and over the music — but 'Pac was just hashing out
his life. The thing was, he was doing that when the public eye was on
him, and everything he was hashing out just expanded, and that's when
things got out of control.
All of us on the East Coast loved
Tupac. The music was all that mattered. That East Coast/West Coast feud
was just personal beef. Now that he's not here, he's bigger than ever. I
can still listen to two or three Tupac CDs straight. Sometimes I put on
Tupac's best songs, followed by Biggie's best songs. Then I get ready
to go into my next project.
Laurence Fishburne told me once that
he didn't like Tupac. He told me it was because Tupac was so much
smarter than everyone around him. He said he didn't like the way Tupac
behaved because he knew that Tupac knew better. I understood what he
meant. But I still gave him a look like he was bugging.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER
85
Black Sabbath
By Dave Navarro
Black
Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who's serious about
metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath. Any hard-rock band
that ever tried to write a crazy twelve-minute operetta owes them a
debt. There's a direct line you can draw back from today's metal,
through Eighties bands like Iron Maiden, back to Sabbath.
All the
compelling themes are on Black Sabbath's records: beauty, atrocity, the
seven deadly sins. Their music can make you think of walking on the
beach with your wife, or of locking yourself in your room with your big
toe on the trigger of a shotgun — sometimes within the same song. The
title song of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath has all of the stuff I'm talking
about: It's rebellious and dark and wicked, but it's also gorgeous.
A
lot of deep records — like Pink Floyd's The Wall or Nine Inch Nails'
The Fragile — are dense, long journeys. Every time you listen to them
you hear something new. Sabbath records do that for me, too, but they're
simple. When Sabbath wanted to convey a different message, they didn't
need to pick up an acoustic guitar or call in the London Philharmonic.
They could do pretty much anything with just bass, drums, guitar and
vocals.
Black Sabbath's rhythm section doesn't get enough props.
If you listen to the way that Geezer Butler and Bill Ward play off of
each other, that's the core of the heaviness right there. Add to that
Ozzy's amazing voice and one of the greatest rock guitarists of all
time, Tony Iommi, and it's an unstoppable force. They're a f***ing piece
of the mountain coming down behind you, and you can't do anything about
it.
I was 11 when I first heard Sabbath. Vol. 4 was the album,
and it quickly became one of my favorites. At an early age I looked to
music to take me out of my reality, and Sabbath does that better than
any hard-rock act I know. In Jane's Addiction, we were into a groove
that was very repetitive, riff-oriented and hypnotic — similar in a lot
of ways to a song like "War Pigs," off of Paranoid (my favorite Sabbath
album). And of course, both bands have a singer with a really high-end
voice that cuts through all the chaos below. I'm still coming up with
stuff that is a complete and blatant rip-off. There's just no escaping
them.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BROWN
84
James Taylor
By Art Garfunkel
I
sing to James Taylor before every show I do. I warm up in my dressing
room to "Handy Man," "Sarah Maria," "Song for You Far Away," "Sweet Baby
James," "Copperline" and about 20 other favorites. Then I go from
James' bass-baritone to tenor singing with the Everly Brothers — first
Don, later Phil.
While I'm unisoning with James, my reverence
rises; my heart and mind become engaged in the sober intelligence of the
song and the beauty of the singing. James' accuracy of pitch is like a
trader's honesty. To me, it has always been paramount in singing. There
is an illuminating love of living things — all of them here on earth —
that lies within the tenderness of his line readings (listen to his song
"Gaia," from Hourglass). If vocal-cord vibration were like surfing off
the swelling of the heart, James would be my favorite rider on the cusp —
a little in the air, sublime in the spray.
It's no accident that
the Beatles' Apple Records signed James Taylor at its inception. He is
the finest of us Americans. I know the "folk music" he must have
listened to (I, too, had been wand'ring early and late…). I have
experienced the thrill of collaborating with him numerous times as we
have invited each other into our respective albums. I recall our trio
arrangement of "(What a) Wonderful World" with my Paul — we met up at
Paul's apartment (of course). It was '77. Two extraordinary artists were
giving me the gift of their vocals and guitar parts for my album,
Watermark. I must have done something right. What is memorable today is
the ease and efficiency with which we three found our harmonies. There
was a mutual musical sensibility and a serious mutual respect.
James
is so fine. His exactitude with the Note is simple, impeccable
musicianship. Call it his refinement or the civility of intelligent
life. Hear the innate dignity of James' tribute song to Martin Luther
King Jr. ("Shed a Little Light"). Some people have a hard time with the
self-consciousness of perfectionism. But I think "perfect" is the best
review.
I hope he reads this tribute of mine and recognizes what a
great personal value his existence is to one of his colleagues. And I
hope he breaks into another grin from ear to ear as he feels "that's why
I'm here."
ILLUSTRATION BY PHIL BURKE
83
Eminem
By Elton John
When
Eminem and I did "Stan" at the Grammys in 2001, we got together to
rehearse out in the Valley. We had never met or really spoken, so I was a
little intimidated. When we started to do the song and Eminem made his
entrance, I got goose bumps, the likes of which I have not felt since I
first saw Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.
Eminem was that good. I just thought, "f***, this man is amazing." There
are very few performers who can grab you like that the first time —
only the greats.
Eminem is a true poet of his time, someone we'll
be talking about for decades to come. He tells stories in such a
powerful and distinctive way. As a lyricist, he's one of the best ever.
Eminem does for his audience what Dylan did for his: He writes how he
feels. His anger, vulnerability and humor come out. That's why we look
forward to listening to Eminem's lyrics and finding out where the hell
he's headed next.
Eminem lives, sleeps and breathes music — he's a
bit like me in that respect. He's pretty much a recluse. I think he's
enthralled with what he's doing; he's intimately involved with his art.
There's a mystique about him. From the start, I have always admired
Eminem's thinking. That's the reason I wanted to appear on the Grammys
with him when I was asked, despite all the nonsense talked about his
being homophobic and crap like that. The Boy Georges of the world all
got up in a twist about it. If they didn't have the intelligence to see
his intelligence, that was their problem.
Eminem has the balls to
say what he feels and to make offensive things funny. That's very
necessary today, when irony is becoming a lost art. Artists like Eminem
who use their free speech to get a point across are vitally important.
There just aren't many people in the world with balls that big and
talent that awesome.
CCR82
Creedence Clearwater Revival
By Stephen Malkamus
My
parents had basically nine vinyl albums, all greatest hits: the
Beatles' red/blue albums, Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Elton John, the
Beach Boys' Endless Summer, Jim Croce, Gordon Lightfoot … and Creedence
Gold. Creedence was the one I took. It has perhaps the Dullest Expensive
Album Cover ever, with the foldout profiles of the band members, but it
sat proudly next to Devo, Kiss, the Yardbirds, the Stones' early albums
(they were cheap), the Decline of Western Civilization soundtrack and
the Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. I was pretty much
just into "Suzie Q" and "Born on the Bayou" back then, but I came to
appreciate almost everything they ever did.
The songs are great.
You have swamp-boogie numbers of varying length ("Green River," "Born on
the Bayou"), catchy energy bursts ("Fortunate Son," "Sinister
Purpose"), pop ("Have You Ever Seen the Rain," et al.) and the soul
numbers ("Long As I Can See the Light"). They are all arranged well,
have catchy melodies and solid rock lyrics.
John Fogerty has an
inimitable voice. He puts it to the test over and over — and wins. The
rhythm section is rad. You try to play this stuff and you'll see they
had chops. The rhythm guitar kicks, too. Fogerty plays what I would if I
was 22, more talented and into the blues.
The records have their
own vibe — performance-based, few overdubs, like if some Memphis/Booker
T.-type band moved West and got a youth-culture injection. The focus is
on the songs and not the rock star BS that was taking over back then.
But they weren't afraid to create a mood. When Cream came out, everybody
started a power trio. But basically, "Suzie Q" has all the drama you
would ever need. John Fogerty wrote more classic songs in a three-year
stretch than anyone other than the Beatles.
Thank you, Creedence, for being popular and timeless enough to be on CD jukeboxes. Keep on chooglin'.
ILLUSTRATION BY OLAF HAJEK
81
The Drifters
By Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Over
the years, the Drifters were a couple of different great groups and a
whole bunch of wonderful guys. In a way, that upheaval may be part of
the reason they recorded so many immortal songs over such a long period.
We
were both fans of the Drifters even before we started writing, and
later producing, for them. There was a real tradition of great singers
in the group: Clyde McPhatter, Johnny Moore, Ben E. King and Rudy Lewis.
Yet for all their fantastic records, the Drifters had the least stable
lineup of any of the great vocal groups. They were in essence a band of
hired guns, overseen by their management. Let's just say this wasn't
necessarily a situation where guys were getting rich off the royalties.
Our
first cut writing for the Drifters was "Ruby Baby," which Nesuhi
Ertegun produced and Johnny Moore sang lead on, in 1955. We loved what
they did with the song. Their management changed the lineup in 1958, and
that's when the great Ben E. King came into the picture. The Drifters
records that we're most associated with, including "There Goes My Baby,"
come from that era.
Ben E. King was this younger singer just
coming up, yet he had this mature style that was so unusual. He was
always wonderful to work with, and we had a truly great run together.
People have said that "There Goes My Baby" was a very influential record
because it helped set the stage for the Wall of Sound and Motown. Who
are we to argue? Thanks to a great arrangement by Stan Applebaum, the
song showed us how rock & roll and strings could really work
together. When King left, we worked with him as a solo artist, and the
Drifters kept on having hits too, first with Rudy Lewis as the new lead
singer. Upon Lewis' death, Moore returned to the group in time for
"Under the Boardwalk."
We wrote songs for the Drifters, but we
also put the call out to all the best songwriters in our world. Doc
Pomus and Mort Shuman came with perfect songs like "This Magic Moment"
and "Save the Last Dance for Me." Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote "Up
on the Roof." We also put the Drifters together with Burt Bacharach —
who met Dionne Warwick at our office for a Drifters session.
Through
it all, the Drifters always had this exquisite vocal blend. It was warm
and round and full and dripping with chocolate. Since we were involved
in the Drifters' career, it's probably not our place to declare their
music immortal. But you have to say, they did pretty well.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERTO PARADA
80
Elvis Costello
By Liz Phair
Elvis
Costello writes novels in three minutes. He gets inside your head, and
he doesn't let go. I'd pay a great amount of money to audit a course
taught by him. If you love Elvis Costello, it's because you love what
he's thinking — the depth and breadth of his notice is astounding.
Sometimes I wonder if he watches people on the Strand in London and
makes up entire histories for them. ("This person didn't pass the bar
and has thyroid problems." "They're jogging because they just went
through a breakup.")
When I was a teenager, it was a career aim
for many of my friends to have a song written about them by Elvis
Costello. His songs about women and girls are devastating, like arrows
to the heart. There are very few artists who can depict a woman's life,
her thoughts and desires and her failings, like he can. Most rock songs
about women are from the outside looking in: They say, "Babe, you're so
hot, come sleep with me." Elvis' songs say, "I see you, and I know what
you're doing." He catches us at our tricks, and that's always thrilling.
He's
a poet with a punk's heart. There's a Jerry Lee Lewis flavor to the way
he just gets in there and lets it rip: His rocking stuff has a lot of
raw power, a real physicality. Even when it's just him and a piano
onstage, it's powerful. When I first heard him, I was blown away that
someone could just spit those words out without even hitting the right
notes, with no holding back and no shame. Of course, the Attractions
were really important to his music — if you're going to cram a whole
book into one song, it helps to have a steady groove.
Nobody
sounds like him. People imitate Stevie Wonder or whomever, but how many
people can do Elvis Costello? Not bloody many. His melodies weave in and
out and all over the place, and you can tell they just spring out of
him. Finally, Elvis is the definition of a career artist — he's always
coming up with a different sound, always challenging himself. All of his
music tells you: You could come along for the ride — but I'm not
stopping.
ILLUSTRATION BY GREGORY MACHESS
79
The Four Tops
By Smokey Robinson
The
Four Tops are a one-in-a-million singing group. They were the best in
my neighborhood in Detroit when I was growing up. When I was 11 or so,
my first group was an early version of what would become the Miracles.
Back then the Four Tops were called the Four Aims. We all used to sing
on the corners, at school functions and at house parties. Sometimes we'd
have talent competitions. But all the groups in the neighborhood knew
that if the Four Aims were going to be there, you were going to be
singing for second place at best.
They were the first group from
the neighborhood that sang modern harmony: They could sing like a gospel
group but then do R&B like no one else. I love singers whom you can
identify the first second they open their mouth, and Levi Stubbs is one
of those; he's one of the greatest of all time. He has that distinctive
voice, and his range is staggering. The combination of Levi, Obie
Benson, Duke Fakir and Lawrence Payton was truly awesome.
When
they came to Motown and teamed up with Holland-Dozier-Holland, there was
no looking back. They performed some of the most dramatic records ever
written: "Standing in the Shadows of Love," "Bernadette," "Reach Out
I'll Be There," "I Can't Help Myself" and "Baby I Need Your Loving."
Later, when Holland-Dozier-Holland left, I co-wrote "Still Water (Love)"
with Frank Wilson for the Four Tops.
They were always great
singers and great guys. When the Four Tops first came to Motown, the
Miracles and I were the mainstays of the label, and the Temptations had
just gotten there. But all the guys were very, very close. You'd come
back to town from a 51-night tour, and the first thing you did was
shower and head back to Hitsville. We'd play cards and shoot pool
together into the early hours.
The Four Tops will always be one of the best groups ever. Their music is forever.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER
78
The Stooges
By Thurston Moore
For
me, the Stooges were the perfect embodiment of what music should be —
of wanting it to be alive, riding the edge of control. Their music was
total high-energy blues, with the contemporary freakout of Jimi Hendrix
and the free-jazz spirit of John Coltrane. Iggy wanted the Stooges to be
what he'd seen in Chicago as a young guy — these old bluesmen playing
so hard that, as Iggy once said, the music drips off you.
I was
14 when I first saw a picture of Iggy onstage: shirtless, with his body
spray-painted silver. He was sweating — it looked like glitter sweat —
and he had a chipped tooth. He looked young and on fire. Iggy's parents
were intellectuals — his father was an English teacher — and that gave
him an edge. He had focus. Iggy believed what he was doing was important
— this self-reliant, anti-establishment art form.
The Stooges'
sound was so evocative yet so simple. Scott Asheton played drums as if
he was in an electric-blues band. On The Stooges and Fun House, while
his brother Ron, the guitarist, was playing these loud bar-chord
progressions, Scott was making the band rev and swing. And when I played
with Ron for the soundtrack of Velvet Goldmine, the first week was a
crash course on how to play Stooges songs. We went through those first
two albums, and there was that Asheton swing again, the way he rocked
the chord grooves.
Raw Power was made by a different lineup, with
James Williamson on guitar and Ron on bass. It's the ultimate f***-off.
This is a band getting very strung out, putting so much blood and soul
into what it's doing, and for the most part looked upon as trash.
There's a damaged quality to David Bowie's original mix that is way
ahead of its time.
Seeing the Stooges in reunion with Mike Watt
from the Minutemen on bass was awesome. When they played their first
gig, in 2003 at Coachella, the first thing Iggy did was start jumping in
the air, flipping the bird to the crowd — "f*** you, f*** you and f***
you." Then Iggy turned to the side of the stage, where the elite were
standing — Sonic Youth, Queens of the Stone Age, the Red Hot Chili
Peppers and the other all-access rock stars — and he gave us the
jerk-off motion. It was great. After all this time, he's still at war.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
77
Beastie Boys
By Darryl "DMC" McDaniels
In
the early days of rap, the conventional wisdom was that only black
people were supposed to like hip-hop and only white people were supposed
to like rock. But it wasn't like that. In Run-DMC, we were rapping over
rock beats. The Beasties were a punk band listening to hip-hop.
I
met the Beastie Boys in Rick Rubin's dorm room at NYU. What bugged me
out about the Beasties was that they knew everything about hip-hop — the
Cold Crush Brothers, the Treacherous Three and Afrika Bambaataa, all
the old-school s***. In addition, they could rap, they could sing and
they could play instruments.
Run-DMC gave "Slow and Low" to the
Beastie Boys. The song was basically their blueprint. But then they
started writing anita kunztheir own rhymes, and when Licensed to Ill
came out, it went to Number One. They were writing songs we wished we
had written, like "No Sleep Till Brooklyn." They put rock with rap like
we did, but it made so much sense when they did it because they were
punk rockers.
The first time we toured with the Beastie Boys was
the Raising Hell tour in 1986: Run-DMC, Whodini, LL Cool J and the
Beastie Boys. We were playing the Deep South — Crunkville, before there
was crunk — and it was just black people at those shows. The first night
was somewhere in Georgia, and we were thinking, "I hope people don't
leave when they see them." But the crowd loved them, because they
weren't trying to be black rappers. They rapped about s*** they knew
about: skateboarding, going to White Castle, angel dust and television.
Real recognizes real.
One of the most significant things about
the Beasties is their longevity. They've put out genius records for
decades. When Paul's Boutique came out, it didn't sell as well as their
debut. Now people realize it's one of the best albums of the Eighties.
Each
of the Beastie Boys has a different personality. Mike D is the
examiner: He looks around, he takes in all the information, he's a
little laid-back. MCA was always the mature one, but he could be a fool
when it was time to be a fool. And Ad-Rock is just full of life. He's
approachable, affectionate and funny. But maybe my favorite thing about
the Beastie Boys is that they're worldly. They taught me and many other
people a lot about life, people and music.
ILLUSTRATION BY GARY KELLY
76
The Shirelles
By Paul Shaffer
The
Shirelles had a "sound," a word that people from the Sixties
vocal-group era use with a lot of reverence. Shirley Alston Reeves, who
did most of the group's lead vocals, wasn't a gospel shouter like Arlene
Smith of the Chantels. Shirley was more sentimental and street. When
she said, "Baby, it's you," you thought, "Baby, it is me."
They
weren't the first girl group, but the Shirelles were the first to have
many hits. They influenced everyone from the Ronettes and Motown girl
groups like the Supremes to the Beatles, who covered "Baby It's You" and
"Boys." The Shirelles were given some of the all-time greatest songs to
sing: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "Soldier Boy," "Tonight's the
Night," "Mama Said." But what's interesting to me is that they wrote
their very first hit, "I Met Him on a Sunday," themselves, when they
were still high school students in New Jersey. It was on this song that
the group combined doo-wop with very accessible pop melodies: It began
with the whole group singing, "Doo ron, day ron, day ron day papa, doo
ron," then one of them would sing, "Well, I met him on a Sunday." It was
the cutest thing.
The girl-group sound was everything to me. As a
kid, I used to sit at home after school and just bang out those songs
on the piano. Later in life, in the early Nineties, I witnessed a
wonderful moment, when the Shirelles were honored by the Rhythm &
Blues Foundation. The three living members of the group — Shirley,
Beverly Lee and Doris Jackson — were at the awards ceremony. The fourth
member, Addie "Micki" Harris, had died in 1982. I had heard that they
hadn't seen each other in quite a while, so there was some apprehension
when the three of them took the stage. They certainly hadn't planned to
perform. But when Doris took her award in hand, she said, "This is
dedicated to the one I love," and then they just started singing it.
They
sounded fantastic. The band fell into place, and people in the audience
just fell over. After that, Shirley, Beverly and Doris were having so
much fun that they went into "Soldier Boy." This was a group that hadn't
sung together in years, but they sounded heavenly. I was so inspired, I
stood at attention and saluted. There was nothing else I could do.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK STUTZMAN
75
Eagles
By Sheryl Crow
The
Eagles forever changed country and rock, but I just think of what they
did as being great American music. It's amazing how one band could take
all those influences — country and rock, of course, but also soul,
R&B and folk — and still sound so distinctive.
The Eagles
were a real band. After an album or two, Don Henley and Glenn Frey
turned into one of rock's all-time great songwriting teams. But everyone
contributed material and incredible musicianship to the effort: Randy
Meisner and Bernie Leadon, then Don Felder, and later Joe Walsh and
Timothy B. Schmit. They started out in the age of the sensitive
singer-songwriter, and their music was as smart and sensitive as
anyone's, but when they called upon it, they also had the power of a
great rock & roll band.
The first song of theirs that I
vividly remember hearing was "Take It Easy." Those lyrics — by Frey and
Jackson Browne — could have been from any Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson
song, but the instrumentation and energy were decidedly rock. The
combination sounded so powerful.
I also remember being on a long
cross-country family road trip as a kid, driving across the Texas desert
at night. The only radio station we could get was a scratchy AM station
from who knows where. The haunting opening strains of "Hotel
California" came on the radio. My father thought that all of us kids
were asleep; I immediately assumed that he would shut the radio off. But
he didn't. He couldn't resist it any more than I could.
The
Eagles provided the soundtrack to so many of my summers, and likely many
of yours, too. Their melodies and harmonies have always been instantly
familiar. "Desperado," "Take It to the Limit," "Tequila Sunrise" and
"Best of My Love" are some of the best pop songs ever written. To this
day, it simply doesn't get any better than that guitar riff from "Life
in the Fast Lane."
When I sang backup for Don Henley in the early
Nineties, it was a surreal experience, supplying vocals every night to
Eagles songs. The audience's reaction to those classics cemented their
value in my head. In my own way, I got to experience the power of the
Eagles' music. But then again, we all have.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARC BURCKHARDT
74
Hank Williams
By Beck
Hank
Williams songs like "Lonesome Whistle" and "Your Cheatin' Heart" are
wonderful to sing because there is no bulls*** in them. The words, the
melodies and the sentiment are all there, clear and true. It takes
economy and simplicity to get to an idea or emotion in a song, and
there's no better example of that than Hank Williams.
Hank had a
voice that split wood. From his records, it sounded like he was
projecting from a completely different place in his body. It was a voice
that could play roadhouses without amplification, that could cut
through barroom crowds. The places he played were so tough that he hired
a wrestler, Cannonball Nichols, to be his bass player. Hank lived what
would have been a rock star's life — full of touring, drinking and woman
troubles.
I bought a 10-song Hank Williams collection on vinyl
for $4.99. It was like I unlocked a box: His music spoke to me. His
records are enormously important to country music, but I think I
responded to them because they sounded so exotic. It's significant that
Hank learned to play guitar from an elderly black musician: Hank is the
ultimate hillbilly, but there's other stuff going on. For a while he was
my only reference point; I've covered his songs for years. On Sea
Change, I made a conscious effort to try to write songs as direct as
Hank's.
I see more and more people getting into his music today.
When I played his songs early on, I used to get really sick of everyone
in the crowd yelling "yee-haw" all the way through. But I've noticed
that there's been a rediscovery of the haunting quality of Hank
Williams' music. People are listening.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA VENTURA
73
Radiohead
By Dave Matthews
Every
time I buy a Radiohead album, I have a moment where I say to myself,
"Maybe this is the one that will suck." But it never does. I wonder if
it's even possible for them to be bad on record.
It belittles
Radiohead to describe their music as having "hooks." Their music talks
to you, in a real way. It can take you down a quiet street before it
drops a beautiful musical bomb on you. It can build to where you think
the whole thing will crumble beneath its own weight — and then Thom
Yorke will sing some melody that just cuts your heart out of your chest.
There's a point on the album Kid A where I start feeling
claustrophobic, stuck in a barbed-wire jungle — and then I suddenly fall
out and I'm sitting by a pool with birds singing. Radiohead can do all
of these things in a moment, and it drives me f***ing crazy.
My
reaction to Radiohead isn't as simple as jealousy. Jealousy just burns;
Radiohead infuriate me. But if it were only that, I wouldn't go back and
listen to those records again and again. Listening to Radiohead makes
me feel like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart. Yorke's lyrics make me want
to give up. I could never in my wildest dreams find something as
beautiful as they find for a single song — let alone album after album.
And every time, they raise their finger to the press and the critics and
say, "Nothing we do is for you!" They followed their most critically
acclaimed record, OK Computer, with their most radical change, Kid A.
It's not that they're indifferent — it's that the strength of character
in their music is beyond their control.
Seeing them perform makes
me even angrier. No matter how much they let go in their shows, they
never lose their clarity. There's no point where Jonny Greenwood or Ed
O'Brien will suddenly look up and say, "Where the f*** are we?" There
are no train wrecks in Radiohead; every album and performance is
wrenching. God, these guys have suffered, or they can fake it like
nobody else.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPHER KASCH
72
AC/DC
By Rick Rubin
When
I was in junior high, my classmates all liked Led Zeppelin. But I loved
AC/DC. I got turned on to them when I heard them play "Problem Child"
on The Midnight Special. Like Zeppelin, they were rooted in American
R&B, but AC/DC took it to a minimal extreme that had never been
heard before. Of course, I didn't know that back then. I only knew that
they sounded better than any other band.
For AC/DC, rock began
with Chuck Berry and ended around Elvis. They poured their lifeblood
into that groove, and they mastered it. Highway to Hell is probably the
most natural-sounding rock record I've ever heard. There's so little
adornment. Nothing gets in the way of the push-and-pull between the
guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer
Phil Rudd. For me, it's the embodiment of rock & roll.
When
I'm producing a rock band, I try to create albums that sound as powerful
as Highway to Hell. Whether it's the Cult or the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
I apply the same basic formula: Keep it sparse. Make the guitar parts
more rhythmic. It sounds simple, but what AC/DC did is almost impossible
to duplicate. A great band like Metallica could play an AC/DC song note
for note, and they still wouldn't capture the tension and release that
drive the music. There's nothing like it.
The other thing that
separates AC/DC as a hard-rock band is that you can dance to their
music. They didn't play funk, but everything they played was funky. And
that beat could really get a crowd going. I first saw them play in 1979
at Madison Square Garden, before their singer Bon Scott died and was
replaced by Brian Johnson. The crowd yanked all the chairs off the floor
and piled them into a pyramid in front of the stage. It was a tribute
to how great they were.
I'll go on record as saying they're the
greatest rock & roll band of all time. They didn't write emotional
lyrics. They didn't play emotional songs. The emotion is all in that
groove. And that groove is timeless.
ILLUSTRATION BY OWEN SMITH
71
Frank Zappa
By Trey Anastasio
In
the early years of Phish, people often said we were like "Frank Zappa
meets the Grateful Dead" — which sounds very bizarre. But Zappa was
incredibly vital to me, as a composer and guitarist. I think he was the
best electric-guitar player, other than Jimi Hendrix. Zappa
conceptualized the instrument in a completely different way,
rhythmically and sonically. Every boundary that was possible on the
guitar was examined by him.
I'll never forget the first time I
saw him live, in New York, when I was in high school. He would leave his
guitar on a stand as he conducted the band. And he would not pick up
the guitar until everything was totally together. There would be this
moment — this collective breath from the audience — as he walked over,
picked it up and started playing the most ripping, beautiful solo. When
he played, he was in communion with the instrument.
I also saw
Zappa at Memorial Auditorium in Burlington, Vermont, on his last tour,
in 1988. He did this guitar solo in "City of Tiny Lites" where everybody
in the band dropped out except drummer Chad Wackerman. I was in the
balcony near the side of the stage. When Zappa turned his back on the
audience to play with Chad, I saw this huge smile on his face. But this
was also the guy who did 87orchestral pieces like The Yellow Shark. It's
hard to believe somebody could do so many different things.
Zappa
was a huge influence on how I wrote music for Phish. Songs like "You
Enjoy Myself" and "Split Open and Melt" were completely charted out
because he had shown me it was possible. And when I played at Bonnaroo
with my 10-piece band, we did two covers, "The Devil Went Down to
Georgia" and "Sultans of Swing." In both songs, I had the horn section
play the guitar solos, note for note. I never would have thought of
doing that if I hadn't seen Zappa do "Stairway to Heaven" in Burlington
with the horns playing Jimmy Page's entire guitar solo, in harmony.
There
is a whole generation of musicians coming up who can't play their
instruments. Because of stuff like Pro Tools, they figure they can fix
it all in the studio. With Frank, his musicians were pushed to the
absolute brink. Phish tried hard to do that too: to take our four little
instruments and do as much as we could with them. I would not have
envisioned that without him.
Zappa gave me the faith that
anything in music was possible. He demystified the whole thing for my
generation: "Look, these are just instruments. Find out what the range
is, and start writing."
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM O'BRIEN
70
The Police
By Brandon Flowers
Oscar
Wilde said that an artist has succeeded if people don't understand his
work but they still like it. By that standard, the Police were a huge
success. Their songs are universal — they're part of all of our lives.
You hear them on both pop and classic-rock stations, and they'll be
played on the radio in Germany 100 years from now. At the same time,
everything they did was really smart and worked on a few levels; you
could love a particular song, then realize a year later that you had
totally missed the meaning.
Take "Every Breath You Take." It's a
great trick — it's impossibly catchy, people play it at their weddings,
but it's a stalker song. "Roxanne" is blatantly about a hooker — it's
not about how Sting loves her and broke her heart, it's just about how
she's a hooker. People don't realize how unique that is. All of us are
lucky to have heard songs as good as "Message in a Bottle," "Walking on
the Moon" and "King of Pain" on the radio. Sting already had a career
and a degree when the Police made it; he wasn't afraid of sounding like a
grown-up.
My favorite is "Don't Stand So Close to Me," the one
about the teacher and the young girl. That kind of storytelling has
fallen out of pop music, for the most part. "Don't Stand" would be great
to listen to no matter what the lyrics were — it could have just been
about some girl — but the story makes it spooky and powerful. My
favorite line is "Wet bus stop/She's waiting/His car is warm and dry" —
he communicates the entire song with those 11 words.
Of course,
the Police were amazing musicians. They were professionals who came up
during the punk era and found their messages later on. I'm a big fan of
how they used reggae. Bands like the Clash had already mixed it with
punk, but the Police did it flat-out — it was like reggae for music
geeks. Sting played bass and sang, which you don't see very often. He
commanded both the rhythm section and melodies in the band. Stewart
Copeland is a great drummer — you have to be to give songs like
"Roxanne" and "So Lonely" their drive and also throw that reggae in
there. Andy Summers has both great technique and rhythmic sense. It's
amazing how many rock bands with serious grooves are made up of skinny
English dudes.
The Police matured really quickly. All bands should pay attention to that. You should always try to keep moving forward.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES MILLER
69
Jackie Wilson
By Peter Wolf
Jackie
Wilson was key in helping bridge the gap between an old-style R&B
and a new incarnation of soul. Even Elvis Presley knew why Wilson was
called "Mr. Excitement": I heard that seeing Wilson perform made the
King want to hide under the table. The most spectacular Jackie Wilson
show I ever saw was at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater, around 1960. When
he took the stage, adorned in a magnificent white suit, he spread his
arms open wide, as if trying to embrace the entire room. He started
singing the opening notes of his song "Doggin' Around." The audience
broke into screams. Even the way he casually held his hands while
singing was hypnotic. His dancing was spellbinding — twists and splits
that left me in total disbelief. Quickly soaked in sweat (nobody knew
how to sweat as good as Jackie Wilson), he took off his jacket and
pretended he was going to throw it to the crowd, creating a pure sexual
enchantment. There were real women in that audience who knew what they
wanted. And what they wanted was Jackie Wilson.
He seemed
destined for such greatness, and yet his life ended up playing itself
out like some cheap B-grade film noir. There was violence — a crazed
woman once shot him — as well as tax problems, drugs, divorce and mob
associations that made demands he couldn't refuse. While performing at
the Latin Casino, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, he had a massive coronary
and hit his head hard as he fell. At the hospital, he lapsed into a
coma. He remained in that state for eight years, as the people around
him fought over his estate, before he died in 1984.
I had the
honor of inducting Jackie Wilson into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As
I waited backstage to present my speech, I was approached by three
women arguing with one another as to who should be the one to go onstage
and claim the award that was to be given to Jackie. Mr. Excitement
would still not have peace.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
68
The Temptations
By Rod Stewart
I
was on holiday with my parents in the late Sixties when I heard "I Wish
It Would Rain." I lived in England, where it f***ing rains all the
time, so it was appropriate. But that's also when I fell in love with
David Ruffin's tenor — it jumped out of the speakers and ravished my
soul.
Whether it was Ruffin or Dennis Edwards or Eddie Kendricks
or Paul Williams singing lead, the Tempts were always an all-star vocal
band. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, the Tempts had an
unprecedented string of hits: "My Girl," "The Way You Do the Things You
Do," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Just My Imagination." Later on, they
broke ground with the psychedelic soul of "Cloud Nine." I remember
listening to the high-hat rhythms on that record over and over with the
guys in the Jeff Beck Group. We'd try to change every one of our songs
to try and capture their drumbeats.
When I got home from holiday,
I immediately bought Wish It Would Rain. At that time I was very much
into folk music and turning the corner into R&B, and I'll never
forget seeing that cover, with all the Tempts dressed as Foreign
Legionnaires, sitting in the desert. Their outfits were wonderful — I
blame them for teaching me to wear loud colors. They also came up with
the cutting-edge dance routines. Nobody moved like the Tempts.
I'd
later become friends with David Ruffin — when our bands would play in
Detroit, Ruffin would come to every show and we'd sing "(I Know) I'm
Losing You," a Temptations cover off my album Every Picture Tells a
Story. His voice was so powerful — like a foghorn on the Queen Mary. He
was so loud.
My children grew up loving the Temptations, and we
tried to see them every time they came to town. They would always pick
me out of the audience with a spotlight, trying to get me up to the
stage. But I never did. I'm too frightened.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK GAGNON
67
Cream
By Roger Waters
I
was in my third year of classes at a place in London called the Regent
Street Polytechnic School of Architecture, which is where I met Nick
Mason and Rick Wright. At the end of each term we would have a show, and
this time we had Cream — in a small hall where I had once played Happy
Loman in Death of a Salesman, which is beside the point.
The
curtain drew back and the three of them started playing "Crossroads." I
had never seen or heard anything like it before. I was simply staggered
by the amount of equipment they had: by Ginger Baker's double bass drum,
by Jack Bruce's two 4-by-12 Marshall amps and by all of Eric Clapton's
gear. It was an astounding sight and an explosive sound.
Two-thirds
of the way through their set, one of them said, "We'd like to invite a
friend of ours from America out onstage." It was Jimi Hendrix, and that
was the first night he played in England. He came on and did all that
now-famous stuff, like playing with his teeth. That ticket cost about a
pound or so. It might have been the best purchase I ever made.
After
that, Pink Floyd started to go professional, and we would run into
Cream on the road. They affected so many people. Jimmy Page must have
looked at Cream and thought, "f*** me, I think I'll do that," and then
put together Led Zeppelin. Along with the Beatles, they gave those of us
entering the business at that time something to aspire to that wasn't
pop but was still popular.
I remember Ginger Baker was insane
back then, and I'm sure he still is. He hit the drums harder than anyone
I've ever seen, with the possible exception of Keith Moon. And Ginger
hit them in a rhythmic style all his own that was extraordinary. Eric
Clapton we don't have to talk about — it's obvious how amazing he is.
Then there's Jack Bruce — probably the most musically gifted bass player
who's ever been.
Cream were very innovative within the context
of all the music coming from the West Coast of the U.S. at that time,
from bands like the Doors and Love. Apart from being a great blues band,
Cream had a real good go at so many other styles, even if some of it
sounds a little silly now. There are songs on all the Cream albums that
amaze me still, like "Crossroads," "Sunshine of Your Love," "White Room"
and "I Feel Free." They were desperately trying to write material that
was truly progressive and original. And they achieved that.
ILLUSTRATION BY BRALDT BRALDS
66
Al Green
By Justin Timberlake
Al
Green has helped overpopulate the world. He's got some serious
babymaking music. But what makes him such an inspiration is the raw
passion, the sincerity and the joy he brings to his music. People are
born to do certain things, and Al was born to make us smile. You hear
his voice and it lights everything up. Every time one of his songs
starts playing — whether it's "You Ought to Be With Me," "I'm Still in
Love With You," "Love and Happiness" or, of course, "Let's Stay
Together" — when the stomp starts and the guitar comes in, you know
you're in for something full of sweet love. His songs weren't as
political as Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway. But if those guys were
speaking to you, Al Green was speaking for you.
Al Green's voice
will always remind me of driving the back roads of Memphis with my
parents, listening to cassette tapes. Hearing Al as a kid made me want
to become a singer and showed me that it was OK to have a softer, more
falsetto voice. I really related to that, because I never had a big,
boisterous, American Idol showstopping voice. Al, he was a crooner. The
way he would squeeze out a note can't be trained and can't be imitated.
Behind
him was this incredible band. On songs like "Tired of Being Alone," the
horns are tasteful and restrained but completely funky. I always loved
the way the mistakes were kept in on his albums, like the way the band
is almost out of sync at the beginning of "Love and Happiness." Even his
messes are beautiful.
Eventually I found out this man I idolized
lived five minutes from me in my hometown. Then, years later, I went to
the White House (back when Clinton was in office), and Al was there
performing. He sang Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," and the
audience wept. After I released my first solo album, I was doing a TV
special in Memphis, and I called him and asked if he'd grace us with his
presence. We sang "Let's Stay Together" on that stage, and it was a
milestone in my short, unimportant career. I learned something
incredible: Everything always has to be about the show. But Al Green is
the show, and when you watch him perform, you see something honest and
soulful and amazing.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPHER KASCH
65
The Kinks
By Peter Buck
I've
got pretty much every note the Kinks recorded on my iPod — certainly
everything through 1980. And it all sounds good. The Kinks are the only
major band from the Sixties I can think of that didn't go psychedelic,
didn't do any of that crap that all of the other big bands did at the
time. When everyone was writing song cycles about Eastern mysticism, Ray
Davies was writing about a two-up/two-down flat in some English suburb.
Ray wrote songs about the things that were important to him. He
invented his world and gave it life. And in that world, people weren't
wearing Nehru jackets, smoking pot and jamming for 24 hours a day. The
Kinks created a different world — and I'm glad they did it.
When I
first heard Village Green Preservation Society, in 1971, I got this
picture in my head of small-town English life: village greens, draft
beer. But when R.E.M. went to England in 1985, I drove through Muswell
Hill — and it certainly wasn't romantic-looking. I had this picture of a
gorgeous vista — when it's really a kind of grimy area. I realized
these songs were all acts of imagination, that Ray was commemorating an
England that was slipping away. There is a great air of sadness in those
songs.
I am amazed at how great the Kinks' records sounded —
even though, when you listen closely, there is very little going on in
them. Village Green is the best example: Unlike a lot of records of its
time, it's not stuffed with a ton of instruments. And yet the songs are
perfectly realized, well arranged.
Ray wrote "You Really Got Me"
on piano. Then he gives it to his brother Dave, this teenage maniac, who
turns it into a demented guitar part. I read that an interviewer once
asked Dave if he thought the Kinks had gone heavy metal in the Eighties.
He said, "It wasn't called heavy metal when I invented it." When R.E.M.
started out, Dave's solo on that song was the only solo I knew how to
play. So whenever I had to do a solo, I would just play that.
The
Kinks slipped into rock history through the back door. All of those
great albums that we talk about now, like Face to Face, Something Else
by the Kinks and Village Green — nobody bought those records in the
Sixties. But those of us who love those records — and a lot of us are
musicians — have loved them for decades.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DAY
64
Phil Spector
By Jerry Wexler
There
are three kinds of record producers. The first kind is the
documentarian — someone like Leonard Chess, who goes into a bar on the
South Side of Chicago, sees Muddy Waters with a six-piece combo, then
pulls him into the studio the next day and says, "Play what you played
last night." The second is the type who serves the artist; I would be so
brash as to include myself in that category, along with John Hammond,
Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, and Bob Thiele — music fans who try to develop
great singers.
Then there's the producer who does it all. Phil
Spector could be the greatest of these. For Spector, the song and the
recording were one thing, and they existed in his brain. When he went
into the studio, it came out of him, like Minerva coming out of
Jupiter's head. Every instrument had its role to play, and it was all
prefigured. The singer was just one tile in this intaglio. Songs such as
the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and Ike and
Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" had wonderful singers, but
they were tiles. Phil would get the track ready, then call upon the
artist and say, "OK, now sing." There were songwriter-producers before
him, but no one did the whole thing like Phil.
When I first met
him, he was very young, sleeping on the couch at the Atlantic Records
offices and using the switchboard after hours. He was brash, cocky and
talented. I remember that if I would vouchsafe an opinion about
something when we were together in the studio — a snare drum on a bridge
of a song, or whatever — Phil would say, "Oh, man, I came here from
California to make hits." It meant, "Shut the f*** up and get out of my
face." But like Dizzy Dean used to say, "If you can do it, it ain't
bragging," and Phil can do it: play piano and guitar, compose and
produce.
His music is impeccable. Where it comes from, I don't know.
ILLUSTRATION BY JODY HEWGILL
63
Tina Turner
By Janet Jackson
Tina
Turner has become more than just a musical superstar and sex symbol,
though she is definitely both of those things. For me — and I imagine
for millions of others — Tina now stands as an enduring symbol of
survival and of grace. Her music is a healing thing.
Remember
that famous introduction to "Proud Mary," when Tina talks about liking
things "nice and … rough"? We all know that she faced some rough times
in her life. But the reality is that life never threw her anything that
she couldn't handle. One of Tina's big hits is called "We Don't Need
Another Hero." Yet Tina has become a heroic figure for many people
because of her tremendous strength. Tina doesn't seem to have a
beginning or an end. I felt her music was always there, and I feel like
it always will be.
The story of Tina's rise and fall with Ike
Turner is well-known. You can see what it was like in the movie What's
Love Got to Do With It. But I believe it's time to put the Ike story to
rest. The truth is that when Tina came back in the Eighties, she became
much bigger than she was the first time around. Tina's story is not one
of victimhood but one of incredible triumph.
In the beginning,
Tina's music was based on hard times and harsh realities. Think about a
song like "Nutbush City Limits." That was her story. But over the years,
her story changed, and her music reflected those changes beautifully.
Tina has the ability to dream, get out, get over and get on with it.
She's transformed herself into an international sensation — an elegant
powerhouse. But wherever she may be, whether it's in Spain, Asia or
Egypt, she's never forgotten her humble beginnings. Tina Turner knows
who she is, and to this day, she remains one of the true greats. In
every sense, the woman has legs.
ILLUSTRATION BY GERARD DUBOIS
62
Joni Mitchell
By Jewel
Joni
Mitchell is a bigger icon than she is a star. Bob Dylan and Keith
Richards became so famous that they're stars and icons. Joni is still
unknown to lots of people. The impact she had wasn't flashy. But she
influenced people who became stars.
I remember a friend in high
school playing me "A Case of You," from Blue. I could tell that Joni was
a painter by the way she wrote lyrics. She describes smells and sounds
and uses fewer words to transmit more feeling. Her melodies are about
shapes. The singing lines are slow, steep plateaus. One of the things I
learned from Joni: If you can tell the story and keep things moving, you
don't need to return to the chorus on time.
What she writes is
closer to journalism: On Blue, you hear everything she experienced, the
highs and the lows. It's such a lonely album — not in the "I don't have
any friends" sense but in the sense that you're a little bit removed,
and always watching. It takes a lot of courage to be that honest,
especially as a woman. When she did it, it was a fluffy time — pretty
girls singing about pretty things.
Joni had an edginess that not
many women expressed then. Joni Mitchell never made a big deal out of
being a woman. She had such a strong sexuality, but she didn't feel the
need to deny that part of her in order to be taken seriously. She also
didn't play it up — although many of her songs are about sex.
I
met her at a Vanity Fair photo shoot. Stevie Wonder introduced us. He
took my hand — I guess I led him to her — and he said, "Joni, I'd like
you to meet Jewel." I just shook her hand and tried to swallow. I didn't
have anything to say to her. Her influence on me is so obvious. I hope
she can hear it.
NATHAN FOX
61
Metallica
By Flea
In
1984, I was on tour with my band, somewhere in the middle of America.
It was around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. We're all crammed into our
van, with all our equipment. It was raining. We were tired, we'd been on
the road. And this music comes on the radio. I couldn't believe that it
existed. My mind was being blown by this beautiful violence that was
unlike anything I'd ever heard before.
It wasn't punk rock. It
wasn't heavy metal. It was precise and explosive and heavy. It was
aggressive and intense, and it had these really wild and bizarre rhythm
changes. But it still held together as a bitchin'-ass song. I was
singin' along with it by the end, though it certainly wasn't using any
conventional pop-song pattern that I had ever heard. That song was
"Fight Fire With Fire." And it opened up my mind to the mighty force of
nature that is Metallica.
When Metallica started in 1981, they
didn't really take your typical path to success. I don't know if massive
stardom and selling a zillion records were on their minds when they
were getting the ball rolling. But if they were aiming at becoming one
of the most successful rock bands of all time, they sure were going
about it in a kooky way. Maybe they were thinking they were going to
break into Casey Kasem's Top 40 countdown with their debut record, Kill
'Em All. They were definitely going for a hit single with the song
"(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." A five-minute-long bass solo is a sure
ticket to commercial success.
That song is one of the great
moments in rock history for the electric bass guitar. Every Cliff
Burton-based solo I've ever heard is a soulful, psychedelic, headbanging
expression that rocks your world, trips your brain out and gets the
house rockin'. It's a beautiful piece of music played by an awesome
rocker of a young man who was a masterpiece of a human being. I can
never listen to any Metallica record without thinking of him. It is
clear that the gift he gave lives on in that band's music.
The
fact that Metallica connected with the world in the way that they have
is phenomenal. They have become a household name with music that is
anything but mainstream. It's outsider music. And for it to do what it
has done is truly mind-blowing. When I hear Metallica, I get this
feeling that they're doing something that they have to do.
There
is this thing in them wound up so tight that they have to let it out,
let that thing uncoil; it has to be released. An infinite well of
sadness, a hell of a lot of pain and anger, but mostly, a lot of love
for the process of releasing this stuff. For the people who give it up
and get rocked by Metallica, the world is a less lonely place. When a
person gets rocking to their music, everything else disappears, and that
person is just one with the rock. It is an inexplicable, awesome thing,
and I bow down to it. Pain and hurt can be a muse for great art. It's
one of the greatest rites of passage for any artist, and it's something
that touches us most deeply. Anyone who has ever been to a Metallica
show, and banged their head, and thrown up the devil horns, has been a
part of something great. Rocking so hard to the brutal beat of Metallica
for those couple of hours, in a way, is as healthy as any spiritual
exercise — group meditation, any love-in, anything.
Metallica's
career is a huge, dynamic thing, and they have done it all. They have
worked their way up from nothing, and written the jams that rocked the
world. Metallica are f***ing rad! The music is bitchin'! It is
unbelievable! And they continue to rock on. Whatever gets thrown at
them, they persevere and they get stronger; they are a family. And they
are as intense and inventive as ever.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERTO PARADA
60
The Sex Pistols
By Billie Joe Armstrong
The
Sex Pistols released just one album — Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's
the Sex Pistols — but it punched a huge hole in everything that was
bulls*** about rock music, and everything that was going wrong with the
world, too. No one else has had that kind of impact with one album. You
can hear their influence everywhere from Joy Division to Guns n' Roses
to Public Enemy to the Smiths to Slayer. Never Mind the Bollocks is the
root of everything that goes on at modern-rock radio. It's just an
amazing thing that no one's been able to live up to.
It's a myth
that these guys couldn't play their instruments. Steve Jones is one of
the best guitarists of all time, as far as I'm concerned — he taught me
how a Gibson should sound. Paul Cook was an amazing drummer with a
distinct sound, right up there with Keith Moon or Charlie Watts. There
are bands out there still trying to sound like the Sex Pistols and
can't, because they were great players.
The difference between
John Lydon and a lot of other punk singers is that they can only emulate
what he was doing naturally. There was nothing about him that was
contrived. As far as the bass player goes, I don't think it was
necessarily a mistake to replace Glen Matlock with Sid Vicious. Matlock
was cool, but Sid was everything that's cool about punk rock: a skinny
rocker who had a ton of attitude, sort of an Elvis, James Dean kind of
guy. That said, there's nothing romantic about being addicted to heroin.
He was capable of playing his instrument, but he was too f***ed up to
do it.
The things that Lydon wrote about back in '76 and '77 are
totally relevant to what's going on right now. They paint an ugly
picture. No one ever had the guts to say what they said. The only person
who did anything similar to it was Bob Dylan, and even Bob Dylan was
never that blunt.
When I first heard them, I was 14 or 15 and
into a lot of heavy-metal and hard-rock music. I think I was at a girl's
house. I remember hearing those boot stomps to "Holidays in the Sun."
And then the guitar came roaring through like thunder. By the time
Lydon's vocal came in, I definitely wanted to destroy my past and create
something new for myself. That's sort of the impact that they always
had on me and my music. When I'm trying to create something, I always
refer to the Sex Pistols, because they show you what the possibilities
are in music. You don't have to emulate them, but thanks to them, you
can take it anywhere.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSIE JAMMET
59
Aerosmith
By Slash
I
don't think this generation has a clue what classic Aerosmith was all
about. But they were the template for what I do, as well as plenty of
bands that came after Guns n' Roses: Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in
Chains and Pearl Jam all owed a serious debt to old-school Aerosmith.
My
big awakening happened when I was 14 years old. I'd been trying to get
into this older girl's pants for a while, and she finally let me come
over to her house. We hung out, smoked some pot and listened to
Aerosmith's Rocks. It hit me like a f***ing ton of bricks. I sat there
listening to it over and over, and totally blew off this girl. I
remember riding my bike back to my grandma's house knowing that my life
had changed forever. Now I identified with something.
The key to
Rocks is the first two songs — "Back in the Saddle" and "Last Child."
That combination just ripped my head off. But my favorite song on the
record has always been "Nobody's Fault," which is the second song on the
B side. Aerosmith had an aggressive, psychotic, drugged-out vibe, but
at the same time they had a Stones-y blues thing going on. There was
just nothing cooler than Aerosmith coming out of America at that point.
What else was there? Foghat?
When I was just starting to learn
how to play guitar, Aerosmith gave me the shove I needed. I identified
with Joe Perry's image, both soundwise and visually. He was streamlined
in a way that reminded me of Keith Richards, was always wasted and had a
careless guitar style that was really cool. But I was also totally into
Brad Whitford's guitar solos, and he had a more direct influence on the
way I play than anybody realizes. And anyone who sings needs to be
exposed to Steven Tyler.
My first Aerosmith concert was in 1978,
at a festival with Van Halen — they were incredibly loud and I barely
recognized a note, but it was still the most bitchin' thing I'd ever
seen. Soon after that, they broke up, which to me marked the end of
Seventies rock. The next time I saw them was when they got back together
six years later, and they were amazing. When Aerosmith are in the
groove, they're just rock-solid. Not too long after that, Guns n' Roses
were asked to open for Aerosmith on their Permanent Vacation tour. We
went to their manager's hotel room, and while he was in the bathroom we
ordered $1,500 worth of room service and trashed the place. But they
must have liked us a lot, because they put us on the bill anyway, and
I've known them ever since.
ILLUSTRATION BY OLAF HAJEK
58
Parliament and Funkadelic
By Ice Cube
When
I was going out in the Eighties, you could get your ass kicked if you
put on Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep" at a house party. Some DJs
wouldn't play that song or "Flash Light," because a fight would start:
The crazy motherf***ers at parties would become real crazy. "Knee Deep"
was their coming-out music. At 15 minutes, it was so long and so good,
it made you feel like now was the time. For whatever. George Clinton
showed me that anything goes: You do what you feel.
Obviously, he
had great musicians on those albums: Bootsy Collins on the bass; Bernie
Worrell, the best keyboard player I've ever heard. Clinton would pull
in people like James Brown's saxophone player Maceo Parker and anyone
else he could find. The arrangements are always so unpredictable:
high-pitched synthesizer sounds you never heard before, followed by
straight-up beautiful music. He could turn the corniest things into
funk.
My uncle Jerry was a DJ and introduced me to all the P-Funk
records when I was a little kid: The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein,
Mothership Connection. I loved them because they reminded me of
cartoons, but they were crazy and psychedelic, and the superheroes were
black men. To this day they still have the best album covers I've ever
seen; they would sustain you as much as a video would today. I remember
just sitting and staring at the cover of Motor Booty Affair; there was
that picture of Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk with a big-ass bird breathing down
his neck. My favorite characters were Star Child and Sir Nose, even
though Sir Nose was a sucker who didn't swim and didn't like the funk. I
was too young to go to the concerts, but I'd hear about them from my
older brothers and sisters — about the huge stage shows, and one story
about a fan who stripped off all his clothes and ran the length of the
arena. That bugged me out.
In the end, nobody described George
Clinton's music better than the man himself: It is "Cosmic Slop," it is
funkadelic — funky and psychedelic. You feel a mothership connection.
Clinton was a great marketer, in the best sense possible: He delivered
what he promised. He was no Geraldo Rivera — he was Muhammad Ali or
LeBron James. His music never went away on the West Coast, and you can
still hear his mark all over music today. Parliament and Funkadelic were
30 years ahead of their time.
ILLUSTRATION BY DALE STEPHANOS
57
Grateful Dead
By Warren Haynes
I
didn't grow up a Deadhead. I didn't become a big fan until 1989. I
first saw the band in 1979 — I was 19 — but my head was somewhere else
at the time. My wife, Stefani, was a Deadhead, though, and after we met,
in 1989, we'd go to see them every chance we'd get. One night, at
Madison Square Garden, Bruce Hornsby — who was playing keyboards with
them — pulled us up onstage and sat us behind his piano. We were 10 feet
from Jerry Garcia, and you could see how that audience zeroed in on
him. He was the focus of everything. There was a synchronicity between
the Dead and the crowd, and it was mesmerizing to watch Jerry, in his
own understated way, steering that ship — knowing it was a big ship that
could barely be steered, but if anybody could steer it, it was him.
Obviously,
most of today's jam bands are influenced by the Dead. But what
disappoints me about a lot of current music is that you don't hear any
history in it.
The Dead were aficionados of folk, acoustic blues
and bluegrass — particularly Garcia. In the songs he wrote with Robert
Hunter, and in Bob Weir's stuff too, you're also hearing music from 40
years ago. Everyone focuses on the magic of Jerry's guitar playing and
the vulnerability of his voice, but his sense of melody and chord
changes was unbelievable. The ballads especially connected with me:
"Loser," "Wharf Rat," "Stella Blue." My song "Lay of the Sunflower," on
the Gov't Mule album The Deep End, has a lot of Garcia's melodic
sensibilities.
Before I joined the Dead in 2004, I played with
Phil Lesh for about five years. He is one of the most original bass
players ever. His background was in classical music; he looks at the
bass guitar as a piece of the orchestra, like a low-pitch brass
instrument. His job isn't just holding down the root notes — he and the
drummers, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, are moving all over the
place. A lot of the magic in the Dead's music came from Phil and Jerry
learning how to play together, combining Phil's approach with Jerry's
unique blend of influences.
Jerry is still one of the few
guitarists where as soon as you hear him, you know instantly who it is.
As a guitar player, that is the thing I strive for: the distinct,
recognizable personality that comes out in every note. There was a
humanity in Jerry's guitar work as well as his singing that drew you in.
He was a very personal guitarist; he played with more heart and soul
than technique. And to me, that's what the best music is made of.
As
a band, the Dead also redefined success. They created this following
that grew and grew, and they did it without compromising themselves.
They survived in a world where survival didn't seem possible. They
bucked the system and encouraged their fans to do the same: to be free
thinkers. There are a lot of Deadheads who were completely different
people before they connected with the Grateful Dead.
The Dead
still believe in that message. When I'm with the Allman Brothers, the
band always leaves it up to me how much of Duane's influence I should
show. The Dead are like that too. They're never going to tell me, "Play
it more like Jerry" or "less like Jerry." It's always, "Do what you
think is right."
ILLUSTRATION BY STERLING HUNDLEY
56
Dr. Dre
By Kanye West
Do
hip-hop producers hold Dr. Dre in high esteem? It's like asking a
Christian if he believes Christ died for his sins. Dre has a whole coast
on his back. He discovered Snoop — one of the two greatest living
rappers, along with Jay-Z — and signed Eminem, 50 Cent and the Game. He
takes artists with great potential and makes them even better. I wonder
where I'd be right now if Dre had discovered me.
I remember
hearing Dre's music before I really knew who he was. I had a tape of
Eazy-E's Eazy-Duz-It when I was 11 years old (until my mother found out
it had curses on it and confiscated it). I didn't know what "production"
was back then, but I knew I loved the music. The more I learned about
producing hip-hop, the more I respected what Dre was doing. Think about
how on old N.W.A records the beat would change four or five times in a
single song. A million people can program beats, but can they put
together an entire album like it's a movie?
When I was learning
to produce, working in a home studio in my mother's crib, I tried to
make beats that sounded exactly like Timbaland's, DJ Premier's, Pete
Rock's and, especially, Dr. Dre's. Dre productions like Tupac's
"California Love" were just so far beyond what I was doing that I
couldn't even comprehend what was going on. I had no idea how to get to
that point, how to layer all those instruments. The Chronic is still the
hip-hop equivalent of Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. It's
the benchmark you measure your album against if you're serious. But it's
"Xxplosive," off 2001, that I got my entire sound from — if you listen
to the track, it's got a soul beat, but it's done with those heavy Dre
drums. Listen to "This Can't Be Life," a track I did for Jay-Z's Dynasty
album, and then listen to "Xxplosive." It's a direct bite.
I
first met Dre in December of 2003. He asked me to produce a track for
the Game. At first I was star-struck, but within 30 minutes I was
begging him to mix my next album. He's the definition of a true talent:
Dre feels like God placed him here to make music, and no matter what
forces are aligned against him, he always ends up on the mountaintop.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BROWN
55
Eric Clapton
By Steven Van Zandt
Eric
Clapton is the most important and influential guitar player that has
ever lived, is still living or ever will live. Do yourself a favor, and
don't debate me on this. Before Clapton, rock guitar was the Chuck Berry
method, modernized by Keith Richards, and the rockabilly sound — Scotty
Moore, Carl Perkins, Cliff Gallup — popularized by George Harrison.
Clapton absorbed that, then introduced the essence of black electric
blues: the power and vocabulary of Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and the
three Kings — B.B., Albert and Freddie — to create an attack that
defined the fundamentals of rock & roll lead guitar.
Maybe
most important of all, he turned the amp up — to 11. That alone blew
everybody's mind in the mid-Sixties. In the studio, he moved the mic
across the room from the amp, which added ambience; everybody else was
still close-miking. Then he cranked the f***ing thing. Sustain happened;
feedback happened. The guitar player suddenly became the most important
guy in the band.
Intellectually, Clapton was a purist, although
there was little evidence of it in the beginning. He supercharged every
riff he knew, even things I remember as note-for-note tributes, like
Freddie King's "Hide Away," on John Mayall's Bluesbreakers With Eric
Clapton. When he soloed, he wrote wonderful symphonies from classic
blues licks in that fantastic tone, with all of the resonance that comes
from distortion. You could sing his solos like songs in themselves.
I
first saw Clapton with Cream, at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York in 1967 —
sort of. I stood outside. It was sold out. I couldn't get in. But you
could see them — the band was right in the window. And it was loud, even
outside. In those days, musically, Clapton was a total wild man. He
stood there, not moving a muscle, while he issued the most savage
assault you had ever experienced, unless you were at the debut of
Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" and your seat was in front of the cannon.
And when his creativity, passion, frustration and anger all came
together, it was frightening. His solo in "Crossroads" on Wheels of Fire
is impossible: I don't know how he kept time while he played.
I've
never said more than a casual hello to Eric, so none of this is inside
information. But I believe that his guitar playing changed radically in
the early Seventies because singing and songwriting became more
important to him, and Robert Johnson had a lot to do with that. Clapton
was so moved by Johnson's music that he wanted to write and sing with
the same passion, clarity and truth. You hear the frustration — of not
being able to do that — in his Sixties guitar work. The first time I
heard real anger and aggressive sexuality expressed in guitar playing
was on that Mayall record. If the solo in "Have You Heard" isn't the
sound of a cock ripping through trousers on its way to the promised
land, I don't know what is.
Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes and the
Band's Music From Big Pink started a move back to American traditional
music, and those recordings were a big influence on Clapton. Around the
same time, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett were encouraging him to write and
sing. You can hear how good he is at both on Eric Clapton, the album he
made with them, as well as his change in tone from Gibson-dirty to
Stratocaster-clean.
Layla was, for me, the last time everything —
the singing, songwriting and guitar playing — were all at the same high
intensity level. It's Clapton's most original interpretation of the
blues, because the hellhounds on his trail had a face: unrequited love.
But Clapton's guitar playing is still terrific. The thing is, he had
seven years of the most extraordinary, historic guitar playing ever —
and 40 years of doing good work. Being the best has got to wear you out.
So he pulled back, like Dylan and Lennon did. The sprint is cool — the
marathon is better. Clapton has followed in the footsteps of his
mentors: He's become a journeyman.
Anyone who plays lead guitar
owes him a debt of gratitude. He wrote the fundamental language, the
binary code, that everyone uses to this day.
The day may come, if
you're a young rocker, when you'll hear one of Clapton's mellow,
contemporary ballads on the radio and think, "What's the big deal?" Put
on "Steppin' Out." And bow down.
ILLUSTRATION BY OWEN SMITH
54
Howlin’ Wolf
By Buddy Guy
That
man was the natural stuff. When I first heard Howlin' Wolf's records, I
thought that deep, scratchy voice was a fake voice, just the way he
sang — until I met him. He said, "Hello," and I thought, "Uh-oh, this
isn't fake. This is for real." Wolf's conversation was the same as his
singing. Matter of fact, the first time I met him, I started tapping my
feet as he was talking.
His first big records, like "Moanin' at
Midnight" and "How Many More Years" — I'd hear them on the radio when I
was still in Louisiana, on WLAC out of Nashville. We had an old
battery-powered radio, and we'd listen to this half-hour program that
came on at night. I'd hear the man's voice and try to picture what he
looked like. I thought he was a big, light-skinned guy. Then I went up
to Chicago — September 25th, 1957. The next year, I was meeting all of
the great blues musicians: Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin'
Wolf. And when I saw Wolf, yes, he was a big guy. But he wasn't
light-skinned at all. Boy, was I wrong.
And he used to put on
such a show. He would get down on the floor, crawl like a wolf and sing
in that voice: "I'm a tail dragger." He would do this boogie-woogie
thing, around and around — like the kids used to do with the hula hoops,
where you had to go around and around at your waist, to keep the hoop
going. That was the kind of s*** he was doing. I'd see that and think,
"Man, there goes the Wolf."
He was so exciting to be on a show
with. Wolf was a big man, but he could really move. It was like when the
Chicago Bears had that player the Refrigerator. People think football
players can't move when they're that big. And people expected the Wolf,
because he was such a big guy, to just sit in a chair and belt it out.
No, man, he had all that action. He had everything you wanted to see.
He'd crawl around, jump around. His fists were as big as a car tire. And
he would ball that fist up. When I started getting calls to come and
play on some cuts behind him, I'd think, "Oh, s***, I better play
right." I'd heard he was mean. I was told that. But, you know, I never
had a cross word with the man the whole time, right up to when he passed
away.
The reason I got a chance to play on sessions with him —
on songs like "Killing Floor," "Built for Comfort" and "300 Pounds of
Joy" — and a lot of musicians better than me didn't get those dates, was
because they would come in thinking, "This is my opportunity to blow
the Wolf offstage." There was no way I could say that. This was my
opportunity to learn something from the Wolf. But Wolf was not a
demanding person. If you played something that made him smile, he would
look back at you with that smile. When he did, to me, I was getting
paid.
I played with Muddy, too, and it was so great to play with
both of them. I heard a rumor that Wolf and Muddy didn't get along — I
never saw that. Jimmy Rogers, who played in Muddy's band, used to laugh
and joke about what Wolf had to say about Muddy and what Muddy would say
back. But all of them talked bad about each other, calling everyone
"motherf***er." That was their thing. With musicians, " motherf***er"
was the love word. And when Wolf said, "Motherf***er, you can't play,"
what he was really saying was, "I'm gonna fire your ass up. If I tell
you you can't play, then you're gonna bring it on." This is the way Wolf
treated you. That would signify for you to show your s***.
Everything
you wanted was right there, touchable to me, in that voice — even when
Wolf wasn't singing. We used to have these Blue Mondays in Chicago that
would start at seven o'clock in the morning. That's when we'd all get
together after playing and just do a conversation, man. I would sit and
listen to Wolf talk. It didn't have to be about music. He loved fishing,
he loved sports. To me, it all sounded like music from heaven.
People
don't know him the way they should now. When Muddy died, they
interviewed me on television, and they asked me, "What should be done?" I
said most cities with famous musicians, like Chicago — they end up
naming a street or something after them. And they got the street that
Muddy lived on most of his life named after him. But it never happened
for Wolf. And the younger generation coming up now — if you don't talk
about the music or the artists, they don't know them. My children didn't
know who I was until they were 21 and were able to come in the clubs
and see me.
We got to go back and do some digging. We have to let
people know that Howlin' Wolf — and Muddy and Little Walter and all
these cats — made Chicago the world capital of the blues. Chess Records
is a landmark. But who made Chess Records? What about those people we
done forgot about, like Wolf?
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSIE JAMMET
53
The Allman Brothers Band
By Billy Gibbons
In
a way, their name says it all. It wasn't just about the fact that Duane
and Gregg Allman had the same parents. The Allman Brothers Band was a
true brotherhood of players — one that went beyond race and ego. It was a
thing of beauty.
The Allmans were without question the first
great jam band, and they took the jam to heights that it had not
previously reached. They played traditional blues mixed with their own
unique brand of rock & roll, and there was nothing but strength in
that group.
Duane Allman played what he wanted to hear. There
have been bottleneck-guitar players forever, from the Twenties through
the Sixties, but Duane began doing things no one had ever done before.
He had a tone and a style that were uniquely his. He was just a stunning
and singular musician who was gone way too soon.
Then there was
his kid brother, Gregg. His singing and keyboard playing had a dark
richness, a soulfulness that added one more color to the Allmans'
rainbow. The Allman Brothers had respect for the roots of this music.
They learned from the blues, and they continued to interpret the form in
their own manner. They took something old and made something new.
I
was lucky enough to see the Allmans up close in the beginning. I first
became aware of them when they were breaking out of Macon, Georgia. They
had played Austin and made a tremendous noise down there. Word spread
very quickly in those days. The next thing we knew we were on the road
with these guys, opening up for them and Quicksilver Messenger Service,
and witnessing music history.
We would linger by the stage after
our set and listen to Duane and Dickey Betts play guitar together. It
was like they were weaving a beautiful piece of cloth. Dickey was
remarkable in his own right. Yet in the beginning, no one in that band —
Duane, Dickey, Jaimoe Johanson or Butch Trucks — outshined the others.
There
are a couple of moments on At Fillmore East that defy description —
where the Allmans take the music to places it had never been. That
extended version of "Whipping Post" is the all-time end-all for me. The
Allmans were the great Southern-rock band, but they were more than that.
They defined the best of every music from the American South in that
time. They were the best of all of us.
ANITA KUNZ
52
Queen
By Gerard Way
My
dad was a mechanic. He worked on a lot of bottom-of-the-rung cars that
didn't have cassette decks. But they had 8-tracks. Somebody left an
8-track tape of Queen's Greatest Hits in a car — the one where they're
wearing leather jackets on the cover, and Freddie's got the mustache. I
loved it immediately, and I came to emulate Freddie both as a child and
as an adult.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is arguably the greatest song
ever written. I'm sure people told them it was too long or had too many
movements. But then it came out and just took hold of the world. When
you're in a band and you find something that breaks every rule, it gives
you creative hope. And Queen were always trying something new; none of
their hit songs were paint-by-numbers.
When My Chemical Romance
were making The Black Parade, we watched tons of documentary footage
about A Night at the Opera, Queen's best album. We used Brian May amps
and wrote songs with different movements. But we didn't try to make
another "Bohemian Rhapsody." Whenever someone tries to do that, they
fail.
I love the way Freddie performed. He would strike amazing
poses; maybe he practiced them in front of a mirror, but he wasn't
pretending to be somebody else. That was him telling the world, "This is
who I am." I remember when the surviving members of Queen were looking
for a singer a few years ago, I was like, "I would love to try it."
Freddie's songs are just so much fun to sing, and he had such stamina. I
would definitely have to quit smoking to be able to do what he did.
Queen
fell in and out of being cool, maybe because they were so sincere. Rock
music is all about being phony sometimes. And they weren't. They were
obviously so psyched to be doing what they were doing.
They had a
polarizing quality. I heard a story — maybe apocryphal — that Queen
played a festival and got booed off the stage. Freddie vowed they would
return as the biggest band in the world. And they did. When we played
the Reading and Leeds festivals, we had to follow Slayer, and got
bottles of p*** thrown at us. I thought, "If we ever come back here,
we're gonna headline it." I've always held on to the same dreams as
Freddie.
DALE STEPHANOS
51
Pink Floyd
By Wayne Coyne
When
I was growing up in the 1970s, Pink Floyd were ever-present. My
brothers and my older sister and all their friends constantly played
records in their rooms while they smoked pot. Especially Dark Side of
the Moon. You heard that every day of your life, for at least three or
four years around then.
Turning 14 years old is already a heavy
combination of things. For Dark Side of the Moon to be playing in the
background during that time was perfect. As you looked deeper into their
music, everything you find out leads to something interesting. Pink
Floyd were always a group of great creative minds who did whatever the
f*** they wanted and didn't worry about all the little rules.
They
had an amazing ability to change between records. You don't realize how
powerful that is when you're just a listener. But being a person who's
made 14 records, you see how big a deal it is. They have a phase one, a
phase two, maybe even a phase three and four. A lot of groups — if
they're lucky — just have a phase one.
They started out with Syd
Barrett writing these whimsical stories, these songs that were kind of
surf-rock, kind of R&B, but in his own f***ed up way. Later you had
Roger Waters evoking these big, universal landscapes of human crises.
And Pink Floyd came to embrace this idea of "We can play stadiums and we
can fill them up with giant f***ing pig balloons." Their music could
just always hold that.
Yet, despite all these different pieces
moving around, there is a lot of very simple musicality going on.
Compared to the prog-rock groups they get thrown in with — King Crimson
or Yes or Genesis — their music is actually very simple. You can grasp
the chord progressions and melodies the first time you hear them. I love
all those other groups but with Pink Floyd I understand the emotion.
Take
a song like "Fat Old Sun," from Atom Heart Mother. Living in Oklahoma, I
sometimes can't relate when English bands sing about English things.
When David Gilmour sings about the sun going down, there's something
simple about it. It didn't seem like the sunset was happening in some
king's country, in some other world. It seemed like he was singing about
me walking in the sunsets in Oklahoma.
50
The Band
By Lucinda Williams
I've
used the Band as an example for my career. When I first tried to get
record deals, nobody knew how to market me, because my sound didn't
necessarily fit into any stereotypes. But the Band did a little bit of
everything.
I remember when Music From Big Pink came out, in
1968. I was living in Arkansas at the time. You couldn't categorize the
Band's sound, but it was so organic — a little bit country, a little bit
roots, a little bit mountain, a little bit rock — and their vocal
styles and harmonies totally set them apart. Each member brought
something, because they were all consummate musicians.
Their work
as the Hawks on Bob Dylan's 1966 tour is some of the best rock &
roll ever made, with Robbie Robertson playing just amazing guitar. The
Band let Dylan branch out stylistically. In his writing, Dylan was
getting away from those heavy, metaphorical songs on Blonde on Blonde
and writing cool little tunes.
Their songs are uncoverable — who
can pull off Richard Manuel's incredible high voice? — but we tried. Any
time we sat around singing songs, someone would inevitably pull out a
version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." My favorite song was
"It Makes No Difference." The sentiment of it is so heart-wrenching.
This guy is saying that his lover has just left him, and he's totally
devastated. It's one of the most beautiful melodies I've ever heard.
There
is an element of sadness about the Band. The Last Waltz, despite its
wonderful music, was sad to see because they had so much more to give.
Richard Manuel's death was really tragic. I got to meet Garth Hudson
when he played on a demo I did back in the mid-Eighties. I just remember
he was really quiet, soft-spoken and real sweet. And he played like an
angel.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES MILLER
49
Elton John
By Billy Joel
Elton
John defines himself as a rock star, and he really lives it. More like a
Roman aristocrat rock star. I've noticed when we've toured together
that backstage you'll see young men with togas, dressed as centurions,
with little fig leaves around their heads. Inside Elton's dressing room
there are a thousand pairs of sunglasses, a hundred pairs of shoes and
about 50 Versace suits laid out. He's f***ing royalty, and I love it. My
dressing room looks like the back of a deli. I have one of those meat
platters that sea gulls circle around.
Elton kicks my ass on
piano. He's fantastic — a throwback to Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino
and Little Richard. His spontaneous, improvisational playing always
challenges me. And that is his contribution to rock & roll and pop:
his musicianship. Before him, rock was a bunch of James Taylors —
guitar-based singer-songwriter stuff. Elton brought back fantastic
piano-based rock. Elton knows what his instrument is capable of. The
piano is a percussion instrument, like a drum. You don't strum a piano.
You don't bow a piano. You bang and strike a piano. You beat the s***
out of a piano. Elton knows exactly how to do that — he always had that
rhythmic, very African, syncopated style that comes from being well
versed in gospel and good old R&B. Elton and Bernie Taupin did some
brilliant songwriting during the first part of his career, from Elton
John to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
The first time we met we were
in Holland, at a hotel in Amsterdam. It was in the mid-Seventies, and he
was at his peak — it was the height of the Elton John era — and I was
just starting out as the "Piano Man" guy. We went into a private room
and we just talked. I told him what a fan I was, and he said he knew my
stuff. I thought this was so cool: There were a thousand guitar players,
but there were only two of us. The English piano player and the
American piano player. And, seminally, rock & roll was not just
guitar. Elton gave a funny-looking guy like me — and so many others — an
opportunity to be a singer-songwriter. When Elton was in his first
band, Bluesology, he never thought he could be a rock star. Same as me. I
didn't look like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney or Jim Morrison. Sure,
we thought we'd be piano players for big rock bands, but funnily enough
he ended up with big, silly glasses and crazy outfits, and I ended up
with my dopey stage behavior, both of us rock stars. To this day we
laugh about that. And he keeps going on and on. I haven't put out a song
since 1993, and he asks me, "Billy, why don't you write some new
songs?" I say, "Elton, why don't you write less new songs?" At $200 a
ticket, you can't shove new stuff down people's throats. So much of his
stuff is amazing, though: "Rocket Man," "Crocodile Rock," "Bennie and
the Jets," "Tiny Dancer," "Your Song" and "The Bitch Is Back." That's
what they want to hear.
Any melodic songwriter owes a debt to
Elton John, the supreme melodist. I don't know s*** about new bands, but
anybody who plays the keyboard and likes melody must give a nod to
Elton. Like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Carole King and the Beatles,
he carries on the rich tradition of writing beautiful melodies.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK STUTZMAN
48
Run-DMC
By Chuck D
Run-DMC
were the Beatles of hip-hop — Run and DMC were Lennon and McCartney,
and Jam Master Jay was George and Ringo rolled into one. Raising Hell
was the first true rap album, a complete work of art as opposed to a
collection of singles or a novelty item. It's my favorite album of all
time. It incorporated rock, but on rap's terms. Everyone in hip-hop
today can be traced back to Run-DMC.
They had a whole new energy
that revolutionized hip-hop. Older artists like Grandmaster Flash wore
disco-style outfits, were from the Bronx and had a different kind of
appeal. Run-DMC were from Hollis, Queens, about 15 minutes from where I
lived. Hollis was a suburban, not urban, environment, but Run-DMC
dressed more like cats off the street — and 25 years later, most rappers
still dress the same way.
When I was doing college radio at WBAU
on Long Island, we helped break Run-DMC. They were a model for Public
Enemy in that we both made loud, blasting records for arenas, not clubs.
They had to yell, because their beats and guitar riffs needed it. You
couldn't rap in a low tone over a blaring guitar in an arena.
I
was at home in the fall of 2002, and I happened to turn on the TV. Some
newscaster said that Jay had been shot and murdered, and I went into
shock. Black musicians are not immune to the ills that afflict our
community. It's not popular to say, but it's the truth, and we must
address it to prevent these tragedies in the future.
One little
story: In 1984, I told Jay that I was coming to the Spectrum in
Philadelphia to check out the first Fresh Fest tour. When I got to the
back gate, I sent a message and asked, could he meet me there? And sure
enough, in the middle of a concert in front of 20,000 people, he took
time out to walk down the ramp, past security and hit me off with two
tickets. He gave me some good seats, too. I was forever grateful. That's
who Jay was. He was the type of cat who didn't forget you. And I will
never forget him.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHANNA GOODMAN
47
Patti Smith
By Shirley Manson
I
was about 19 when I first heard a Patti Smith record. It was Horses. I
remember sitting there, very taken by the sound of her voice, this
ferocious delivery. Later I was struck by how literate her lyrics were,
how intellectual and political. I loved how, in her songs, she talked
about anything other than the love in her heart for a man. And I loved
her image: this non-glam look with the chopped-off hair, looking like a
skinny boy. She was the complete opposite of the images that were pumped
into me as a child, of what I was supposed to aspire to as a woman.
She
is a folk artist, in the way that Bob Dylan is. I loved that she was a
poet involved in visual art. It wasn't just about the music for her. It
was everything. And she knew how powerful her image was — that she was
really sexy — and how to manipulate that for her art. What Madonna does
today, Patti was doing from the beginning. Except Madonna was into
selling, period. I felt that Patti's goal was to use her art to bring
comfort and grace — to me, personally. The opening lines of "Revenge,"
on Wave, give me the chills to this day: "I feel upset/Let's do some
celebrating."
Garbage played a festival with Patti in Athens
years ago, and she signed a set list for me: "Power to the people, Patti
Smith." It's a cliché. But clichés, she understands, can work. I once
talked with a young man who was refusing to utilize his right to vote,
out of principle. As much as I understood his point, I believe
individuals are important. One person can make a difference. When Patti
sings "People Have the Power," it moves me, because I know I am not the
only person out there feeling these things. I can only imagine there are
millions of people out there whom she is singing to, who feel like me.
And when you add up those millions of people, it's worthwhile.
She
is a soldier. She will not be defeated. I look at today's charts, at
the women who are selling the most records, getting the most column
inches, and I'm terrified by how so many of them are controlled by a
male corporate idea of what women and rebels should be. When some
teen-pop singer is taken seriously as a rebellious figure, we have a
huge problem. I'm just glad that Patti is still willing to get up there
and fight for what she believes in. It makes me feel less alone.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA VENTURA
46
Janis Joplin
By Rosanne Cash
Janis
Joplin was absolutely a barnstormer and a complete groundbreaker. She
wasn't just a great woman in rock — at the time she was the woman in
rock. Janis really created this whole world of possibility for women in
music: Without Janis Joplin, there would be no Melissa Etheridge.
Without Janis, there would be no Chrissie Hynde, no Gwen Stefani. There
would be no one.
I was a freshman or sophomore in high school
when Janis first connected with me. Pearl was the first record I bought.
I remember that I was kind of scared. I think that if Joni Mitchell
gave me the idea that a woman could write about her life in a public
forum, Janis gave me the idea that a woman could live a wild life and
put that out there in a public forum, too. At the time, I was this very
proper Catholic girl, and Janis was a frightening presence. But being
scared didn't stop me from buying Janis' records, and it didn't stop me
from wearing a black armband to school the day she died.
It's
hard to imagine now the extent to which Janis was so completely shocking
at the time. There had been blues singers who were wild and
unrestrained — but even they tended to be a little more buttoned-down
than Janis. She always seemed on the verge of being totally out of
control. A few summers ago, I watched the Monterey Pop Festival film for
the first time in ages, and I was absolutely stunned by Janis. She had
this focus that was relentless. She was a spectacle, like some kind of
nuclear being bearing down on the crowd. In the film, you see Mama Cass
at the end of Janis' performance just shaking her head, and applauding,
like, "Oh, my God, what just happened?"
She had an unshakable
commitment to her own truth, no matter how destructive, how weird or how
bad. Nothing else seemed to matter. She was such an individual in the
way she dressed, the way she sang, the way she lived. She loved her
whiskey and made no bones about it. This was a full-blown one-of-a-kind
woman — no stylist, no publicist, no image-maker. It was just Janis.
The
beauty and the power of Janis Joplin as a singer is her complete lack
of fear. She held nothing back. She went to the edge every time she
opened her mouth. She sang from her toes and from her soul. She could
also destroy you when she got vulnerable, like on "Me and Bobby McGee,"
where you saw the little girl underneath. But through it all, Janis
never lightened up. She didn't live long enough to lighten up. She was a
very fierce, very beautiful bright light that burned out way, way too
quickly.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
45
The Byrds
By Tom Petty
The
Byrds are immortal because they flew so high. For me, they're still
way, way up there. They left a huge mark. First off, the Byrds were the
first credible American answer to the British Invasion. All of folk rock
— for lack of a better term — descends directly from the music the
Byrds made. They were certainly the first to introduce any sort of
country element into rock music. As if all that wasn't enough, the Byrds
spurred on a good degree of Bob Dylan's popularity, too. And not to be
too shallow, but they also were just the best-dressed band around. They
had those great clothes and hairdos. That counted for something even
then.
I'll never forget hearing "Mr. Tambourine Man" for the
first time on the radio — the feeling of that Rickenbacker twelve-string
guitar and those incredible harmonies. Roger McGuinn told me he took
that guitar sound from A Hard Day's Night, but McGuinn was a banjo
player, and he played the Rickenbacker in this rolling, fingerpicking
style — no one had really tried it before. George Harrison admitted that
"If I Needed Someone" was his take on the Byrds' "The Bells of
Rhymney." The Byrds were the only American group that the Beatles were
friendly with and had a dialogue with. Those original Byrds really
changed the world in that short time they were together.
In some
ways, they were an unlikely group to become rock & roll stars. Chris
Hillman was from the bluegrass world. McGuinn had been in folk groups
like the Limelighters and the Chad Mitchell Trio, as well as playing
with Bobby Darin. David Crosby came out of the coffeehouse scene, too.
Gene Clark played with the New Christy Minstrels. McGuinn once told me
that the Byrds had to get together and really learn how to play rock
& roll as a group. That was their first quest. Imagine a bunch of
recovering folkies trying to learn how to make people dance.
The
Byrds represented Los Angeles as much as the Beach Boys, except that the
Byrds were the other side of the coin — they were L.A.'s whacked-out
beatnik rock group. They're part of what drew me to Los Angeles and made
me want to be in a band. I got to see the Byrds once at the West Palm
Beach pop festival on the same bill with the Rolling Stones. In the
beginning, that was the original blueprint for the Heartbreakers — we
wanted to be a mix of the Byrds and the Stones. We figured, "What could
be cooler than that?"
ILLUSTRATION BY OWEN SMITH
44
Public Enemy
By Adam Yauch
No
one has been able to approach the political power that Public Enemy
brought to hip-hop. I put them on a level with Bob Marley and a handful
of other artists — the rare artist who can make great music and also
deliver a political and social message. But where Marley's music sweetly
lures you in, then sneaks in the message, Chuck D grabs you by the
collar and makes you listen.
I remember the first time I heard
"Rebel Without a Pause": We were on tour with Run-DMC, and one day Chuck
D put on a tape they had just finished. It was the first time they used
those screeching horns along with this incredibly heavy beat — it was
just unlike anything I had ever heard before. It blew my wig back. Later
I remember listening to "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" over and
over again on headphones after It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us
Back came out. The premise of it — that the current U.S. prison system
has many parallels to slavery — blew my mind, and the music is
incredible: that Isaac Hayes sample and Chuck D's rhymes about a
jailbreak. Like a lot of their songs, it's like watching a movie.
PE
completely changed the game musically. No one was just putting
straight-out noise and atonal synthesizers into hip-hop, mixing elements
of James Brown and Miles Davis; no one in hip-hop had ever been this
hard, and perhaps no one has since. They made everything else sound
clean and happy, and the power of the music perfectly matched the
intention of the lyrics. They were also the first rap group to really
focus on making albums — you can listen to Nation of Millions or Fear of
a Black Planet from beginning to end. They aren't just random songs
tossed together.
To me, Chuck D is the most important MC in
hip-hop. On a strictly MC'ing-skill basis, I rank him up there with the
best: His power and cadences on lines like "Yes/The rhythm, the
rebel/Without a pause/I'm lowering my level" is unmatched. Then if you
take into account what he's actually saying, it puts him on a different
plane from any other MC. The combination of him and Flavor Flav is
incredibly effective: Chuck is so straight and direct, and Flav brings
this wild randomness to it. They complement each other perfectly.
Public
Enemy made hip-hop that was more than entertainment. They inspired a
lot of people who believed that you can effect change through music, and
they're still inspiring to me.
ILLUSTRATION BY OLAF HAJEK
43
Sly and the Family Stone
By Don Was
Sly
and the Family Stone didn't have to say, "Why can't we all just get
along?" Looking at the band members and listening to their shared sound
made the statement. On the early Sly and the Family Stone records, there
was just no acknowledgment of race; they're truly utopian. A real
idealism comes across loud and clear on songs like "Everyday People" and
"Hot Fun in the Summertime," and people need messages like that. The
band had blacks and whites, men and women. Seeing this group that
embraced so many elements of society sort of drew you in as an extended
family member. This was a joyous noise and a joyful vision. Sly was
monumental in his contribution to music.
On musical terms, the
Family Stone were an amazing band, but there was no doubt Sly Stone was
the leader. He is a singular funk orchestrator; Duke Ellington is
probably the best reference point. No one had taken elements of funk and
combined them the way Sly did. Sly orchestrated those early records in
very advanced ways — a little guitar thing here that would trigger the
next part that would trigger the next part. Then, as time went on, Sly
started using some more dissonant colors; he became like the Cézanne of
funk. It's like he took these traditional James Brown groove elements
and started putting orange into the picture.
Somewhere along the
way, around the time of There's a Riot Goin' On, Sly got disillusioned. I
think he discovered that the utopian worldview worked in his band, but
when he got out in everybody else's world, he still couldn't walk into a
bar in Mobile, Alabama, without getting into a fight. That will change
you. Fresh is from a guy who realizes that nobody — not Sly Stone, not
the Rothschilds — nobody can mess with the forces of history. Que será
será.
Fresh is a very deep piece of work. It's the sound of a guy
who has hit the pinnacle and is free-falling. Why is Sly singing "Que
Sera Sera" on the album? Because he's got no f***ing control. When the
magic hits, it's a gift that can go away just as quickly as it came.
Without Sly, the world would be very different. Every R&B thing that came after him was influenced by this guy.
The
so-called revolution that was coming at the end of the Sixties: We
might have lost that one, but Sly won his own personal revolution,
musically and in the minds of the audience. I just hope he knows that, I
hope he's not sitting around with any kind of remorse. Because by any
real criteria that you measure success, this guy is a titan.
ILLUSTRATION BY SHAWN BARBER
42
Van Morrison
By Peter Wolf
Back
in 1968, the Boston Tea Party was the premier club for rock bands. My
band, the Hallucinations, composed of art-school dropouts heavily
drenched in R&B and Chicago blues, used the club as a rehearsal hall
whenever it was available. The music we played could be described as
primal, raw and heavy on attitude. We were in the midst of rehearsing
one day, getting ready to open for the great bluesman Howlin' Wolf, when
something caught my eye, and I looked over to see a stranger looming in
the doorway. I had no idea who he was or what he was doing there, so I
went over to find out what he wanted. In a thick brogue, he asked about
places to play in Boston.
Once I figured out who it was, I was
both excited and perplexed. Excited because I'd known and admired Van
Morrison's work from his debut on the charts with his group, Them.
Perplexed because he seemed so lost and adrift. Despite the recent Top
40 success of his song "Brown Eyed Girl," he'd been having difficulty
establishing his identity as a solo artist, but that couldn't account
for the bleakness of his mood.
As we talked, it became clear that
we shared a passion for the same kind of music. Van gradually loosened
up, and we made plans to get together again. He started dropping by the
FM station where I used to do an all-night radio show. Soon we began to
hang together, going out carousing in the night and sometimes getting
into more mischief than we bargained for.
Van was living in a
small, street-level apartment in an old wooden house on Green Street in
Cambridge. He, his new wife, her young son. They were flat-out broke.
The place was bleak and barren, with little more than a mattress on the
floor, a refrigerator, an acoustic guitar and a reel-to-reel tape
recorder. They had no phone and little food. It was hard times: He was
in exile, with a family to feed, no money, no band, no recording
contract and no promise of any safe or legal way out. Even the reason he
moved to Boston remained a mystery.
Whenever Van had to make
business calls, he would walk several blocks to my place to use the
phone. It seemed that my apartment also offered him a break from the
near-despair of his complicated and unresolved life. He would spend
endless hours going through my records. Over and over, we would listen
to what he called "the gospel" of Jackie Wilson, Ray Charles, Hank
Williams, Louis Jordan, Billy Stewart, Elvis and John Lee Hooker.
"They're the real deal," he'd say. He played Gene Chandler's live
version of "Rainbow '65" so much, I had to get a new needle for my
turntable.
Many nights were spent checking out different clubs,
but few people knew who Van was. Sometimes he would show up at my band's
gigs. One night, as we started the intro to his song "Gloria," I called
him onstage even though he was reluctant to sing it. When he came up,
he went into a brilliant scat that rivaled King Pleasure himself.
Unfortunately, the audience didn't want this "unknown" singer changing
the familiar delivery of a song that was fast becoming a true rock
classic.
Eventually, Van managed to assemble a two-piece acoustic
band and booked himself at a coffeehouse/jazz club that could only be
described as subterranean. It was located three stories below a pool
parlor and was deep, damp and dark. Egyptian motifs were painted on its
yellow smoke-stained walls. The club justly deserved its name: the
Catacombs. I borrowed a tape machine to capture the evening's music.
What he performed that night later turned out to be the song cycle that
made up the groundbreaking Astral Weeks. Though only a handful of people
showed up, when Van finished playing, there was no doubt that the few
present had witnessed something extraordinary.
When I see Van
now, I still see the same raw power and passion that he displayed more
than 40 years ago in the long-forgotten Catacombs. I admire the strength
and mysterious ability to transcend the despair and chaos that could
have so easily trapped and overwhelmed him. He has created a body of
work that reflects without imitation. The gospel according to Van: "Turn
it up, turn it up, a little bit higher/You know it's got soul" and
"it's too late to stop now!"
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM BOWER
41
The Doors
By Marilyn Manson
Jim
Morrison said it best: "all the children are insane," and he meant it
like I mean it. We are children revolted by the banality of what people
think is sane. When Jim rambled, quite profoundly, "Rock & roll is
dead," and "Hitler is still alive…. I slept with her last night," he
knew then what we are choking on now. You can't change the world, and if
you try, you just end up destroying it. We love all things to death. We
leave the lights on, turn everything up to 10 and f*** everything we
fear.
In 10th grade I was told to read No One Here Gets Out
Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. Everything I'm interested in now
got started with that book. It made me want to be a writer, and I
started with poetry and short stories. We don't know what was really
going on in Morrison's head, but I liked trying to piece it together.
The immortality of his words, the mystery of his existence appealed to
my sense of fantasy. I found "Moonlight Drive" — particularly when
accompanied by "Horse Latitudes" — scary and sexually mystifying, like
Happy Days told by Ted Bundy. I read the poem in front of my 10th-grade
English class, and it was as awe-inspiring then as it is now. Words like
"mute nostril agony" and "carefully refined and sealed over" always
stung in the corners of my eyes.
I think the Doors still fit in
because they never fit in in the first place. They didn't have a bass
player. The music often had nothing to do with what Morrison was
singing. The keyboard held everything together. Most bands can still get
through a show if the keyboardist breaks a finger. Not the Doors. Robby
Krieger played very odd guitar parts if you compare him to Jimmy Page
or Keith Richards. Yet all this combined into something unique that
grabbed people's attention.
Morrison's voice was a beautiful pond
for anything to drown in. Whatever he sang became as deep as he was. He
had the unnameable thing that people will always be drawn to. I've
always thought of the Doors as the first punk band, even more than the
Stooges or the Ramones. They didn't sound anything like punk rock, but
Morrison outshined everyone else when it came to rebellion and not
playing by anyone else's rules. There are a lot of bands that seem to
want to sound like the Doors filtered through grunge or neogrunge — or
whatever it is. But it's all just ideas pasted on ideas, faded copies of
copies. If you want to be like Jim Morrison, don't try. You can't be
anything like Jim Morrison. It's about finding your own place in the
world.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BROWN
40
Simon and Garfunkel
By James Taylor
I
remember when my older brother Alex and my youngest brother, Hugh, both
brought home Simon and Garfunkel albums. The music stood by itself,
quite apart from anything else around at the time. Simon and Garfunkel
brought something new to music: They brought themselves. Through it all —
whether they were together or not — they've remained a force in
American music and culture. Their impact has been huge. To use a
hackneyed phrase, they scored some of the most meaningful years of our
lives. Think of how their songs worked in The Graduate — these were
songs that spoke to a generation, in a motion picture that also spoke
for a generation.
Paul Simon has just always been one of our best
songwriters. Paul's breakthrough came at a time when there was so much
in the air, and many of his songs were picked up as anthems. He creates
an unusually rich and full world, and he has such a broad palette, from
basic and elemental folk music, like "Scarborough Fair," to later songs
with far greater sophistication and more worldly approaches on solo
work, like "Something So Right" and "Still Crazy After All These Years."
And Art Garfunkel is one of those great, rare voices. I would know it
anywhere at the drop of a hat, in half a bar. Over the years, I've been
able to work with Paul and Art — the first time was with Art on a song
of mine called "A Junkie's Lament." Art inhabits the songs like Louis
Armstrong did — you don't just get his version of a song, you get his
take on it.
It is moving to see them sing together now after all
these years. That kind of partnership is like a marriage, only more
difficult and more public. You have two very strong, very willful
individuals sharing this tight space. I was around Apple Records as the
Beatles were disintegrating, and you realize that it's not an uncommon
pattern. And perhaps because it wasn't something that came easy, it's
all the more inspiring and reassuring to see that Paul and Art can still
pull off such great reunions.
ILLUSTRATION BY JODY HEWGILL
39
David Bowie
By Lou Reed
David
Bowie's contribution to rock & roll has been wit and
sophistication. He's smart, he's a true musician and he can really sing.
He's got such a big range: I like the Ziggy Stardust voice, but he's
got a lot of different voices. He's got his crooner voice, when he wants
to. And he has a melodic sense that's just well above anyone else in
rock & roll. Most people could not sing some of his melodies. He can
really go for a high note. Take "Satellite of Love," on my Transformer
album. There's a part at the very end where his voice goes all the way
up. It's fabulous.
There had been androgyny in rock from Little
Richard on up, but David put his own patina on it, to say the least. He
bethought hard about that Ziggy character; he'd been studying mime, and
he didn't do it just for laughs. He was very aware of stagecraft. He
made an entire show out of that character — and then he left it behind.
How smart can you get? Can you imagine if he had to keep doing Ziggy? I
mean, if you listened to what critics and audiences say, you'd be
playing four songs over and over again. David set himself up to do other
characters, like the Thin White Duke. And his take on American soul
music, on albums like Young Americans, was incredibly good; the original
material he wrote was great.
I can't pick a favorite Bowie
record. It always depends on my mood — any of the dance records; Ziggy
Stardust; I always liked "The Bewlay Brothers," that track on Hunky
Dory. And the albums he did with Brian Eno, like Low and "Heroes," are
just phenomenal. He's always changing, so you never get tired of what
he's doing. And I mean all the way up to his later records: "The
Loneliest Guy" on his album Reality is a great song. Yet another one.
David
and I are still friends after all these years, amazingly enough. We go
to the occasional art show and museum together, and I always like
working with him. I really love what David does. I remember seeing him
play in New York on the Reality tour a few years back, and it was one of
the greatest rock & roll shows I have ever seen. At least as far as
white people go. Seriously.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARCO VENTURA
38
John Lennon
By Lenny Kravitz
I
loved the Beatles' music growing up, but I didn't become aware of John
Lennon's solo music until I was making my first album, Let Love Rule.
There was this guy who was going to manage me; when he heard the raw
tapes of my early songs, like "Be," he said, "Have you ever heard John
Lennon's Plastic Ono Band? Because your stuff sounds like him."
So
I bought Plastic Ono Band, and I listened to it over and over for
months. It's a monumental work of genius. I was blown away by how
minimal it was, and how expressive it was. Lennon had just finished
doing primal-scream therapy, and he was just unloading all this stuff,
about his mother leaving him, about the Beatles and about who he was.
A
lot of people identify themselves by their success instead of who they
are as people. Lennon showed us who he was as a person. He had just come
from being in the biggest group on the planet; most people in his
position would say, "How do I keep this up? I don't want to come down
off this pedestal." He didn't care; he got butt-naked on the cover of
Two Virgins, with his dick hanging out.
On Plastic Ono Band, he
stripped it down musically: He went into a studio with just a guitar, a
bass, a piano and drums, and he made a raw record. The attitude and
emotion of that album are harder than any punk rock I've ever heard. And
the honesty of that music is why I became an enormous fan of his solo
work, maybe even more than what he did with the Beatles. It inspired me
and made me want to go deeper with my own songwriting.
As a
guitarist, Lennon had a great feel — something that can outshine a guy
with a million chops. He's not a virtuoso, he's not Jimi Hendrix, but if
you listen to those early Beatles records, there are some serious
guitar intricacies going on between him and George Harrison. One of my
favorite Lennon solo tracks is "How Do You Sleep?" — the guitar is
incredibly funky. Not many people remember that Lennon co-wrote "Fame"
with David Bowie; he had a really cool funky side. If he were around
today, I think he would have gotten interested in hip-hop. He'd have
wanted to blend the different things going on in our culture.
Lennon
was more than just a musician; he was more like a prophet. He stated
his political point of view and spoke out against war, even when that
meant he was being followed and hassled by the U.S. government.
"Imagine" is one of the greatest songs ever written. It's like a church
hymn, and it states his beliefs quite clearly. And more than anything,
Lennon was an icon for peace. That's hard to find these days.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK GAGNON
37
Roy Orbison
By K.D. Lang
I've
always compared Roy Orbison to a tree: passive and beautiful yet
extremely solid. He maintained a sense of humility and sensitivity and
gentleness uncommon to his era. He wasn't effeminate but extremely
gentle. He was someone you felt entirely safe with, whether you were
listening to his records or being around him. It wasn't like Elvis: It
wasn't like your loins were on fire or anything like that. It's more
like Roy was a private place to go — a solace or a refuge.
He
broke the mold of the Fifties tough-guy thing, and even the style of his
music was a kind of fine art for somebody from Wink, Texas. It was
cosmopolitan in a mysteriously soft and romantic way.
Roy Orbison
was like a folk opera singer. I think he was influenced by Spanish
opera in structure and in feel. He also loved to express his voice in
this upper range, in falsetto. He was vulnerable and strong at the same
time. He was extremely earnest in his voice and his appearance, and yet
he had this veil of mystery to him.
In 1987, Roy and I recorded a
version of "Crying" for a movie called Hiding Out. We ended up
recording "Crying" in Vancouver, which is where I lived. I walked into
the studio, and it was like staring at the huge image of the Marlboro
Man on Sunset Boulevard — so immediately ominous and present. We were
rehearsing the song in the studio with the band, and Roy and I happened
to be sharing a mic. When we got to a part where we were singing at the
same time, we both leaned into the mic and our cheeks touched. His cheek
was so soft, and the energy was so amazing. Not sexual but totally
explosive, like the chemistry of some sort of kinship. I'll never forget
what that felt like. I can hear that voice right in my ear. His vibrato
was sort of fast and had a small waver within it, and that's what gave
him the vulnerable sound. That voice.
ILLUSTRATION BY CYNTHIA VON BUHLER
36
Madonna
By Britney Spears
I'm sorry, but I'd rather meet Madonna than the president of the United States.
Madonna
has this thing about her that you can't explain — the thing that makes
somebody a star. When she walks into the room, you just have to take
notice. She's so comfortable with herself, and she's not afraid to live
life to the fullest and to say whatever she feels, no matter what anyone
thinks. There's something kind of childlike about that; it's a
beautiful, amazing thing.
Madonna was the first female pop star
to take control of every aspect of her career and to take responsibility
for creating her image, no matter how much flak she might get. She's
proved that she can do so many different things — music and movies and
being a parent, too. Her music has become iconic: Songs like "Holiday"
or "Live to Tell" are timeless — not just disposable hits. They feel
like home. She has her spells of being moody and vibey and spiritual,
but her words are so easy to relate to. She's a diva and does what she
wants, but she's a loving person.
The first time I met her was
when I flew to visit her at one of her shows in 2001. I walked into her
dressing room, and her daughter, Lola, was there, and I felt really
nervous. I said to Madonna, "Can I just hug you?" I was so stupid! But
she was so nice about it. I would definitely not be here, doing what I'm
doing, if it wasn't for Madonna. I remember being eight or nine years
old, running around my living room singing and dancing and wanting so
much to be like her. All my girlfriends still listen to her stuff. We're
all mesmerized by her. Madonna's stage presence has inspired so many
artists. You can see her influence in the recent generations of artists
who have picked up some of her moves and have been influenced by her
style.
Madonna has done so much, and she's been around so long,
and the bitch still looks good! She's spent years in the public eye, and
that can be really hard for anyone to deal with. But she dug deep and
started writing from her heart. Madonna has so much light inside her,
and she's so much more noticeable than all of the rest of us. She stuck
to what she believed in and did what she felt. It's part of her art — to
just be herself.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM O'BRIEN
35
Michael Jackson
By Antonio "L.A." Reid
Michael
Jackson was the world's greatest entertainer. One of the most explosive
performances I've ever witnessed was Jackson sliding across the stage
at the Motown 25th-anniversary show. Just watching that made us all
know: That's what greatness is, and anything that doesn't measure up to
that is beneath greatness. Before him there were the Beatles and Elvis
and Frank Sinatra; Michael Jackson takes his place right alongside those
greats.
I was born around the same time as Michael, and I was
one of the original fans. I first saw him at the Ohio State Fair, when I
was very young; the Jackson 5 were performing with the Commodores.
Michael came on, and that voice of his rang over the whole fairground. I
was deeply touched by that voice from the very beginning.
"Billie
Jean" is the most important record he made, not only because of its
commercial success but because of the musical depth of the record. It
has more hooks in it than anything I've ever heard. Everything in that
song was catchy, and every instrument was playing a different hook. You
could separate it into 12 different musical pieces and I think you'd
have 12 different hits. Every day, I look for that kind of song.
Michael
has influenced so many artists, some of whom are picking up on the
grandeur and showmanship of his live performances. You can see his
influence in his sister Janet, in Justin Timberlake, Usher, Britney
Spears, and in Justin Bieber and so many others. You can see his
influence in the dance moves — the syncopated choreography — that a lot
of young artists use. And a lot of them have picked up his work ethic.
When you look at a Justin Timberlake production or an Usher production,
you really see that they took a page out of Michael's book; they went to
rehearsal, and they must've worked eight hours a day, because their
shows are flawless, as Michael's shows were flawless.
Late in his
life, there were many, many people who thought of Michael as a
spectacle, and it was sad. The world without Michael Jackson is a very,
very different world. And I think we should all feel very blessed that
an artist of that caliber came into our lives, because he enriched our
lives.
ILLUSTRATION BY GERARD DUBOIS
34
Neil Young
By Flea
There's
a rare contradiction in Neil Young's work. He works so hard as a
songwriter, and he's written a phenomenal number of perfect songs. And,
at the same time, he doesn't give a f***. That comes from caring about
essence. There can be things out of tune and all wild-sounding and not
recorded meticulously. And he doesn't care. He's made whole albums that
aren't great, and instead of going back to a formula that he knows
works, he would rather represent where he is at the time. That's what's
so awesome: watching his career wax and wane according to the truth of
his character at the moment. It's never phony. It's always real. The
truth is not always perfect.
I can't say enough about how much I
love Crazy Horse. The sound is so deep, the groove is so deep — even
when they're off, it still sounds great, because they feel it so much. I
don't usually go for that approach. I like Sly and the Family Stone,
Miles Davis and Mingus. I like consummate steady musicianship. I grew up
on jazz. I didn't listen to rock music until I played in my first rock
band when I was in high school. I went from progressive to Hendrix to
funk to full-on L.A. punk. That's when I had the realization that
emotion and content, no matter how simple, were valuable. A great
one-chord punk song became as important to me as a Coltrane solo, and
I've had the same feeling about Neil Young. He changed the way I thought
about rock music. As a bass player, I used to be into very boisterous,
syncopated and rhythmically complex songs. After hearing Neil, I
appreciated simplicity, the poignancy of "less is more."
My
favorite Neil album is Zuma, with "Pardon My Heart" and "Lookin' for a
Love": "But I hope I treat her kind/And don't mess with her mind/When
she starts to see the darker side of me." And "Tell Me Why," on After
the Gold Rush — when he says, "Is it hard to make arrangements with
yourself/When you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell?" it
feels like me. I know I'm not alone. Tonight's the Night is probably the
greatest raw rock record ever made, on a level with the Stooges' Fun
House or any Hendrix album. It's such a mess, with stuff recorded so
loud that it distorts. The background vocals are completely out of tune.
And I wouldn't change a note. It's the spirit of what rock music is,
and it's the reason to play rock music.
Neil is the guy I look at
when I think about getting older in a rock band and still having
dignity and relevance and honesty. He's never, ever sold out, and he's
never pretended to be anything other than what he is. The Chili Peppers
get offers all the time to sell songs for commercials. Maybe we could
whore ourselves out for the right price someday. But I always think,
"Would Neil Young do this?" And the answer is no. Neil Young wouldn't
f***in' do it.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BROWN
33
The Everly Brothers
By Paul Simon
The
roots of the Everly Brothers are very, very deep in the soil of
American culture. First of all, you should know that the Everly Brothers
were child stars. They had a radio show with their family, and their
father, Ike, was an influential country guitar player, so he attracted
other significant musicians to the Everlys' world — among them Merle
Travis and Chet Atkins, who was instrumental in getting the Everlys on
the Grand Ole Opry. Perhaps even more powerfully than Elvis Presley, the
Everly Brothers melded country with the emerging sound of Fifties rock
& roll. They were exposed to extraordinary country-roots music, and
so they brought with them the legacy of the great brother groups like
the Delmore Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys into the Fifties, where they
mingled with the other early rock pioneers and made history in the
process.
The Everly Brothers' impact exceeds even their fame.
They were a big influence on John Lennon and Paul McCartney — who called
themselves the Foreverly Brothers early on — and, of course, on Simon
and Garfunkel. When we were kids, Artie and I got our rock & roll
chops from the Everlys. Later, as Simon and Garfunkel, we put "Bye Bye
Love" on Bridge Over Troubled Water, and much later, Phil and Don both
sang on the song "Graceland."
Before the Everly Brothers joined
Artie and me on the road in 2003, Phil and Don had actually quietly
retired three years earlier. They basically came out of retirement for
us. I said, "Phil, look, if you're going to retire, you might as well
come out one more time and take a bow and let me at least say what it is
that you meant to us and to the culture."
You know, the Everlys
have a long history of knocking each other down, as brothers can do. So
in a certain sense, it was hilarious that the four of us were doing this
tour, given our collective histories of squabbling. And it's amazing,
because they hadn't seen each other in about three years. They met in
the parking lot before the first gig. They unpacked their guitars —
those famous black guitars — and they opened their mouths and started to
sing. And after all those years, it was still that sound I fell in love
with as a kid. It was still perfect.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DAY
32
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
By Bob Seger
I
used to go to the Motown revues, and the Miracles always closed the
show. They were that good, and everybody knew it. Not flash at all. The
Supremes had bigger hits. The Temptations had the better dance moves.
The Miracles did it with pure music.
Back then the radio played
the rougher stuff, like "Do You Love Me," by the Contours, only at
night. Smokey Robinson — they played him all day. Everybody loved his
songs, and he had a leg up on all the other singers, with that slightly
raspy, very high voice. Smokey was smoky. He could rasp in falsetto,
which is hard to do and perfect for a sad ballad like "The Tears of a
Clown" or "The Tracks of My Tears."
Smokey wrote his own stuff,
so he had an originality or individualism that maybe the other Motown
greats didn't. He was a lyric man as well as a melody man, a musicians'
musician. It's kinda like Hollywood, where you have the star, and then
you have the actors' actor. Gene Hackman — when was the last time that
guy gave a bad performance? Smokey was the Gene Hackman of Motown.
I
grew up in the black neighborhoods of Ann Arbor, Michigan, so I didn't
think in terms of black music or white music. It was all just music to
me. Smokey's first hit, "Shop Around," was one of the first records I
bought. Later on, when my brother went into the service and I was the
sole support of my mother, I was playing bars six nights a week, five
45-minute sets a night. This was '63-'67, and I could make the most
money playing in a trio. We had a medley of six Smokey songs that we
played at least twice every night: "You've Really Got a Hold on Me,"
"Shop Around," "Bad Girl," "Way Over There" and a couple of others. It
was a survival move — the people demanded it. Also, if you were after a
girl in the audience, it was always a good idea to do some Smokey.
Smokey
was also known as the nicest guy at Motown, which you hear in his
voice. I used to do a Canadian television show called Swingin' Time, and
everyone from Detroit would show up: the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, the
Temptations. All of them nice people, but Smokey was particularly a
gentleman. I saw him again around '87 at an awards show. I was able to
tell him how much I appreciated his writing, and all the money I made
playing his songs in bars. I have great memories. Thank you, Smokey.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARC BURCKHARDT
31
Johnny Cash
By Kris Kristofferson
Johnny
Cash was a biblical character. He was like some old preacher, one of
those dangerous old wild ones. He was like a hero you'd see in a
Western. He was a giant. And he never lost that stature. I don't think
we'll see anyone like him again. Of course, the first thing he'll be
remembered for is the power and originality of his music. The first time
I heard Johnny Cash was when he released "I Walk the Line" in 1956. It
was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Elvis had had a lot of hits by that
point, but "I Walk the Line" was completely different. It didn't sound
much like any of the country music that was popular at the time, either.
There was always a kind of dark energy around John and his music. My
first hero, when I was a kid, was Hank Williams, and he had a similar
energy. You could tell they were both wild men.
As a songwriter,
I've always loved his lyrics. At the beginning of his career, John
released a bunch of powerful songs in a very short time. For me, the
best one was always "Big River." It's so well-written, so unlike
anything else. The lines don't even seem to rhyme. "I met her
accidentally in St. Paul, Minnesota/And it tore me up every time I heard
her drawl." His imagery was so powerful: "Then you took me to St. Louis
later on, down the river/A freighter said she's been here/But she's
gone, boy, she's gone/I found her trail in Memphis/But she just walked
up the bluff/She raised a few eyebrows, and then she went on down
alone."
The first time I saw John live, I was on leave from the
Army, visiting Nashville. He was playing the Grand Ole Opry, and I was
watching from backstage — and he was the most exciting performer I'd
ever seen. At the time, he was skinnier than a snake, and he was just
electric. He used to prowl the stage like a panther. He looked like he
might explode up there. And in fact, there were times when he did. One
night at the Opry, he knocked out all of the footlights. I think they
banned him for a while after that. But they banned Hank Williams, too.
They were a pretty conservative crowd.
The main thing about John,
though — the thing that everybody could sense — was his integrity, the
integrity of his relationship with his music, with his life and with
other people. He stood up for Bob Dylan when everyone in the music
business was criticizing Dylan for going electric. And he did the same
for me, in the Eighties, when I was taking a lot of criticism for going
down to Nicaragua. That's the kind of guy he always was. He stood up for
the underdog.
I thought that The Man Comes Around, one of the
last albums John did, was terrific. His version of "Danny Boy" kills me
every time.
I think he'll be remembered for the way he grew as a
person and an artist. He went from being this guy who was as wild as
Hank Williams to being almost as respected as one of the fathers of our
country. He was friends with presidents and with Billy Graham. You felt
like he should've had his face on Mount Rushmore.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM O'BRIEN
30
Nirvana
By Iggy Pop
The
first time I saw Nirvana was at the Pyramid Club, a rank, wonderful,
anything-goes dive bar on Avenue A in New York. It wasn't known for
having live bands; it was known more for cross-dressing and bar dancing.
I had a photographer friend, and he told me, "There's a really hot band
from Seattle you have to see. They're gonna play the Pyramid, of all
places!"
You could smell the talent on Kurt Cobain. He had this
sort of elfin delivery, but it was not naval gazing. He was jumping
around and throwing himself into every number. He'd sort of hunch over
his guitar like an evil little troll, but you heard this throaty power
in his voice. At the end of the set he tossed himself into the drums. It
was one of maybe 15 performances I've seen where rock & roll is
very, very good.
After that, I bought Bleach, and listened to it
in Europe and Asia on tour. I still like this album very much, but there
was one song, "About a Girl," that's not like the rest of the album. It
sounded like someone gave Thorazine to the Beatles. And I thought, "If
he puts out a record full of that, he's gonna get really rich." And sure
enough …
I met Kurt at a club in L.A. right before Nevermind
came out. We took a picture and he said, "Come on, let's give the
finger!" So we did. I bought Nevermind and I thought, "This has really
got it." Nirvana genuinely achieved dynamics. They took you down, they
took you up, and when they pressed a certain button, they took you over.
They rocked without rushing and they managed melody without being
insipid. It was emotional without sounding dated or corny or weak.
Some
time later, Kurt reached out to me. I missed the call, but my wife took
the message: "Kurt Cobain wants to go into the studio with you." See,
I'm 113 years old now; I was about 72 in the Nineties, so I was going to
bed at, like, 10 p.m., and he was just getting going around 11. I did
call him back a couple of times. The number was from the Four Seasons in
L.A., and I would get these responses like, "Mr. Cobain has not left
the room for three days" or "Mr. Cobain is under the bed."
As for
his legacy: He was Johnny B. Goode. He was the last example that I can
think of within rock & roll where a poor kid with no family backup
from a small, rural area effected a serious emotional explosion in a
significant sector of world youth. It was not made in Hollywood. There
were no chrome parts. It was very down-home at its root. Somebody who is
truly nobody from nowhere reached out and touched the world. He may
have touched it right on its wound.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSIE JAMMET
29
The Who
By Eddie Vedder
The
Who began as spectacle. They became spectacular. Early on, the band was
in pure demolition mode; later, on albums like Tommy and Quadrophenia,
it coupled that raw energy with precision and desire to complete musical
experiments on a grand scale. They asked, "What were the limits of rock
& roll? Could the power of music actually change the way you feel?"
Pete Townshend demanded that there be spiritual value in music. They
were an incredible band whose main songwriter happened to be on a quest
for reason and harmony in his life. He shared that journey with the
listener, becoming an inspiration for others to seek out their own path.
They did all this while also being in the Guinness Book of World
Records as the world's loudest band.
Presumptuously, I speak for
all Who fans when I say being a fan of the Who has incalculably enriched
my life. What disturbs me about the Who is the way they smashed through
every door of rock & roll, leaving rubble and not much else for the
rest of us to lay claim to. In the beginning they took on an arrogance
when, as Pete says, "We were actually a very ordinary group." As they
became accomplished, this attitude stuck. Therein lies the thread to
future punks. They wanted to be louder, so they had Jim Marshall invent
the 100-watt amp. Needed more volume, so they began stacking them. It is
said that some of the first guitar feedback ever to make it to record
was on "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," in 1965. The Who told stories within
the confines of a song and, over the course of an entire album, pushed
boundaries. How big of a story could be told? And how would it transmit
(pre-video screens, etc.) to a large crowd? Smash the instruments? Keith
Moon said they wanted to grab the audience by the balls. Pete countered
that like the German auto-destructive movement, where they made
sculpture that would collapse and buildings that would explode, it was
high art.
I was around nine when a baby sitter snuck Who's Next
onto the turntable. The parents were gone. The windows shook. The
shelves were rattling. Rock & roll. That began an exploration into
music that had soul, rebellion, aggression, affection. Destruction. And
this was all Who music. There was the mid-Sixties maximum- R&B
period, mini-operas, Woodstock, solo records. Imagine, as a kid,
stumbling upon the locomotive that is Live at Leeds. "Hi, my name is
Eddie. I'm 10 years old and I'm getting my f***ing mind blown!" The Who
on record were dynamic. Roger Daltrey's delivery allowed vulnerability
without weakness; doubt and confusion, but no plea for sympathy. (You
should hear Roger's vocal on a song called "Lubie [Come Back Home]," a
bonus track from the reissue of their first album, The Who Sings My
Generation. It's top-gear.)
The Who quite possibly remain the
greatest live band ever. Even the list-driven punk legend and music
historian Johnny Ramone agreed with me on this. You can't explain Keith
Moon or his playing. John Entwistle was an enigma unto himself, another
virtuoso musical oddity. Roger turned his mic into a weapon, seemingly
in self-defense. All the while, Pete was leaping into the rafters
wielding a Seventies Gibson Les Paul, which happens to be a stunningly
heavy guitar. As a live group, they created momentum, and they seemed to
be released by the ritual of their playing. (Check out "A Quick One
While He's Away," from the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus.)
A
few years ago in Chicago, I saw Pete wring notes out of his guitar like
a mechanic squeezing oil from a rag. I watched as the guitar became a
living being, one getting its body bashed and its neck strangled. As
Pete set it down, I swear I sensed relief coming from that guitar. A
Stratocaster with sweat on it. The guitar's sweat.
John and Keith
made the Who what they were. Roger was the rock. And at this point,
Pete has been through and survived more than anyone in rock royalty.
Perhaps even beyond Keith Richards, who was actually guilty of most
things he was accused of.
The songwriter-listener relationship
grows deeper after all the years. Pete saw that a celebrity in rock is
charged by the audience with a function, like, "You stand there and we
will know ourselves." Not "You stand there and we will pay you loads of
money to keep us entertained as we eat our oysters." He saw the
connection could be profound. He also realized the audience may say,
"When we're finished with you, we'll replace you with somebody else."
For myself and so many others (including shopkeepers, foremen,
professionals, bellboys, gravediggers, directors, musicians), they won't
be replaced. Yes, Pete, it's true, music can change you.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN CLAYTON
28
The Clash
By The Edge
The
Clash, more than any other group, kick-started a thousand garage bands
across Ireland and the U.K. For U2 and other people of our generation,
seeing them perform was a life-changing experience. There's really no
other way to describe it.
I can vividly remember when I first saw
the Clash. It was in Dublin in October 1977. They were touring behind
their first album, and they played a 1,200-capacity venue at Trinity
College. Dublin had never seen anything like it. It really had a massive
impact around here, and I still meet people who are in the music
business today — maybe they are DJs, maybe they are in bands — because
they saw that show.
U2 were a young band at the time, and it was a
complete throw-down to us. It was like: Why are you in music? What the
hell is music all about, anyway? The members of the Clash were not
world-class musicians by any means, but the racket they made was
undeniable — the pure, visceral energy and the anger and the commitment.
They were raw in every sense, and they were not ashamed that they were
about much more than playing with precision and making sure the guitars
were in tune. This wasn't just entertainment. It was a life-and-death
thing. They made it possible for us to take our band seriously. I don't
think that we would have gone on to become the band we are if it wasn't
for that concert and that band. There it was. They showed us what you
needed. And it was all about heart.
The social and political
content of the songs was a huge inspiration, certainly for U2. It was
the call to wake up, get wise, get angry, get political and get noisy
about it. It's interesting that the members were quite different
characters. Paul Simonon had an art-school background, and Joe Strummer
was the son of a diplomat. But you really sensed they were comrades in
arms. They were completely in accord, railing against injustice, railing
against a system they were just sick of. And they thought it had to go.
I
saw them a couple of times after the Dublin show, and they always had
something fresh going on. It's a shame that they weren't around longer.
The music they made is timeless. It's got so much fighting spirit, so
much heart, that it just doesn't age. You can still hear it in Green Day
and No Doubt, Nirvana and the Pixies, certainly U2. They meant it, and
you can hear it in their work.
ILLUSTRATION BY STERLING HUNDLEY
27
Prince
By Ahmir Thompson
Prince
was forbidden in my closed, Christian household. He was somewhere
between Richard Pryor — whom we absolutely couldn't listen to — and a
stash of porn. In junior high, my parents would put $30 or $40 in an
envelope, and that would buy a card that would cover a month of school
lunches. It was November of 1982, and I took my $36 and purchased
Prince's 1999, What Time Is It?, by the Time, and the Vanity 6 album. I
starved that whole month.
"Little Red Corvette" from 1999 was one
of the first regularly played songs by a black artist on MTV; Prince
crossed boundaries like that all the time. In the first five songs on
Sign 'O' the Times, he sprawls across James Brown, Joni Mitchell, Pink
Floyd, the Beatles and Curtis Mayfield in five easy swoops and maintains
his own identity. But it's Purple Rain that was a crowning achievement,
not only in Prince's career but for black life — or how blacks were
perceived — in the Eighties. It's the equivalent of Michael Jordan's
1997 championship games: He was absolutely just in the zone, every shot
was going in. "When Doves Cry" is one of the most radical Number One
songs of the past 25 years. Here's a song with no bass line in it,
hardly any music. Yet it's still had such an influence; "When Doves Cry"
is a precursor to the Neptunes' one-note funk grind, a masterpiece of
song with just a drum machine and very little melody. Purple Rain was a
great movie too. Anyone who saw Eminem's biopic, 8 Mile, if they're over
35, the first words out of their mouth are, "Oh, I liked that film the
first time I saw it back in the Eighties. It was this Prince movie
called Purple Rain."
Prince must be one of the most bootlegged
artists of the rock era — on a weekly basis I listen to a bootleg called
The Dream Factory, which would later be known as Sign 'O' the Times.
His ability to create on the spot is mind-boggling. Like a hip-hop MC
freestyling, he executes ideas off the top of his head in a very
convincing manner. But there must be at least 20 ways to prove that
hip-hop is damn-near patterned after Prince, including his genius,
blatant use of sexuality and the use of controversy as a way to get
attention. I don't think any artist before had used that level of sex to
get in the door and be accepted by the mainstream. I wonder what his
mind state was in 1981, standing onstage in kiddie briefs, leg warmers
and high heels without a Number One hit. That was a risk. Also, Prince
created the image of what we now know as the video ho — he was a pioneer
of objectifying and empowering women at the same time. Jay-Z often
talks about ghostwriting for other artists; Prince is notorious for
ghostwriting. Not only that, but he invented different aliases for
himself in a way that rappers have adopted — he was Jamie Starr, Joey
Coco or Alexander Nevermind.
I met Prince in 1996, and I was
prepared for the grasshopper voice, the one that he always uses at award
shows, but he was totally normal. Just like you and me, except he's
Prince. We played together a few times, and one of my hero moments of
all time is after a concert in New York when me, him and D'Angelo got
onstage and played for about a half-hour. His period of silence about a
decade ago bothered me. It was really a shame that his fight for
independence from the labels was a David and Goliath battle that he had
to fight alone. But judging from what he's done lately, I'm happy to say
that he hasn't lost a step in his 30 years of doing it. He seems as
young and as in charge as ever. He definitely seizes the moment. In case
a few people counted him out, he's got a few trump cards up his sleeve.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS KASCH
26
The Ramones
By Lenny Kaye
Every
rock & roll generation needs reminding of why it picks up a guitar
in the first place, and four nonbrothers from the borough of Queens had a
concept that was almost too perfect. Their look — ripped jeans, tight
T-shirt, high-top sneakers, bowl haircut and black motorcycle jacket —
was a cartoon version of rock's tough-guy ethos. When they first
started, they played what they knew how to play, which wasn't much, and
worked it to their advantage. They opted for speed rather than
complexity, they aspired to be the Beach Boys, Alice Cooper and the Bay
City Rollers, and their rotational three chords and headlong lunge kept
them skidding through the simpleton catchphrases of their singalongs.
The
Ramones were pure, unadulterated — and hardly adult in their adolescent
concerns of sniffing glue and beating on brats with a baseball bat,
even if the brats were themselves. Their sibling rivalry meshed like any
television reality show. Johnny was the stern older brother,
disciplined, military; Dee Dee was the blunt instrument; Tommy was the
producer who knew the record business, and like any good producer, knew
that you build a great track from the drums out. Joey was the beating
heart.
The Ramones had their act so together that they would
change it only in increments for two decades after they took it out of
the CBGB nest in 1975. They were easily understood, translatable. When
the band got to England on Independence Day 1976, returning the favor of
the English Invasion in a fun-house mirror, it was a frontal assault on
here-we-go-again pop subculture.
The Ramones always believed in
their music's message of self-deliverance. They affirmed that if they
could do it, you could do it; just be resolute. Count to four.
When
I think of a Ramones moment, I remember not the early years — when the
bands played for each other on the Bowery, and each was like a different
world — but a late afternoon in May, somewhere in New England, a
daylong festival, maybe the early Eighties. I'm standing backstage with
Johnny, and we're talking about nothing much, guitars we've known, the
Red Sox, and finally the conversation stops, and we just look around,
quiet in the midst of electric noise, seeing where rock & roll has
brought us on this beautiful afternoon, playing the music we love.
ILLUSTRATION BYA DAN ADEL
25
Fats Domino
By Dr. John
After
John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Fats Domino and his partner, Dave
Bartholomew, were probably the greatest team of songwriters ever. They
always had a simple melody, a hip set of chord changes and a cool
groove. And their songs all had simple lyrics; that’s the key. There are
no deep plots in Fats Domino songs: “Yes, it’s me, and I’m in love
again/Had no lovin’ since you know when/You know I love you, yes I
do/And I’m savin’ all my lovin’ just for you.” It don’t get no simpler
than that.
Even when Fats Domino did songs by somebody else, it
was still Fats. He could really lock in with his band and play those
hard-driving boogie shuffles — it was pre-funk stuff, and it was New
Orleans, and he did it all his way. One thing that most people miss,
which he did on some of his biggest records, like “Blueberry Hill”: He
could do piano rolls with both hands. A couple of guys, like Allen
Toussaint, could do Fats to a T, but with Fats, there was brothsome
little different thing. He was like Thelonious Monk that way. You can
always tell when it’s Monk and when it’s somebody trying to play like
Monk.
I give a lot of credit to Dave Bartholomew, Fats’ producer
and songwriting partner. They were a team. Dave produced records perfect
for Fats. He had the sense to go with the best-feeling take when they
were recording. People would have missed something great about Fats if
they had just heard the more “correct” takes — the ones without that
extra off-the-wall thing that Fats would bring.
You can’t hardly
hear the bass on some of Fats’ early records. Later, they started
doubling the bass line with the guitar, and it made for a very
distinctive sound. That became standard with Phil Spector. I don’t know
if Phil picked it up from Fats or from somebody who picked it up from
Fats, but it started with Fats. You can hear a lot of Fats in Jerry Lee
Lewis. Anytime anybody plays a slow blues, the piano player will
eventually get to something like Fats. I can’t tell you the number of
times I played sessions and was asked specifically to do Fats. Eighty
kajillion little bands all through the South — we all had to play Fats
Domino songs. Everybody, everywhere.
Fats is old school to the
max — he loved to work the house, do looooong shows and push the piano
across the stage with his belly. That innocence is there in his music.
He’s a good man, and people respond to that goodness. I don’t think it
was about anything other than the tradition of working the house and
what felt good to Fats.
When all the payola scandals were
happening and it looked bad for rock & roll, Fats did an interview
in some magazine. He said, “I don’t know what all the trouble is about
us being a bad influence on teenagers. I’m just playing the same music I
played all my life.” That’s what Fats was about. He didn’t look on what
he did as special or different. He just did what Fats did.
ILLUSTRATION BY JODY HEWGILL
24
Jerry Lee Lewis
By Moby
I'd
be curious to know how many pianos Jerry Lee Lewis has gone through in
his lifetime. Whoever was responsible for keeping the piano in tune and
making sure it didn't fall apart at Sun Studio must have wept every time
he showed up to play. I don't know what switch got flipped in his brain
when he was born that compelled him to play so fast and so hard, but
I'm glad it got flipped.
There's a perhaps apocryphal story that
when he and his cousin, the evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, were children,
they went to a roadhouse and listened through the window to some amazing
R&B band. Jimmy Swaggart supposedly said, "This is the devil's
music! We have to leave!" But Jerry Lee just stood there transfixed and
couldn't tear himself away. He was an evangelist for the devil's music.
If
you listen to his records, they sound more punk rock than just about
anything any contemporary punk band is doing. His records sound faster
than they actually are, and they sound louder than they actually are. If
you listen to them on a crummy little stereo on low volume, they still
sound like they're exploding out of the speakers.
Whether it's
Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard or Gene Vincent, these guys were
dripping sex and anarchy. Their records all have a sense of abandon,
like they had given up all hope of commercial success or ever being
respected, so they just wanted to play crazy music and get laid.
If
I had a daughter, I wouldn't let her date a musician, because most of
them are just too dumb. In Jerry Lee's case, if he were coming over for
dinner, I would literally lock her up. The story of him marrying his
13-year-old cousin is unbearably sad. Elvis had just been drafted, Jerry
Lee was about to tour England for the first time, and the scandal
broke. He was never able to ascend to the throne that was rightfully
his. And the piano faded because it was too big and too hard to mic. The
beauty of the electric guitar is that it's small, portable, loud and
easy to mic.
"Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lot of Shakin'
Going On" are the iconic singles. But if you really want to understand
Jerry Lee Lewis, find some video performance of him doing "Great Balls
of Fire." It's pure, narcotic rock & roll excitement.
ILLUSTRATION BY OWEN SMITH
23
Bruce Springsteen
By Jackson Browne
In
many ways, Bruce Springsteen is the embodiment of rock & roll.
Combining strains of Appalachian music, rockabilly, blues and R&B,
his work epitomizes rock's deepest values: desire, the need for freedom
and the search to find yourself. All through his songs there is a
generosity and a willingness to portray even the simplest aspects of our
lives in a dramatic and committed way. The first time I heard him play
was at a small club, the Bitter End in New York, where he did a guest
set. It was just an amazing display of lyrical prowess. I asked him
where he was from, and he sort of grinned and said he was from New
Jersey.
The next time I saw him play it was with his band, the
one with David Sancious in it. I'd never seen anybody do what he was
doing: He would play acoustic guitar and dance all over the place, and
the guitar wasn't plugged into anything. There wasn't this meticulous
need to have every note heard. It filled that college gym with so much
emotion that it didn't matter if you couldn't hear every note.
A
year or so later I saw him play in L.A., with Max Weinberg, Clarence
Clemons and Steve Van Zandt in the band, and it was even more dramatic —
the use of lights and the way it was staged. There were these events
built into the music. I went to see them the second night, and I guess I
expected it to be the same thing, but it was completely different. It
was obvious that they were drawing on a vocabulary. It was exhilarating,
and at the bottom of it all there was all this joy and fun and a sense
of brotherhood, of being outsiders who had tremendous power and a story
to tell.
Bruce has been unafraid to take on the tasks associated
with growing up. He's a family man, with kids and the same values and
concerns as working-class Americans. It runs all through his work, the
idea of finding that one person and making a life together. Look at
"Rosalita": Her mother doesn't like him, her father doesn't like him,
but he's coming for her. Or in "The River," where he gets Mary pregnant
and for his 19th birthday he gets a union card and a wedding coat. That
night they go to the river and dive in. For those of us who are
ambivalent about marriage, the struggle for love in a world of
impermanence is summed up by the two of them diving into that river at
night. Bruce's songs are filled with these images, but they aren't
exclusively the images of working-class people. It just happens to be
where he's from.
Bruce has all kinds of influences, from Chuck
Berry and Gary U.S. Bonds to Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. But he's also a
lot like Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean — people whose
most indistinct utterances have been magnified to communicate volumes.
He is one of the few songwriters who works on a scale that is capable of
handling the subject of our national grief and the need to find a
response to an event like September 11th. His sense of music as a
healing power, of band-as-church, has always been there. He's got his
feet planted on either side of that great divide between rebellion and
redemption.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
22
U2
By Chris Martin
I
don't buy weekend tickets to Ireland and hang out in front of their
gates, but U2 are the only band whose entire catalog I know by heart.
The first song on The Unforgettable Fire, "A Sort of Homecoming," I know
backward and forward — it's so rousing, brilliant and beautiful. It's
one of the first songs I played to my unborn baby.
The first U2
album I ever heard was Achtung Baby. It was 1991, and I was 14 years
old. Before that, I didn't even know what albums were. From that point, I
worked backward — every six months, I'd get to buy a new U2 album. The
sound they pioneered — the driving bass and drums underneath and those
ethereal, effects-laden guitar tracks floating out from above — was
nothing that had been heard before. They may be the only good anthemic
rock band ever. Certainly they're the best.
What I love most
about U2 is that the band is more important than any of its songs or
albums. I love that they're still best mates and that they each play an
integral role in one another's lives as friends. I love the way that
they're not interchangeable — if Larry Mullen Jr. wants to go scuba
diving for a week, the rest of the band can't do a thing. U2 — like
Coldplay — maintain that all songs that appear on their albums are
credited to the band. And they are the only band that's been around for
more than 30 years with no member changes and no big splits.
It's
amazing that the biggest band in the world has so much integrity and
passion in its music. Our society is thoroughly screwed, fame is a
ridiculous waste of time, and celebrity culture is disgusting. There are
only a few people around brave enough to talk out against it, who use
their fame in a good way. And every time I try, I feel like an idiot,
because I see Bono actually getting things achieved. While everyone else
was swearing at George Bush, Bono was the one who rubbed Bush's back
and got a billion dollars for Africa. People can be so cynical — they
don't like do-gooders — but Bono's attitude is, "I don't care what
anybody thinks, I'm going to speak out." He's accomplished so much with
Greenpeace, in Sarajevo, at the concert to shut down the Sellafield
nuclear plant, and he still runs the gantlet. When the time came for
Coldplay to think about fair trade, we took his lead to speak out
regardless of what anyone may think. That's what we've learned from U2:
You have to be brave enough to be yourself.
ILLUSTRATION BY DALE STEPHANOS
21
Otis Redding
By Steve Cropper
The
first time we saw Otis Redding was in 1962, and he was driving a car
for Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers out of Macon, Georgia. They had a
moderate hit, an instrumental called "Love Twist," and they wanted to
record a follow-up in Memphis with my band, Booker T. and the MGs. I saw
this big guy get out from behind the wheel and go to the back of the
truck and start unloading equipment. That was Otis. And we had no idea
he was also a singer. In those days, instrumental groups always carried a
singer so they could play the songs on the radio that the kids wanted
to dance to.
We had a few minutes left at the end of the session,
and Al Jackson, our drummer, said, "This guy with Johnny, he wants us
to hear him sing." Booker had already left for the day, so I sat down at
the piano, which I play only a little for writing. Otis said, "Just
gimme those church things."
We call them triplets in music. I said, "What key?"
He said, "It don't matter."
He
started singing "These Arms of Mine." And, man, my hair stood on end.
Jim [Stewart, co-owner of Stax] came running out and said, "That's it!
That's it! Where is everybody? We gotta get this on tape!" So I grabbed
all the musicians who hadn't left already for their night gigs, and we
recorded it right there. When you hear something that's better than
anything you ever heard, you know it, and it was unanimous. We almost
wore out the tape playing it afterward. "These Arms of Mine" was the
first of 17 hit singles he had in a row.
Otis had the softness of
Sam Cooke and the harshness of Little Richard, and he was his own man.
He was also fabulous to be around, always 100 percent full of energy. So
many singers in those days, with all due respect, had just been in the
business too long. They were bitter from the way they were treated. But
Otis didn't have that. He was probably the most nonprejudiced human
being I ever met. He seemed to be big in every way: physically, in his
talent, in his wisdom about other people. After he died, I was surprised
to find out I was the same age as he was, because I looked up to him as
an older brother.
When I wrote with Otis, my job was to help him
finish his songs. He had so many ideas that I'd just pick one and say,
"Let's do this," and we'd write all night long. "I Can't Turn You Loose"
was just a riff I'd used on a few songs with the MGs. Otis worked it up
with the horns in about 10 minutes as the last thing we did one night
in the studio. Just a riff and one verse that he sings over and over.
That's all it is. With Otis, it was all about feeling and expression.
Most of his songs had just two or three chord changes, so there wasn't a
lot of music there. The dynamics, the energy, the way we attacked it —
that's hard to teach. So many things now are computer-generated. They
start at one level and they stop at the same level, so there isn't much
dynamic, even if there are a lot of different sounds.
I miss
Otis. I miss him as much now as I did after we lost him. I've been to
the lake in Madison, Wisconsin, where they have the plaque. The best
explanation I've read is that his plane missed the runway on the first
approach, and it circled around over the lake when the wings iced up.
That was December 10th, 1967. It's been difficult for me to listen to
Otis since then. It brings back too many memories, all great except for
the end.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK SUMMERS
20
Bo Diddley
By Iggy Pop
Bo
Diddley's music is enormous. It's deeply moving. It has the sultry,
sexual power of Africa. There's all sorts of mystery in that sound.
People listen to Bo Diddley recordings and think, "Oh, you can just go
bonk-de-bonk-bonk, de-bonk-bonk, and you got a Bo Diddley beat." But it
isn't that easy. He played really simple things but with incredible
authority. I first heard him on a Rolling Stones album, on their cover
of "Mona." It was such a great song; I looked at the credits and it said
"Ellas McDaniel," and I thought, "Who the hell is that?" But when I
wanted to get into songwriting, he was the key for me. I didn't have a
lot of vocal range, and I didn't know a lot of chords on the guitar. So I
was looking for a way to write, and there he was, writing very
complete, very memorable songs without a lot of fuss. They weren't
florid. He never bothered to change the chord, for one thing — which is
very heavy-metal! It's hypnotic. And, of course, there's the attitude, a
chin-up, chest-out sort of thing. He was a bull; he had a bullish
quality to everything he did and everything he played. Vocally, he
reminds me of gutbucket Delta blues: Muddy Waters, but brought to town,
rocked up. And his voice is so damn loud. It's just a huge voice, and
he's got a big, deep shout.
Then there's the way he played the
guitar. First of all, Bo's hands were about a foot long from the wrist
to the tip of the finger. He really controlled his guitar. Bo plays his
instrument, and the way the rhythm clicks is unique. What seems to pass
for guitar more and more now is some wimp with a fuzz box. Somewhere
around Hendrix, the line was crossed. Hendrix had both: He had the
hands, and he had the fuzz box. Now all they have is the fuzz box — a
lot of them.
Bo Diddley had a huge impact on Sixties rock. The
Stones covered Bo Diddley, and the Yardbirds did "I'm a Man," and the
Pretty Things did his song "Pretty Thing." My band in high school, the
Iguanas, did a few of his songs, including "Road Runner," and you can
hear a bit of him in the Stooges. You can be damn well sure that Jack
White has studied Bo's records.
I've had a little personal
experience with Bo. I worked with him in Vegas once, and I kept running
into him on airplanes in the Eighties and Nineties — always in first
class, always alone, always with a roll bag, his police hat and his
sheriff's badge. I think Bo and Chuck Berry have both suffered the
trivialization of people who are covered too much. His influence is
everywhere, but his personal career could have used a boost. Some car or
jeans company needs to put a track of his in a commercial so a lot of
young dudes and dudettes can go, "Whoa — that's rockin'!"
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSIE JAMMET
19
The Velvet Underground
By Julian Casablancas
When
you listen to a classic-rock station today, why don't they play the
Velvet Underground? Why is it always Boston and Led Zeppelin? And why
are the Rolling Stones so much more popular than the Velvets? OK, I
understand why the Stones are more popular. But there is also a part of
me that has always felt that it should have been the other way around.
The Velvet Underground were way ahead of their time. And their music was
weird. But it also made so much sense to me. I couldn't believe this
wasn't the most popular music ever made.
Listening to those four
studio albums now is like reading a good book that takes place in a
distant time. When I hear The Velvet Underground and Nico or Loaded, I
feel like I'm in Andy Warhol's Factory in the 1960s or hanging out at
Max's Kansas City. The way Lou Reed wrote and sang about drugs and sex,
about the people around him — it was so matter-of-fact. I believed every
word of "Heroin." Reed could be romantic in the way he portrayed these
crazy situations, but he was also intensely real. It was poetry and
journalism.
A lot of people associate the Velvets with feedback
and noise. White Light/White Heat is the kind of record you have to be
in the mood for. You have to be in a s***ty bar, in a really s***ty
mood. But the Velvets created some very beautiful music, too: "Sunday
Morning," with John Cale's viola; "Candy Says"; "All Tomorrow's Parties"
— I can't imagine that song without Nico singing it, although I thought
Maureen Tucker had a cool voice, as well as being a really cool
drummer. She had a femininity. I thought she sounded hotter than Nico.
In
the beginning, the Strokes definitely drew from the vibe of the
Velvets. I listened to Loaded all the time when we started the band,
while I was writing my first songs. For four solid months, it was just
Loaded and this Beach Boys greatest-hits record, Made in the U.S.A. A
lot of our guitar tones are based on what Reed and Sterling Morrison
did. I honestly wish we could have copied them more. We didn't come
close enough. But that was cool, because it became more of our own
thing. Which is something else I got from the Velvets. They taught me
just to be myself.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA VENTURA
18
Marvin Gaye
By Smokey Robinson
At
Motown, Marvin was one of the main characters in the greatest musical
story ever told. Prior to that, nothing quite like Motown had ever
existed — all those songwriters, singers, producers working and growing
together, part family, part business — and I doubt seriously if it will
ever happen like that again. And there's no question that Marvin will
always be a huge part of the Motown legacy.
When Marvin first
came to Motown, he was the drummer on all the early hits I had with the
Miracles. He and I became close friends — he was my brother, really —
and I did a lot of production and wrote a lot of songs for him: "Ain't
That Peculiar," "I'll Be Doggone." Of course, that means that I spent a
lot of time waiting for Marvin. See, Marvin was basically late coming to
the studio all the time. But I never minded, because I knew that
whenever Marvin did get there, he was going to sing my song in a way
that I had never imagined it. He would Marvinize my songs, and I loved
it. Marvin could sing anything, from gospel to gutbucket blues to jazz
to pop.
But Marvin was much more than just a great singer. He was
a great record maker, a gifted songwriter, a deep thinker — a real
artist in the true sense. What's Going On is the most profound musical
statement in my lifetime. It never gets dated. I still remember when I
would go by Marvin's house and he was working on it, he would say,
"Smoke, this album is being written by God, and I'm just the instrument
that he's writing it through."
Marvin really had it all — that
voice, that soul, that look, too. He was one very handsome man. He had
sex appeal and his music was sexy. You couldn't blame women for falling
in love with Marvin.
I said before that when you worked with
Marvin, it meant you were waiting for Marvin. But Marvin was always
worth the wait. I suppose that in a way, I'm still waiting for Marvin.
ILLUSTRATION BY SHAWN BARBER
17
Muddy Waters
By Billy Gibbons
Muddy
and his band opened for ZZ Top on a tour in 1981. This was over 40
years after his first recordings, and that band could still play the
blues, not just as seasoned pros but with the same enthusiasm Muddy had
when he started out. When he sang that his mojo was working, you could
tell his mojo had not slowed down at all. He was satisfied, composed,
self-contained. If he had an opinion on a subject, he didn't allow a
whole lot of latitude to be convinced otherwise. If he was bitter about
the way he'd been treated by record companies, he never showed it. We
talked to him a lot as we traveled, when he wasn't chasing young girls
through the airport. He told us a story once about his friends Freddie
King and Little Walter walking from Dallas to Chicago. I've always had
that image in my mind of two guys walking from the South to the North.
Everyone else in the great migration took the train. I hope they weren't
carrying their equipment.
People call his sound raw and dirty
and gritty, but it wasn't particularly loud. It just sounded that way. A
guitar amplifier in the Fifties was maybe the size of a tabletop radio.
To be heard over a party, you had to crank that thing as loud as it
would go. And then you left behind all semblance of circuit design and
entered the elegant field of distortion that made everything so much
deeper. If you didn't have a big band with 20 guys, you had 20 watts.
I
first heard Muddy Waters through two friends of mine, Walter Baldwin
and Steve Roberts, in junior high in 1962 or '63. We grew up together
and jumped on every piece of musical madness we could find. Most people
in my generation probably discovered Muddy backwards from the Rolling
Stones, who got their name from a Muddy song. I heard him just before
the Stones got here, but it was all good, whether you discovered it
backwards, forwards or sideways.
Anyway, I picked up the guitar
because of Muddy Waters as much as anyone. Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf,
T-Bone Walker, Albert King, B.B. King, Freddie King — they all had an
impact too, but they all followed Muddy Waters. He started out in
Mississippi playing acoustic, using his thumb to play the bass line and a
real bottleneck slide for melody on the upper strings. The slide guitar
got the nuance of the human voice better than any other instrument.
Basically, it was a Robert Johnson thing, and Muddy took it to Chicago,
electrified it, added a bass player and a harp with a good backbeat, and
you had a party. His bands were always powerhouses, and his voice had
an amazing depth.
The remarkable thing is that the blues never
died out, ever. It's been rediscovered every 10 years since the
Twenties. Nobody can do what Muddy did, but his energy is still fueling
that fire. You can hear his enthusiasm in bands like the White Stripes
or the Black Keys. I'd recommend his first album, The Best of Muddy
Waters, with the early Chess singles, to anyone. Every track is worthy.
The albums Johnny Winter produced in the late Seventies, Hard Again and
I'm Ready, are also terrific.
It was all supposed to be
disposable. Just noise on a shellac disc. And here we are in the 21st
century still trying to figure out how such a simple art form could be
so complicated and subtle. It's still firing brain synapses around the
world. You've got the Japanese Muddy Waters Society corresponding with
fans in Sweden and England, and his music can still propel a party in
the U.S. He made three chords sound deep, and they are.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES MILLER
16
Sam Cooke
By Art Garfunkel
Sam
Cooke was grounded in a very straightforward singing style: It was
pure, beautiful and open-throated, extraordinarily direct and
unapologetic. Let's say you're going to sing "I love you for sentimental
reasons." How do you hit that "I"? Do you slur into it? Do you put in a
little hidden "h"? The attack on that vowel sound is the tip-off to how
bold a singer is. If you pour on the letter "i" from the back of your
throat, the listener gets that there is no fudge in the first thousandth
of a second. There's just confidence from the singer, that he knows the
pitch, and here's the sound. That's what Sam was great at. He had guts
as a singer.
Sam also threw a lot of notes at you. Today you hear
everyone doing those melismatic notes that Mariah Carey made popular.
Sam was the first guy I remember singing that way. When he's singing, "I
love you for sentimental reasons/I hope you do believe me," the next
line should be, "I've given you my heart." But he goes, "I've given you
my-my-mah-muh-my heart/Given you my heart because I need you." It's as
if he's saying, "Now that I've sung the word, I'm going to sing it
again, because I've got all this feeling in my heart that demands
expression." He gave us so much that he could have given us less, and
that would've been enough, but he put in all those extra notes, as in
"You Send Me," where he's scatting between the lines: "I know, I know, I
know, when you hold me."
He had fabulous chops, but at the same
time fabulous taste. I never felt that he was overdoing it, as I often
feel with singers today. He stayed rhythmic and fluty and floaty; he
always showed brilliant vocal control.
I must have sung "You Send
Me" to myself walking up and down stairwells at least a thousand times.
It was on the charts right when I was having my first little success
with Paul Simon as Tom and Jerry. Our "Hey, Schoolgirl" was on the
charts with "You Send Me" and "Jailhouse Rock." "Jingle Bell Rock" had
just come out. I was just a kid, calling on radio stations for
promotional purposes, and all I heard was "You Send Me." Sam was great
to sing along with. He was my hero.
There was a deep sense of
goodness about Sam. His father was a minister, and he obviously had
spent a lot of time in church. His first success came early as a gospel
singer, and he expanded into R&B and pop. It looked like he was
making the right choices in life until he got shot by the night manager
of a motel. You wonder who he had fallen in with.
Paul Simon,
James Taylor and I covered "Wonderful World," which he also wrote. It
was a teenage short story like Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" or
"School Days." You're stroking the teenager's sense of style with those
pop songs. Sam was a master of that idiom. "Wonderful World" was
unsophisticated but very Tin Pan Alley.
Sam came along before the
album was discovered as an art form. You think of him in terms of
songs. My favorites are "Sad Mood," "Wonderful World," "Summertime," "(I
Love You) For Sentimental Reasons" and "You Send Me." I think that "A
Change Is Gonna Come" shows where he could have gone if he had lived
through the Sixties, doing Marvin Gaye kind of lyrics about the society
we live in. It was a tremendous loss when he was killed. I remember
thinking, "Oh, that can't be." He was such a rising star, a fabulous
singer with intelligence. And that brilliant smile.
I used to think he was just a great singer. Now I think he's better than that. Almost nobody since then can touch him.
ILLUSTRATION BY STERLING HUNDLEY
15
Stevie Wonder
By Elton John
Let
me put it this way: Wherever I go in the world, I always take a copy of
Songs in the Key of Life. For me, it's the best album ever made, and
I'm always left in awe after I listen to it. When people in decades and
centuries to come talk about the history of music, they will talk about
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Stevie
came out of the golden age of Motown, when they were putting out the
best R&B records in the world from Detroit, and he evolved into an
amazing songwriter and a genuine musical force of nature.
He's so
multitalented that it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes
him one of the greatest ever. But first, there's that voice. Along with
Ray Charles, he's the greatest R&B singer who ever lived. Nobody can
sing like he does. I know: I actually recorded a version of "Signed,
Sealed, Delivered" when I was young, and I really had to squeeze my
balls to get those high notes.
As a keyboard player, I've played
with him over the years, and he never ceases to amaze me, the stuff he
comes up with. He can play anything — check out his harmonica playing. I
think I'm a pretty good musician, but he's in a whole other league. He
could play with Charlie Parker or John Coltrane and hold his own.
Stevie's
Sixties hits are amazing — joyful music that still sounds great — but
then, starting in the Seventies, he hit a run of albums that's
unsurpassed in music history, from Talking Book to Songs in the Key of
Life. I think the elite — the most major of major artists — often have a
period when they can do no wrong. It happened to Prince, too, who is
like Stevie in some ways. He has got an immeasurable amount of talent —
so much talent that sometimes it can seem like he's kind of lost.
Stevie
is an amazingly positive, peaceful man. When you ask him to do
something, he is generous. He loves music. He loves to play. When he
comes into a room, people adore him. And there aren't many artists like
that. People admire you and they like your records, but they don't want
to stand up and hug you. But this man is a good man. He tries to use his
music to do good. His message, I think, is about love, and in the world
we live in today, that message does shine through.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK STUTZMAN
14
Led Zeppelin
By Dave Grohl
Heavy
metal would not exist without Led Zeppelin, and if it did, it would
suck. Led Zeppelin were more than just a band — they were the perfect
combination of the most intense elements: passion and mystery and
expertise. It always seemed like Led Zeppelin were searching for
something. They weren't content being in one place, and they were always
trying something new. They could do anything, and I believe they would
have done everything if they hadn't been cut short by John Bonham's
death. Zeppelin served as a great escape from a lot of things. There was
a fantasy element to everything they did, and it was such a major part
of what made them important. It's hard to imagine the audience for all
those Lord of the Rings movies if it wasn't for Zeppelin.
They
were never critically acclaimed in their day, because they were too
experimental and they were too fringe. In 1969 and '70, there was some
freaky s*** going on, but Zeppelin were the freakiest. I consider Jimmy
Page freakier than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was a genius on fire, whereas
Page was a genius possessed. Zeppelin concerts and albums were like
exorcisms for them. People had their asses blown out by Hendrix and Jeff
Beck and Eric Clapton, but Page took it to a whole new level, and he
did it in such a beautifully human and imperfect way. He plays the
guitar like an old bluesman on acid. When I listen to Zeppelin bootlegs,
his solos can make me laugh or they can make me tear up. Any live
version of "Since I've Been Loving You" will bring you to tears and fill
you with joy all at once. Page doesn't just use his guitar as an
instrument — he uses it like it's some sort of emotional translator.
John
Bonham played the drums like someone who didn't know what was going to
happen next — like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. No one has
come close to that since, and I don't think anybody ever will. I think
he will forever be the greatest drummer of all time. You have no idea
how much he influenced me. I spent years in my bedroom — literally
f***ing years — listening to Bonham's drums and trying to emulate his
swing or his behind-the-beat swagger or his speed or power. Not just
memorizing what he did on those albums but getting myself into a place
where I would have the same instinctual direction as he had. I have John
Bonham tattoos all over my body — on my wrists, my arms, my shoulders. I
gave myself one when I was 15. It's the three circles that were his
insignia on Zeppelin IV and on the front of his kick drum.
"Black
Dog," from Zeppelin IV, is what Led Zeppelin were all about in their
most rocking moments, a perfect example of their true might. It didn't
have to be really distorted or really fast, it just had to be Zeppelin,
and it was really heavy. Then there's Zeppelin's sensitive side —
something people overlook, because we think of them as rock beasts, but
Zeppelin III was full of gentle beauty. That was the soundtrack to me
dropping out of high school. I listened to it every single day in my VW
bug, while I contemplated my direction in life. That album, for whatever
reason, saved some light in me that I still have.
I heard them
for the first time on AM radio in the Seventies, right around the time
that "Stairway to Heaven" was so popular. I was six or seven years old,
which is when I'd just started discovering music. But it wasn't until I
was a teenager that I discovered the first two Zeppelin records, which
were handed down to me from the real stoners. We had a lot of those in
the suburbs of Virginia, and a lot of muscle cars and keggers and
Zeppelin and acid and weed. Somehow they all went hand in hand. To me,
Zeppelin were spiritually inspirational. I was going to Catholic school
and questioning God, but I believed in Led Zeppelin. I wasn't really
buying into this Christianity thing, but I had faith in Led Zeppelin as a
spiritual entity. They showed me that human beings could channel this
music somehow and that it was coming from somewhere. It wasn't coming
from a songbook. It wasn't coming from a producer. It wasn't coming from
an instructor. It was coming from four musicians taking music to places
it hadn't been before — it's like it was coming from somewhere else.
That's why they're the greatest rock & roll band of all time. It
couldn't have happened any other way.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN CLAYTON
13
Buddy Holly
By John Mellencamp
Buddy
Holly was a complete and utter hillbilly. I'm very proud of that. So
much of our musical heritage is from the country. People always ask me,
"Why do you stay in Indiana?" Well, I have to. Just about every song,
every sound that we emulate and listen to was created by a hillbilly,
born out of the frustration of a small town where there ain't much to do
in the evening. That's one thing that I loved about Buddy Holly.
Buddy
Holly was one of the first great singer-songwriters — he wrote his own
material and in the end was producing it, too. He came from such a rural
area and was able to speak to so many people in so many locations. He
was one of the first to get away from the Tin Pan Alley songwriting
factory and communicate directly, honestly with his audience.
I
was just a little kid when I first heard Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue." You
may not understand what it was like being about nine years old in 1957
or '58, but it was quite a treat. All of this music was just coming out
of nowhere — Memphis and Texas. I was in a band when I was in sixth
grade, and we played "Not Fade Away." You shouldn't even be in a band if
you haven't played that song. It's two chords, beautiful melody, with a
nice message. Holly's songs never really left my consciousness. When I
set up my iPod, there he was, those same songs that I've heard for all
these years. They sound just as good as the first time I heard them.
Holly's
melodies and arrangements were a huge influence on the Beatles. With
the whirlwind they were on in 1964, the first thing John Lennon asked
when he got to The Ed Sullivan Show was, "Is this the stage that Buddy
Holly played on?" That shows a lot of quiet admiration. Listen to the
songs on the first three Beatles albums. Take their voices off, and it's
Buddy Holly. Same with the Rolling Stones.
Record companies
encourage young artists to copy what's been there before. But nobody was
pushing Holly in any direction. That was just all him and his
instincts. Those songs are great, and some are only a minute and 25
seconds long. Think about delivering a song like that today. The magic
that Buddy Holly created was nothing short of a miracle. The fact that
he died at 22 is just ridiculous. That tells you all you need to know
about just how focused and visionary he was.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS KASCH
12
The Beach Boys
By Lindsey Buckingham
The
Beach Boys showed the way, and not just to California. Sure, they may
have sold the California Dream to a lot of people, but for me, it was
Brian Wilson showing how far you might have to go in order to make your
own musical dream come true.
In the beginning, I was someone who
grew up in California and loved the early music that he and the Beach
Boys made. Later, I would relate to Brian's struggle as an artist
against a machine that tended toward serving the bottom line — the
industry attitude that if it works, run it into the ground. Music meant
much more to him than that. He was trying to do something so much bigger
than that with his teenage symphonies to God. In the process, he really
rocked the boat and changed the world.
When the Beach Boys
started, Brian was taking European sensibilities and infusing them into a
Chuck Berry format. Those harmonies were based on the Four Freshmen,
with a little church element added to it. He put all that on top of
Chuck Berry rock & roll, and the result sounded so fresh. I remember
hearing "Surfin' Safari" first when I was in sixth grade. It had the
beat, the sense of joy, that explosion rock & roll gave to a lot of
us. But it also had this incredible lift, this amazing kind of chemical
reaction that seemed to happen inside you when you heard it.
Pet
Sounds is the acknowledged masterpiece, and it's everything it's said to
be, with Brian taking some of the influences he got from Phil Spector
and making something all his own. But even before that there's Side Two
of The Beach Boys Today!, which is really just one ballad after another
and is for me one of the great sides on a rock album. Those are
beautiful numbers — "Please Let Me Wonder," "Kiss Me Baby," "She Knows
Me Too Well," "In the Back of My Mind" — that foreshadow Brian's angst
and start exposing his vulnerability. A lot of what you find later on
Pet Sounds or Smile, you could find in a different form early on.
Today
it's nice to see that Brian's in a place where he can do what he wants
without the pressure of selling or of having to be the support system
for so many others. Because he gave the rest of us more than his fair
share of good vibrations.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK GAGNON
11
Bob Marley
By Wyclef Jean
What
separates Bob Marley from so many other great songwriters? They don't
know what it's like for rain to seep into their house. They wouldn't
know what to do without their microwaves and stoves — to make a fire
with wood and cook their fish next to the ocean. Marley came from the
poverty and injustice in Jamaica, and that manifested itself in his
rebel sound. The people were his inspiration. Straight up. Like John
Lennon, he brought the idea that through music, empowerment and words,
you can really come up with world peace. But it's hard to compare him to
other musicians, because music was just one part of what he was. He was
also a humanitarian and a revolutionary. His impact on Jamaican
politics was so strong, there was an assassination attempt on his life.
Marley was like Moses. When Moses spoke, people moved. When Marley
spoke, they moved as well.
Marley almost single-handedly brought
reggae to the world. When I was growing up in Haiti — where my father
was a missionary and a church minister — we could barely get away with
listening to Christian rock and definitely couldn't get away with any
rap. When I was 14, I slipped on "Exodus," and my dad, who didn't speak
English very well, asked me, "What's this song about?" I told him it was
biblical, and it was about movement. The minute it reached his ears —
the minute Marley's music reaches anybody's ears — he was automatically
grooving. The vibe goes straight to your brain.
"Redemption Song"
transcends time. "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery/ None but
ourselves can free our minds/Have no fear for atomic energy/'Cause none
of them can stop the time." It will mean the same thing in the year
3014. Today, people struggle to find what's real. Everything has become
so synthetic that a lot of people, all they want is to grasp onto hope.
The reason people still throw on Bob Marley T-shirts is because his
music is one of the few real things left to grasp onto.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARCO VENTURA
10
Ray Charles
Ray
Charles is proof that the best music crosses all boundaries, reaches
all denominations. He could do any type of music, and he always stayed
true to himself. It's all about his soul.
His music first hit me
when I heard a live version of "What'd I Say" on American Forces Network
in Germany, which I used to listen to late at night. Then I started
buying his singles. His sound was stunning — it was the blues, it was
R&B, it was gospel, it was swing — it was all the stuff I was
listening to before that but rolled into one amazing, soulful thing.
As
a singer, Ray Charles didn't phrase like anyone else. He didn't put the
time where you thought it was gonna be, but it was always perfect,
always right. He knew how to play with time, like any great jazzman. But
there was more to him than that voice — he was also writing these
incredible songs. He was a great musician, a great record maker, a great
producer and a wonderful arranger.
There's a reason they called
Ray Charles "the Genius." Think of how he reinvented country music in a
way that worked for him. He showed there are no limitations, not for
someone as good as he is. Whatever Ray Charles did, whatever he touched,
he made it his own. He's his own genre. It's all Ray Charles music now.
I
always learn something from him. It's music that set a tough standard.
For me, two albums that stand out are Ray Charles at Newport and Ray
Charles in Person. Then there's Genius + Soul = Jazz with the Basie
orchestra and Quincy Jones. And of course Modern Sounds in Country and
Western Music. There's so much to live up to — these days, you almost
have to go backward to go forward.
In 2004, I did a duet with him
on one of my songs, "Crazy Love." It felt fantastic. I always loved his
singing, but I also connected with him on a soul level. I just felt his
emotion. People like Ray Charles — and Sam Cooke, Bobby Bland and
Solomon Burke — defined what soul was for me. It wasn't just the singing
— it was what went into the singing. These were guys who put their
souls on the line.
This music is way beyond marketing. This music
is global, and its appeal is universal. Ray Charles changed music just
by being himself — by doing what he did and translating it to millions
of people with the force of his soul. That's his legacy. I think that
the music of Ray Charles will probably outlive us all — at least I hope
that it will.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANITA KUNZ
9
Aretha Franklin
As
a producer, I almost always addressed phrasing and enunciation with the
singer, but in Aretha's case, there was nothing I could tell her. I
would only be getting in her way. Nowadays, singers who want to be extra
soulful overdo melisma. Aretha only used it a touch and used it
gloriously because her taste was impeccable. She never went to the wrong
place.
It wasn't her gospel training. Most young
African-American singers get their musical training in church. Training
can give you form, can give you tradition, can give you the cadence.
When genius gets good training, it can expedite the process, but
training isn't genius. Genius is who she is.
"Respect" had the
biggest impact, with overtones for the civil rights movement and gender
equality. It was an appeal for dignity combined with a blatant
lubricity. There are songs that are a call to action. There are love
songs. There are sex songs. But it's hard to think of another song where
all those elements are combined.
Aretha wrote most of her
material or selected the songs herself, working out the arrangements at
home and using her piano to provide the texture. In this case, she just
had the idea that she wanted to embellish Otis Redding's song. When she
walked into the studio, it was already worked out in her head.
Otis
came up to my office right before "Respect" was released, and I played
him the tape. He said, "She done took my song." He said it benignly and
ruefully. He knew the identity of the song was slipping away from him to
her.
Aretha had a minor career at Columbia before coming to
Atlantic. I don't think Columbia let her play the piano much. It's
always been my belief that when a singer plays an instrument, you should
let them play it on the record, even if the singer is not a virtuoso,
because they're bringing another element to the recording. In Aretha's
case, there was no compromise in quality. She was a brilliant pianist.
It is part of her genius. No one can copy her. She's all alone in her greatness.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM O'BRIEN
8
Little Richard
A
lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don't call
myself that, but I believe it's true. You've got to remember, I was
already known back in 1951. I was recording for RCA-Victor — if you were
black, it was called Camden Records — before Elvis. Then I recorded for
Peacock in Houston. Then Specialty Records bought me from Peacock — I
think they paid $500 for me — and my first Specialty record was a hit in
1956: "Tutti Frutti." It was a hit worldwide. I felt I had arrived, you
know? We started touring everywhere immediately. We traveled in cars.
Back in that time, the racism was so heavy, you couldn't go in the
hotels, so most times you slept in your car. You ate in your car. You
got to the date, and you dressed in your car. I had a Cadillac. That's
what the star rode in.
You remember the way that Liberace dressed
onstage? I was dressing like that all the time, very flamboyantly, and I
was wearing the pancake makeup. A lot of the other performers at that
time — the Cadillacs, the Coasters, the Drifters — they were wearing
makeup, too, but they didn't have any makeup kit. They had a sponge and a
little compact in their pocket. I had a kit. Everybody started calling
me gay.
People called rock & roll "African music." They
called it "voodoo music." They said that it would drive the kids insane.
They said that it was just a flash in the pan — the same thing that
they always used to say about hip-hop. Only it was worse back then,
because, you have to remember, I was the first black artist whose
records the white kids were starting to buy. And the parents were really
bitter about me. We played places where they told us not to come back,
because the kids got so wild. They were tearing up the streets and
throwing bottles and jumping off the theater balconies at shows. At that
time, the white kids had to be up in the balcony — they were "white
spectators." But then they'd leap over the balcony to get downstairs
where the black kids were.
I didn't get paid — most dates I
didn't get paid. And I've never gotten money from most of those records.
And I made those records: In the studio, they'd just give me a bunch of
words, I'd make up a song! The rhythm and everything. "Good Golly Miss
Molly"! And I didn't get a dime for it. Michael Jackson owned the
Specialty stuff. He offered me a job with his publishing company once,
for the rest of my life, as a writer. At the time, I didn't take it. I
wish I had now.
I wish a lot of things had been different. I don't think I ever got what I really deserved.
I
appreciate being picked one of the top 100 performers, but who is
number one and who is number two doesn't matter to me anymore. Because
it won't be who I think it should be. The Rolling Stones started with
me, but they're going to always be in front of me. The Beatles started
with me — at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, before they ever made an
album — but they're going to always be in front of me. James Brown,
Jimi Hendrix — these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to
them, and they're going to always be in front of me.
But it's a
joy just to still be here. I think that when people want joy and fun and
happiness, they want to hear the old-time rock & roll. And I'm just
glad I was a part of that.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES MILLER
7
James Brown
By Rick Rubin
In
one sense, James Brown is like Johnny Cash. Johnny is considered one of
the kings of country music, but there are a lot of people who like
Johnny but don't like country music. It's the same with James Brown and
R&B. His music is singular — the feel and tone of it. James Brown is
his own genre. He was a great editor — as a songwriter, producer and
bandleader. He kept things sparse. He knew that was important. And he
had the best players, the funkiest of all bands. If Clyde Stubblefield
had been drumming on a Motown session, they would not have let him play
what he did with James on "Funky Drummer." James' vision allowed that
music to get out. And the music always came from the groove, whereas for
so many R&B and Motown artists at the time it was more about
conventional songs. James Brown's songs are not conventional. "I Got
You," "Out of Sight" — they are ultimately vehicles for unique, even
bizarre grooves.
The first big record in hip-hop that used a
Brown sample was Eric B. and Rakim's "Eric B. Is President." That opened
the floodgates for people to sample Brown. I can't remember ever using a
James Brown sample on my early records with LL Cool J or the Beastie
Boys, but I wanted to make records that felt as good as Brown's, and I
didn't want to do it by sampling or copying him. For me, it was about
understanding the feeling you get when you listen to those grooves,
figuring out how to achieve that with drum machines.
That feeling
was something that the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I worked on for
BloodSugarSexMagik. We used Brown's idea that all the musicians didn't
have to be playing at the same time. Let the bass have its moment; don't
be afraid to start a song with just guitar or break it down to just
drums and guitar. Those are the sort of dynamics you hear on Brown's
records.
I remember going to Minneapolis to visit Prince years
ago, sitting in an office waiting for him — and there was an endless
loop of James Brown's performance in the 1964 concert film The T.A.M.I.
Show running. That may be the single greatest rock & roll
performance ever captured on film. You have the Rolling Stones on the
same stage, all of the important rock acts of the day — and James Brown
comes out and destroys them. It's unbelievable how much he outclasses
everyone else in the film.
I first saw James Brown around 1980,
between my junior and senior years in high school. It was in Boston. It
was in a catering hall, with folding chairs. And it was one of the
greatest musical experiences of my life. His dancing and singing were
incredible, and he played a Hammond B3 organ tufted with red leather,
with "Godfather" in studs written across the front.
Regardless of
what went on in his personal life, his legacy is secure. He certainly
did things along the way where you can't help wondering, "What's going
on?" But the good stuff comes from these one-of-a-kind people. These
people are just touched by God. They are special. And James Brown is one
of them. His legend will loom large, because the rhythm of life is in
there.
ILLUSTRATION BY CYNTHIA VON BUHLER
6
Jimi Hendrix
By John Mayer
Jimi
Hendrix is one of those extraordinary hubs of music where everybody
lands at some point. Every musician passes through Hendrix International
Airport eventually. He is the common denominator of every style of
popular music. Was he a bluesman? Listen to "Voodoo Chile" and you'll
hear some of the eeriest blues you can find. Was he a rock musician? He
used volume as a device. That's rock. Was he a sensitive
singer-songwriter? In "Bold As Love," he sings, "My yellow in this case
is not so mellow/In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me" —
that is a man who knows the shape of his heart.
So often, he's
portrayed as a loud, psychedelic rock star lighting his guitar on fire.
But when I think of Hendrix, I think of some of the most placid, lovely
guitar sounds on songs like "One Rainy Wish," "Little Wing" and
"Drifting." "Little Wing" is painfully short and painfully beautiful.
It's like your grandfather coming back from the dead and hanging out
with you for a couple of minutes and then going away. It's perfect, then
it's gone.
I think the reason musicians love Hendrix's playing
so much is that the language of it was so native to his head and heart.
He had a secret relationship with playing the guitar, and though it was
incredibly technical and based in theory, it was his theory. All you
heard was the color. The math is what's been applied ever since.
I
discovered Hendrix by way of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I heard Stevie Ray do
"Little Wing," and I started working my way backward to Hendrix. The
first Hendrix record I bought was Axis: Bold As Love, because it had
"Little Wing" on it. I remember staring at the album cover for hours.
Then I remember spending months listening to Electric Ladyland, which
was very creepy. There's something dark about it in certain places that
maybe Hendrix was too honest to hide.
Hendrix invented a kind of
cool. The cool of a big conch-shell belt. The cool of boots that your
jeans are tucked into. If Jimi Hendrix is an influence on somebody, you
can immediately tell. Give me a guy who's got some kind of weird-ass
goatee and an applejack hat, and you just go, "He got to you, didn't
he?"
Hendrix has the allure of the tragic figure: We all wish we
were genius enough to die before we're 28. People want to paint him as
this lonely, shy figure who managed to let himself open up on the stage
and play straight colors through the crowd. There's something heroic
about it, but there's nothing human about it. Everybody is so caught up
in his otherworldliness. I prefer to think about his human side. He was a
man who had a Social Security number, not an alien. The merchandising
companies put Jimi Hendrix's face on a tie-dyed T-shirt, and somehow
that's what he became. But when I listen to Hendrix, I just hear a man,
and that's when it's most beautiful — when you remember that another
human being was capable of what he achieved. Who I am as a guitarist is
defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix. However far you stop on
your climb to be like him, that's who you are.
ILLUSTRATION BY SKIP LIEPKE
5
Chuck Berry
By Joe Perry
Like
a lot of guitarists of my generation, I first heard Chuck Berry because
of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I was so blown away by the way
those bands were playing these hardcore rock & roll songs like “Roll
Over Beethoven” and “Around and Around.” I’d looked at the labels,
under the song titles. I’d seen the name “Chuck Berry.” But I was
fortunate enough, again like a lot of guys from my generation, to have a
friend who had an older brother, who had the original records: “If you
like the Stones, wait until you hear this!” I heard Chuck Berry Is On
Top — and I really freaked out! That feeling of excitement in the pit of
my stomach, in the hair on the back of my neck: I got more of it from
Chuck Berry than from anybody else.
It’s not so much what he
played — it’s what he didn’t play. His music is very economical. His
guitar leads drove the rhythm, as opposed to laying over the top. The
economy of his licks and his leads — they pushed the song along. And he
would build his solos so there was a nice little statement taking the
song to a new place, so you’re ready for the next verse.
As a
songwriter, Chuck Berry is like the Ernest Hemingway of rock & roll.
He gets right to the point. He tells a story in short sentences. You
get a great picture in your mind of what’s going on, in a very short
amount of space, in well-picked words. He was also very smart: He knew
that if he was going to break into the mainstream, he had to appeal to
white teenagers. Which he did. Everything in those songs is about
teenagers. I think he knew he could have had his own success on the
R&B charts, but he wanted to get out of there and go big time.
He
was also celebrating the music and lifestyle of rock & roll in
songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “School Days” — how anybody could make a
guitar sound like the ring of a bell. Anytime you put the words “rock
& roll” in a lyric, you have to be careful. But he did it perfectly.
“Johnny B. Goode” is probably the most covered song ever. Bar bands,
garage bands — everybody plays it. And so many bands play it badly. As
much fun as it is to play, it’s also easy to destroy it. But it was
probably the first Chuck Berry song I learned. It hits people on all
levels: lyric, melody, tempo, riff.
It’s funny — when my son,
Roman, was 12, he came back from his guitar lesson one day and I said,
“What song were you learning today?” He said, “We’re learning ‘Johnny B.
Goode.'” That’s the essence of the appeal of Chuck Berry. When you’re a
young guitar player now, you’re confronted by all these guys: Eric
Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page. But you can sit down and get your
guitar to sound like Chuck Berry in a very short amount of time.
The
other thing is, Chuck Berry was a showman: playing the guitar behind
his head and between his legs, doing the duckwalk. It’s not like you
could close your eyes and hear his playing suffer because of it. He was
able to do all that stuff and make it look like it was so easy and
natural.
I still listen to Chuck Berry Is On Top. The whole thing
just rocks out. That’s why I love it — for the same reason I love AC/DC
records. They just don’t stop. That was another thing he did: He stayed
in that groove. He could have done one or two of those “Johnny B.
Goode”-type songs, or a couple like “Maybellene,” then gone off and done
whatever. But he stayed in that place, that groove, and made it his
own.
I also have a bunch of different compilations, and I hear
the direct influence on me. The way he phrases things, that double-note
stop, where you get the two notes bending against each other and they
make that rock & roll sound — that’s what I hear when I listen back
to a lot of my solos. It’s a little bit of technique, but it’s mostly
phrasing.
And kids today are playing the same three chords,
trying to play in that same style. Turn the guitars up, and it’s punk
rock. It’s the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. I hear it in the White
Stripes, too.
People will always cover Chuck Berry songs. When
bands go do their homework, they will have to listen to Chuck Berry. If
you want to learn about rock & roll, if you want to play rock &
roll, you have to start there.
I’ve had the fortune to shake his
hand once or twice, but I’ve never really had a chance to tell him any
of this. It was always in passing, at an airport or something. The last
time was in the Seventies. I was walking through the airport, and
someone said, “It’s Chuck Berry over there.” Well, I had to go over and
shake his hand. But he was tongue-tied. Then he was gone.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DAY
4
The Rolling Stones
By Steven Van Zandt
The
Rolling Stones are my life. If it wasn't for them, I would have been a
Soprano for real. I first saw the Stones on TV, on The Hollywood Palace
in 1964. In '64, the Beatles were perfect: the hair, the harmonies, the
suits. They bowed together. Their music was extraordinarily
sophisticated. The whole thing was exciting and alien but very distant
in its perfection. The Stones were alien and exciting, too. But with the
Stones, the message was, "Maybe you can do this." The hair was
sloppier. The harmonies were a bit off. And I don't remember them
smiling at all. They had the R&B traditionalist's attitude: "We are
not in show business. We are not pop music." And the sex in Mick
Jagger's voice was adult. This wasn't pop sex — holding hands, playing
spin the bottle. This was the real thing. Jagger had that conversational
quality that came from R&B singers and bluesmen, that sort of
half-singing, not quite holding notes. The acceptance of Jagger's voice
on pop radio was a turning point in rock & roll. He broke open the
door for everyone else. Suddenly, Eric Burdon and Van Morrison weren't
so weird — even Bob Dylan.
It was completely unique: a white
performer doing it in a black way. Elvis Presley did it. But the next
guy was Jagger. There were no other white boys doing this. White singers
stood there and sang, like the Beatles. The thing we associate with
black performers goes back to the church — letting the spirit physically
move you, letting go of social restraints, any form of embarrassment or
humiliation. Not being in control: That's what Mick Jagger was
communicating.
In the beginning, it was Brian Jones' band. He
named them. He managed them — got the gigs and wrote to the paper when
they got bad reviews. The attitude and aggressiveness — they first came
from him. And the tradition came from him. He was using the blues
pseudonym Elmo Lewis and playing bottleneck guitar. Then, on albums like
Aftermath, he was playing all of these other instruments: dulcimer,
harpsichord, sitar. He was so inventive and important. If anybody gets
left out of the Stones' story, he's the one.
But Keith Richards
has been taken for granted too, relegated historically to permanent
rhythm guitar. But his solos were great: "Sympathy for the Devil," "It's
All Over Now." And there are the riffs: "Satisfaction," of course, and
"The Last Time," which the Stones themselves considered the first
serious song they wrote. "Honky Tonk Women" is just one chord. Then he
started the tunings: the G tuning and the five-string version of the G
tuning. There are chord patterns that relate to his tunings — the "Gimme
Shelter" effect, let's call it — where you add a suspended note, and it
becomes more melodic and rhythmic at the same time. I play rhythm
guitar with the E Street Band in Keith's style all the time. Anybody who
plays rock & roll guitar does.
Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts,
more than any other rock & roll rhythm section, to this day, knew
how to swing. It's so much a thing of the past now, but in those days
rock & roll was something you danced to. You can just picture how
much fun it was to be at the Station Hotel in London in 1963: the crowd
going crazy, the Stones going crazy, like they were in a South Side
Chicago blues club. You can picture it in the music.
There are
generations of young people now who only know the Stones iconically. So
I'd send them to the first four albums, the American versions: England's
Newest Hitmakers, 12×5, Now! and Out of Our Heads. The next lesson is
the second great era: Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and
Exile on Main Street. They make up the greatest run of albums in history
— and all done in three and a half years.
In a lot of ways, the
Stones are playing better now than they were in the Sixties. They were
quite sloppy in the early days — which I enjoy. Technically, they're
better than they've ever been. The trouble is, their power comes from
their first 12 albums. There have been a few great songs since '72, but
only a handful. If they were making great records and playing live the
way they are now, my God, how amazing would that be?
But live,
they're still able to communicate that original power. You can learn a
lot from the Stones still: Write good songs, stay in shape and dig deep
down for that passion every night. You should live so long, a tenth as
long, and be as good as Mick Jagger. It's amazing Keith is still alive.
There are a few people who have this constitution of invulnerability,
although you shouldn't learn that. Let's be honest: Excessive drug use
hurts songwriting. The good side is, he's still on the road, rockin',
almost 50 years later. You can't hold most bands together for four
years, let alone 50.
They show that if you stick to your guns, and don't compromise with what's trendy, you're gonna go a long f***ing way.
elvis presley rolling stone
ILLUSTRATION BY BRALDT BRALDS
3
Elvis Presley
By Bono
Out
of Tupelo, Mississippi, out of Memphis, Tennessee, came this green,
sharkskin-suited girl chaser, wearing eye shadow — a trucker-dandy white
boy who must have risked his hide to act so black and dress so gay.
This wasn’t New York or even New Orleans; this was Memphis in the
Fifties. This was punk rock. This was revolt. Elvis changed everything —
musically, sexually, politically. In Elvis, you had the whole lot; it’s
all there in that elastic voice and body. As he changed shape, so did
the world: He was a Fifties-style icon who was what the Sixties were
capable of, and then suddenly not. In the Seventies, he turned celebrity
into a blood sport, but interestingly, the more he fell to Earth, the
more godlike he became to his fans. His last performances showcase a
voice even bigger than his gut, where you cry real tears as the music
messiah sings his tired heart out, turning casino into temple.
In
Elvis, you have the blueprint for rock & roll. The highness — the
gospel highs. The mud — the Delta mud, the blues. Sexual liberation.
Controversy. Changing the way people feel about the world. It’s all
there with Elvis.
I was eight years old when I saw the ’68
comeback special — which was probably an advantage. I hadn’t the
critical faculties to divide the different Elvises into different
categories or sort through the contradictions. Pretty much everything I
want from guitar, bass and drums was present: a performer annoyed by the
distance from his audience; a persona that made a prism of fame’s
wide-angle lens; a sexuality matched only by a thirst for God’s
instruction.
But it’s that elastic spastic dance that is the most
difficult to explain — hips that swivel from Europe to Africa, which is
the whole point of America, I guess. For an Irish boy, the voice might
have explained the sexiness of the U.S.A., but the dance explained the
energy of this new world about to boil over and scald the rest of us
with new ideas on race, religion, fashion, love and peace.
I once
met with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and some of the other leaders
of the American civil rights movement, and they reminded me of the
cultural apartheid rock & roll was up against. I think the hill they
climbed would have been much steeper were it not for the racial inroads
black music was making on white pop culture. Elvis was already doing
what the civil rights movement was demanding: breaking down barriers.
You don’t think of Elvis as political, but that is politics: changing
the way people see the world.
In the Eighties, U2 went to
Memphis, to Sun Studio — the scene of rock & roll’s big bang. Elvis’
music diviner Cowboy Jack Clement opened the studio so we could cut
some tracks within the same four walls where Elvis recorded “Mystery
Train.” He found the old valve microphone the King had howled through;
the reverb was the same reverb: “Train I ride, 16 coaches long.” It was a
small tunnel of a place, but there was a certain clarity to the sound.
You can hear it in those Sun records, and they are the ones for me. The
King didn’t know he was the King yet. Elvis doesn’t know where the train
will take him, and that’s why we want to be passengers.
Jerry
Schilling, the only one of the Memphis Mafia not to sell him out, told
me that when Elvis was upset and feeling out of kilter, he would leave
the big house and go down to his little gym, where there was a piano.
With no one else around, his choice would always be gospel. He was
happiest when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he
didn’t stay long enough. Self-loathing was waiting back up at the house,
where Elvis was seen shooting at his TV screens, the Bible open beside
him at St. Paul’s great ode to love, Corinthians 13. Elvis clearly
didn’t believe God’s grace was amazing enough.
Some commentators
say it was the Army, others say it was Hollywood or Las Vegas that broke
his spirit. The rock & roll world certainly didn’t like to see
their King doing what he was told. I think it was probably much more
likely his marriage or his mother — or a finer fracture from earlier on,
like losing his twin brother, Jesse, at birth. Maybe it was just the
big arse of fame sitting on him.
I think the Vegas period is
underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was
clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible
pathos. The big opera voice of the later years — that’s the one that
really hurts me.
Why is it that we want our idols to die on a
cross of their own making, and if they don’t, we want our money back?
But you know, Elvis ate America before America ate him.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BROWN
2
Bob Dylan
By Robbie Robertson
Bob
Dylan and I started out from different sides of the tracks. When I
first heard him, I was already in a band, playing rock & roll. I
didn't know a lot of folk music. I wasn't up to speed on the difference
he was making as a songwriter. I remember somebody playing "Oxford
Town," from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, for me. I thought, "There's
something going on here." His voice seemed interesting to me. But it
wasn't until we started playing together that I really understood it. He
is a powerful singer and a great musical actor, with many characters in
his voice. I could hear the politics in the early songs. It's very
exciting to hear somebody singing so powerfully, with something to say.
But what struck me was how the street had had such a profound effect on
him: coming from Minnesota, setting out on the road and coming into New
York. There was a hardness, a toughness, in the way he approached his
songs and the characters in them. That was a rebellion, in a certain
way, against the purity of folk music. He wasn't pussyfooting around on
"Like a Rolling Stone" or "Ballad of a Thin Man." This was the rebel
rebelling against the rebellion.
I learned early on with Bob that
the people he hung around with were not musicians. They were poets,
like Allen Ginsberg. When we were in Europe, there'd be poets coming out
of the woodwork. His writing came directly out of a tremendous poetic
influence, a license to write in images that weren't in the Tin Pan
Alley tradition or typically rock & roll, either. I watched him sing
"Desolation Row" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" in those acoustic sets in
1965 and '66. I had never seen anything like it — how much he could
deliver with a guitar and a harmonica, and how people would just take
the ride, going through these stories and songs with him.
When he
and I went to Nashville in 1966, to work on Blonde on Blonde, it was
the first time I'd ever seen a songwriter writing songs on a typewriter.
We'd go to the studio, and he'd be finishing up the lyrics to some of
the songs we were going to do. I could hear this typewriter — click,
click, click, ring, really fast. He was typing these things out so fast;
there was so much to be said.
And he'd be changing things during
a session. He'd have a new idea and try to incorporate that. That was
something else he taught me early on. The Hawks were band musicians. We
needed to know where the song was going to go, what the chord changes
were, where the bridge was. Bob has never been big on rehearsing. He
comes from a place where he just did the songs on acoustic guitar by
himself. When we'd play the song with him, it would be, "How do we end
it?" And he'd say, "Oh, when it's over, it's over. We'll just stop." We
got so we were ready for anything — and that was a good feeling. We'd
think, "OK, this can take a left turn at any minute — and I'm ready."
More
than anything, in my own songwriting, the thing I learned from Bob is
that it's OK to break those traditional rules of what songs are supposed
to be: the length of a song, how imaginative you could get telling the
story. It was great that someone had broken down the gates, opened up
the sky to all of the possibilities.
I think Bob has a true
passion for the challenge, for coming up with something in the music
that makes him feel good, to keep on doing it and doing it, as he does
now. The songs Bob is writing now are as good as any songs he's ever
written. There's a wonderful honesty in them. He writes about what he
sees and feels, about who he is. We spent a lot of time together in the
1970s. We were both living in Malibu and knew what was going on in our
respective day-to-day lives. And I know Blood on the Tracks is a
reflection of what was happening to him then. When he writes songs, he's
holding up a mirror — and I'm seeing it all clearly, like I've never
seen it before.
I don't think Bob ever wanted to be more than a
good songwriter. When people are like, "Oh, my God, you're having an
effect on culture and society" — I doubt he thinks like that. I don't
think Hank Williams understood why his songs were so much more moving
than other people's songs. I think Bob is thinking, "I hope I can think
of another really good song." He's putting one foot in front of the
other and just following his bliss.
But Bob is a great barometer
for young singers and songwriters. As soon as they think they've written
something good — "I'm pushing the envelope here, I've made a
breakthrough" — they should listen to one of his songs. He will always
stand as the one to measure good work by. That's one of the greatest
accomplishments of all.
ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL DAVIS
1
The Beatles
By Elvis Costello
I
first heard of the Beatles when I was nine years old. I spent most of
my holidays on Merseyside then, and a local girl gave me a bad publicity
shot of them with their names scrawled on the back. This was 1962 or
'63, before they came to America. The photo was badly lit, and they
didn't quite have their look down; Ringo had his hair slightly swept
back, as if he wasn't quite sold on the Beatles haircut yet. I didn't
care; they were the band for me. The funny thing is that parents and all
their friends from Liverpool were also curious and proud about this
local group. Prior to that, the people in show business from the north
of England had all been comedians. Come to think of it, the Beatles
recorded for Parlophone, which was known as a comedy label.
I was
exactly the right age to be hit by them full on. My experience —
seizing on every picture, saving money for singles and EPs, catching
them on a local news show — was repeated over and over again around the
world. It was the first time anything like this had happened on this
scale. But it wasn't just about the numbers.
Every record was a
shock when it came out. Compared to rabid R&B evangelists like the
Rolling Stones, the Beatles arrived sounding like nothing else. They had
already absorbed Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but
they were also writing their own songs. They made writing your own
material expected, rather than exceptional.
John Lennon and Paul
McCartney were exceptional songwriters; McCartney was, and is, a truly
virtuoso musician; George Harrison wasn't the kind of guitar player who
tore off wild, unpredictable solos, but you can sing the melodies of
nearly all of his breaks. Most important, they always fit right into the
arrangement. Ringo Starr played the drums with an incredibly unique
feel that nobody can really copy, although many fine drummers have tried
and failed. Most of all, John and Paul were fantastic singers.
Lennon,
McCartney and Harrison had stunningly high standards as writers.
Imagine releasing a song like "Ask Me Why" or "Things We Said Today" as a
B side. These records were events, and not just advance notice of an
album release.
Then they started to really grow up. They went
from simple love lyrics to adult stories like "Norwegian Wood," which
spoke of the sour side of love, and on to bigger ideas than you would
expect to find in catchy pop lyrics.
They were pretty much the
first group to mess with the aural perspective of their recordings and
have it be more than just a gimmick. Before the Beatles, you had guys in
lab coats doing recording experiments in the Fifties, but you didn't
have rockers deliberately putting things out of balance, like a quiet
vocal in front of a loud track on "Strawberry Fields Forever." You can't
exaggerate the license that this gave to everyone from Motown to Jimi
Hendrix.
My absolute favorite albums are Rubber Soul and
Revolver. When you picked up Revolver, you knew it was something
different. Heck, they are wearing sunglasses indoors in the picture on
the back of the cover and not even looking at the camera … and the music
was so strange and yet so vivid. If I had to pick a favorite song from
those albums, it would be "And Your Bird Can Sing" … no, "Girl" … no,
"For No One" … and so on, and so on….
Their breakup album, Let It
Be, contains songs both gorgeous and jagged. I remember going to
Leicester Square and seeing the film of Let It Be in 1970. I left with a
melancholy feeling.
The word "Beatlesque" has been in the
dictionary for a while now. I can hear them in the Prince album Around
the World in a Day; in Ron Sexsmith's tunes; in Harry Nilsson's
melodies. You can hear that Kurt Cobain listened to the Beatles and
mixed them in with punk and metal.
I've co-written some songs
with Paul McCartney and performed with him in concert on a few
occasions. During one rehearsal, I was singing harmony on a Ricky Nelson
song, and Paul called out the next tune: "All My Loving." I said, "Do
you want me to take the harmony line the second time round?" And he
said, "Yeah, give it a try." I'd only had 35 years to learn the part. It
was a very poignant performance, witnessed only by the crew and other
artists on the bill.
At the show, it was very different. The
second he sang the opening lines — "Close your eyes, and I'll kiss you" —
the crowd's reaction was so intense that it all but drowned the song
out. It was very thrilling but also rather disconcerting. Perhaps I
understood in that moment one of the reasons why the Beatles had to stop
performing. The songs weren't theirs anymore. They were everybody's.