Just picking five is so difficult but.... I love melodic music and harmonies and have always been attracted to those sorts of artists and writers. In no particular order, here are 5 of the most influential artists in my musical growth through the years.
The Beatles: Great songwriters and performers who were all about the music. They influenced me to want to play guitar and write music. Their music has a certain innocence that we don't see in today's music very often.
The Eagles: Extraordinary songwriters and amazing vocal work. They have always been one of my favorite bands for those reasons from their first album to them most recent work. Their harmony has always been amazingly good.
Neil Young: A prolific writer who loved harmony. He influenced me greatly in my early years of playing guitar and playing music. There was so much about him that I liked. Many of the early bands I played in covered his music. His unique style and approach to music stick with me to this day and influence how I look at music.
Deep Purple: The original hard rock band with Richie Blackmore on guitar is hard to beat. Again, great talent and guitarist as well as writing. And of course they rock hard and with so much energy. Loved their early stuff.... Smoke on the Water, Fireball, Highway Star and of course Lazy..... you owe it to yourself to listen to those songs if you don't know this band that was one of the founders of hard rock as we know it today. The Machine Head album is a classic especially considering how it was recorded and where.
Led Zepplin: Another rock band that wasn't content to just rock. Amazing songwriting ... listen to all their albums.... from the early blues to the Houses of the Holy...... and more. Of course their iconic rock ballad Stairway to Heaven still tops the lists they do yearly of the best rock songs of all times.
I could list many more but if I had to choose albums from only 5 artists to take with me to a desert island .... these would be the artists I'd have in the suitcase.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Glenn Miller Band - I just think he embodies the big band era
Billy Joel - more wonderful original songs than you can shake a stick at
Little River Band - oh those harmonies
Burton Cummings - both with The Guess Who and solo artist. I love the sound of his voice and his piano style.
Maynard Ferguson - from his early days to the more pop oriented songs, have always enjoyed his music, but also the music of his various band members along the way (I think I'm probably one of two people that bought Stan Mark's album).
That's a really strong list, even if a little eclectic! Really awesome to see why you chose them. Thanks for sharing that with us.
All of these were back in my greaser days and prior to my hippy, jazz and new age days!
Greaser days, haha! The artists you mentioned I think are excellent choices. It's cool to hear how many people here have shifted and changed and yet some of their oldest favourites are still their favourites today!
After thinking about this, I decided to change my post.
I listen to all different kinds of music, from 3 chord blues/rock/country to symphonies to "foreign" (to me) and I have many hundreds of CDs and LPs.
And after thinking about this for a while I realized that the most difficult thing to compose must be a great symphony. Establishing themes, developing the themes, and coming out with a work that lasts hundreds of years is a feat most mere mortals cannot do.
1) Antonin Dvorak. I played his 9th symphony in a symphonic band, wore out an LP or two and had a few CDs. One day after hundreds and hundreds of listening I recognized a spot in the fourth movement where he combined big fragments from the major themes of all four movements and combined them into one part using the fragments as melody, countermelody and foundation. Eargazm!!!
2) Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky because he has such a great sense of melody and wove such wonderful parts under them. "Romeo & Juliet", "6th Symphony", and so many others, extremely emotional and even when sad the beauty of the melodies soar above the sadness
3) Sergei Prokofiev. His symphonies are wonderful, but his ballet suites like "Stone Flower" and his take on "Romeo and Juliet" never fail to give me chills. Also his intelligent use of dissonance always sounds like it belongs and was never just stuck in there because he could
4) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov If he had written nothing else other than the "Russian Easter Overture" and "Capriccio Espagnol" it would have been more than enough, but there is so much more
5) Dmitri Shostakovich one of the most prolific symphony composers and he created so many different worlds with them
For those familiar, I like the dark, brooding "blues" end of the classical spectrum.
Runners up would be Josef Suk, Manuel de Falla, Camille Saint-Saëns, Ottorino Respighi, Leos Janacek, and a few others that will pop into my head as soon as I hit submit.
Now I don't want to dis Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck, k.d.lang, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Terry Kath, Otis Redding or any other pop stars, but what the symphony people can do is definitely super-human to the highest degree.
Just picking five is so difficult but.... I love melodic music and harmonies and have always been attracted to those sorts of artists and writers. In no particular order, here are 5 of the most influential artists in my musical growth through the years.
The Beatles: Great songwriters and performers who were all about the music. They influenced me to want to play guitar and write music. Their music has a certain innocence that we don't see in today's music very often.
The Eagles: Extraordinary songwriters and amazing vocal work. They have always been one of my favorite bands for those reasons from their first album to them most recent work. Their harmony has always been amazingly good.
Neil Young: A prolific writer who loved harmony. He influenced me greatly in my early years of playing guitar and playing music. There was so much about him that I liked. Many of the early bands I played in covered his music. His unique style and approach to music stick with me to this day and influence how I look at music.
Deep Purple: The original hard rock band with Richie Blackmore on guitar is hard to beat. Again, great talent and guitarist as well as writing. And of course they rock hard and with so much energy. Loved their early stuff.... Smoke on the Water, Fireball, Highway Star and of course Lazy..... you owe it to yourself to listen to those songs if you don't know this band that was one of the founders of hard rock as we know it today. The Machine Head album is a classic especially considering how it was recorded and where.
Led Zepplin: Another rock band that wasn't content to just rock. Amazing songwriting ... listen to all their albums.... from the early blues to the Houses of the Holy...... and more. Of course their iconic rock ballad Stairway to Heaven still tops the lists they do yearly of the best rock songs of all times.
I could list many more but if I had to choose albums from only 5 artists to take with me to a desert island .... these would be the artists I'd have in the suitcase.
You have some reaaally great choices here! But I agree, picking just five was really hard. I did not enjoy trying to pick my own.
I enjoyed reading both of your lists, but I especially loved the reasoning behind your latest choices! Thanks for taking the time to come back and make another comment on the thread! I love seeing how much thought everyone puts in to their lists!
I predict the replies on this thread will be quite generational.
My list is surprisingly close to yours. There are a few others but I'll stick to (5).
Chicago Doobie Brothers Styx Alan Parsons Steely Dan
In all my subjectivity, all reflect great song writing & vocals, genuinely original and highly respectable musicianship and great songs to play guitar to. They are my favs and heavily influenced my music preferences over the decades. For the record, NO.....I don't think my song writing is of any similar quality or appeal as the ones I mention above.
Part of this, Ember, is how you define "artist". Most of us here focus on the writing side, with the rare exceptions who have great voices or are strong players. So when you get down to creativity vs performance, these lists can change quickly.
Personal perception of the artists enters into it too. As much as I admit to the performance level of Michael Jackson, I refuse to listen to anything he ever did due to his personal life choices. I once had a band ask me to play keyboards for them. They had 4 of Jackson's songs on their "will play" list. I told them that I refuse to do his songs, because that was paying homage to someone I have a deep revulsion toward. They refused to drop the songs. I declined the invitation to join.
That's just my example of how perceptions play into this as well as generation.
I enjoyed reading both of your lists, but I especially loved the reasoning behind your latest choices! Thanks for taking the time to come back and make another comment on the thread! I love seeing how much thought everyone puts in to their lists!
Thanks Ember.
BTW I forgot the name of my number 1 choice, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. I guess I got too involved in the reasoning
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I love seeing how much thought everyone puts in to their lists!
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