Javaman

Lots of agreement from me on most choices. Musically, I'd like to add Big Star but they probably wouldn't be terribly high up the list. And, instrumentally, I'd nominate Kazuo Yairi for offering high-quality, beautiful-sounding, hand-made guitars at a reasonable price.

mecca777

The "nameless DJ" you're thinking of isn't nameless at all. The originator of "turntablism" and the breakbeat was DJ Kool Herc, who used two copies of the same record and a crossfader to create long looped instrumental sections, over which you could rap or scratch. It was soon picked up by other DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, leading to the hip-hop genre.

I'd second Leo Fender and Les Paul for their technical innovations, and I'd also include Paul Bigsby in that group as another potential "father" of the solidbodied electric guitar. Musically, I'd have to say Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker, who pioneered the use of amplified electric guitars in jazz and blues, respectively.

callmejay

Yeah, not the biggest, but dammit, somebody's gotta use the name Hendrix in this thread.

Howard

Madonna. She showed that in the music business, image and self-promotion are far more important than talent and creativity.

Bad Religion

I am going to have to nominate Charlie Christian. To quote Brian Setzer " The man single-handedly invented bebop, which is the backbone of modern music." And BB King says " I don't think there has been a guitar player who has come along after him in the field of Jazz, Blues, or Rock that hasn't been influenced in some way by the genius of Charlie Christian."

Plus, he has that "past shrouded in myth, leading to a short brilliant carrer followed by death at a young age " vibe like Robert Johnson, and Jimi Hendrix (wow, also kind of like that Jesus character too ), which seems to add to his stature.

I would also have to nominate Willie Dixon. He is the greatest blues songwriter of all time. Which of course, spawned Rock and Roll. His songs made Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton a whole ton of cash. And as Muddy Waters says....the Blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll.

Sakpo

Interesting PDF format article on post WW2/bebop jazz innovators (by no means complete, of course): www.ipsonet.org/congress/5/papers_pdf/rhz.pdf

By the way, speaking of pre bop jazz, forget Gershwin. Jazz didn't need some white guy with a complusion causing him to write music down to be "respectable." And Gershwin didn't make any major musical innovations that helped propel jazz into the realm of serious, complex music.

Charlie Christian really did lay the groundwork for all electric guitar playing since his time, and for bebop. T Bone Walker did a hell of a lot for early electric blues.
Wes Montgomery deserves full credit for continuing the work of Christian in terms of jazz guitar.

Les Paul might not have exactly invented the electric guitar, but his work on building the electric guitar made it a viable instrument, and that of course made the guitar an important instrument in bands (since single notes coukld now be heard once they were amplified).

Hendrix isn't #1 by any means, but he did change electric guitar music forever. He was a real innovator and a great musician. He would have done so much more if he'd not died when he did.

I don't think there is a #1 per se anyway. Lots of great musicians and composers did great things in the 20th century.

Jimmy Higgins

Don't know if this has been brought up, its more of a thing that person.

1) 2 channel sound (stereo is 2 channel right?)

2) Longer songs (ie not 3 minutes = epic anymore). I know Yes probably wasn't the first (though became the master), but I remember in a Doc that Pete Townshend was mentioning that their agent or record producer told him to make a 6 to 10 minute song. Such an idea at the time was nuts, thought Townshend. But, A Quick One was born from it.

VonEvilstein

Jim Marshall, without whom, guitars would just not sound right.

Hawkingfan

I agree. And who's to say that "classical" music is more "serious" than non-classical? I think Gershwin took away the "serious" quality of jazz. Since jazz is a musical tradition rooted in slavery, I'd say it's pretty "serious" to begin with.
In fact, I think Miles Davis and others improved on Gershwin's music.
Gershwin is really a trivial composer anyway. The only people who would agree that he has contributed anything with worth to classical music would be Americans. The rest of the world criticize his music. American composers are generally looked down upon by English and other Europeans, but there are a few American composers who are recognized by contributing great music to "classical literature" even while maintaing an "American" sound. Copland and Bernstein would not fall under this category. The most respected I would say would be the genius Elliot Carter.

Opera Nut

My random thoughts:

If somebody wants to throw nationalistic stones, we could comment on the dearth of great english composers between Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten.

Okay, let's throw in Delius and Gustav Holst for the Planets, before Britten got going.
And the Elgar Cello Concerto.

In high school I played the Simple Symphony by Britten. He wrote it from sketches as a kid of 12 or 14 or so. The simple symphony is not simple, and it is a great piece of music. And I wasn't much older than 12 at the time myself.

Britten was the baby Mozart of England

Back to America: I'll throw in a vote for the Howard Roberts/Wes Montgomery/Pat Metheny line on jazz guitar.

Art Tatum as monster genius improvisator on piano.

Gershwin's pop music is quite complex harmonically. Now as far as whether it was original or just popularized from jazz/black music, I don't know.

Biggest contribution to Pop Music: THE BEATLES.

They took Chuck Berry, etal. and transformed it into a NEW sound.

I remember when the Beatles hit in 1964. I was nine. It was a huge cultural change. It completely rocked our world. They came up with a whole new sound, and they evolved and grew musically and were terribly original.

to me they established the canonical rock and roll sound. Elvis was just workin' on it. Thru Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers taking country and rockabilly further, the Beatles made the break thru to true rock and roll sound.


As far as classical, I would say Stravinsky, like Missus Gumby. Definitely incredibly innovative.
But hey, in the 1960s the Houston Symphony was afraid to play Carl Nielsen and Mahler -- believe it or not!!