Why So Many Talented Musicians Never Make It Big

[Hep To The Jive]

I love you, man, but this is a bit much. It's like saying the Beatles weren't noteworthy until after their long stint in Hamburg strip clubs, so they're really German. Nonsense. The greatest early influences on Jimi's music were American---in his own words, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, BB King, Albert King. Lot of Curtis Mayfield too, and Ike Turner too. His stint with The Isley Brothers (and several other R&B bands) cast a long shadow over his later output.

In your sense of the term, Jimi was never a "Rock" guitar player. And good for him!

I think this is where you and I differ. (Which is fine. To each his own.) I'm more of a rock'n'roll guy. (Than a rock guy, I mean. I don't listen to either one very much.) I can still enjoy the Stones but I don't care if I ever hear Zep, Deep Purple, or Black Sabbath again. (And I loved 'em all as a teenager.) It's funny but I think AC/DC is a better, um, balls out rock band than any of those three were. Maybe Australia is where rock REALLY got it right. ;o) Seriously, I will still listen to "Back in Black".

As much as I tried to cop licks from Page and Blackmore as a teen, I think David Gilmour's solo on "Time" is better than any solo they ever played. (And it is end-to-end American blues licks, brilliantly spaced and voiced.)

And a lot of it has to do with what the drummers do. Charlie Watts in the Stones can actually play a good rockin' beat. And the Stones are the most relentlessly American sounding of those British rock bands you mentioned above.

I think an unfortunate thing happened in America when a lot of up and coming bands here were influenced by British bands who could be very loud and some fun but really couldn't groove. (Traffic and Pink Floyd could---curiously, they don't "rock" like Zep, Purple, Sabbath, Nazareth, Uriah Heep. Hhm...) There's always been a lot of room for groove in good American music, from gospel to soul to blues to R&B to funk to swamp rock, even good rockabilly and punk like The Cramps. (The good, early Cramps---"Goo Goo Muck" with that "Get Off My Cloud" drum beat---not the sh*t with a thudding bass and drum blasts that came later and sucked.)

No stodgy beats here! (I'm in a Ray Charles mood tonight.)

Dude, if you dig ACDC, we are cool, no questions asked. They are more important to me than all other bands too.

Second, the guys who influenced Jimi all great in my book, that's the original rocknroll and blues that are my inspiration.

What I was talking about are white Amteican bands in the 60s and early 70s that have nothing to do with either rock or rocknroll. Im sorry, its just the truth. Read what Christian said, he said it better than me.

In the end, it's all taste indeed. But I specified the time frame. Starting from late 70s and on American rock was the strongest in then world: Van Halen, Metallica etc. Nobody could match that!

[Ol' Fret]

The short explanation is:
Talent and ability play a lesser role in the success of an artist than the right network.


We also know that from many other professions.

To scientifically quantify such a network is not easy, but there are approaches to this: Quantifying reputation and success in art | Science

[christianm77]

The fact is nobody wanted to know Jimi before he went to England. In American musical climate back then nobody knew how to rock either, it's not an accident he found the right bandmates in England. True, he moved to more R&B style in the end, with American rhythm section, but I personally liked it less. It was more, well, R&B and funk and jamming then hard rock. So Noel and Mitch gave the band that special sauce I prefered.

Miles said the Experience always played a bit hillbilly lol.

But it was much more of a swinging london/early rock vibe with Noel and Mitch.

[Jonah]

yeh... and this mercy beat .. steady.. definite... inevitable.. as mercy-side dockers after the game where Liverpool lost to Manchester.



)))
For me British rock is much about originals, every band invents its own world, they represent themselves only

American music is built on interpretations.... they represent American musical world


The Beatles is an interesting example - I was a big fanas a kid... especially of Lennon..

I noticed that McCartney's tunes are covered by jazz players much more often than Lennon's (except Friesell's meditations)
To me it is because Paul thinks much in the vein of American songbook composers... his use of harmonies and gift of melody is fantastic but it is conventional.

Lennon's tunes seem much simpler but they are often unpredictable and it is difficult to interprete them freely with conventional means becasue they just lose their indentity.

In some sense it is the realtion between English and American rock music.

[JaxJaxon]

Is this thread still why are many talented musicans never make it big. Some of them Get Black listed for upsetting corporate ways,Or being to hard to work with in a Studio,never on time, never ready, to pickey. as far as How I determine a great musician its all about the innovation and new style they bring to music.

[Drumbler]

The fact is nobody wanted to know Jimi before he went to England. In American musical climate back then nobody knew how to rock either, it's not an accident he found the right bandmates in England. True, he moved to more R&B style in the end, with American rhythm section, but I personally liked it less. It was more, well, R&B and funk and jamming then hard rock. So Noel and Mitch gave the band that special sauce I prefered.

Chuck Berry, Elvis and others invented rock n' roll way before Hendrix came along.

The Beatles covered many of Berry's songs.

[ragman1]

You could argue that the guy who came up with that riff was Peppermint Harris. He wrote the tune, "As The Years Go Passing By", first recorded by Fenton Robinson and made famous by Albert King. Full marks to Duane for taking the opening vocal melody, ("There is nothing I can do..."), kicking it up a gear and placing it on a fretboard (or six, if you count all the overdubs).

There is nothing I can do... Dammit, that's almost a court case! :-)

[ragman1]

Also, of course, they may have absolutely no interest in 'making it big'. They're quite happy in their garden shed doodling about.

Mind you, I suppose the world would be a poorer place if Beethoven had stayed in his garden shed and nobody ever heard from him... so horses for courses, I guess.