First we start with mandolin champion Bill Monroe. Dude took some fine mountain music and forged it into a musicians banquet that remains misunderstood to this day. Thank you for Bluegrass Bill! How can you not induct the author of a genre? Stanley, Flatt, Scruggs, Stringbean, Martin- you can get a Hall of Fame just out of the man's band.
A few tracks to help you along with your voting: (If Kara had these same efforts I apologize.)
It's the 1950 induction so let's start with a 1950 composition, Uncle Pen:
And 3 more to prove the point:
Another essential, an undeniable Punk, Woody Guthrie. A quote I couldn't remember so I stole from Wiki's write up, but it tells the tale of what we are about in this group. "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
Sure everyone uses this picture, but that won't stop me, because it demonstrates the passion he had. He was a song writer in a way that influenced the whole idea of 'song writer'. Dylan, Strummer, whomever. If they were songwriters they probably owe Woody. Except I don't expect he'd be interested in anything beyond the fact that they became great song writers too. A few tracks to remind you of what you probably already know:
We Shall Be Free (With Lead Belly?!)
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| With Lead Belly! |
That last song brings us to Lead Belly of course, who wasn't as much a no brainer to me as the first two but I'm comfortable with his inclusion. Some find his songs as too often romanticizing American apartheid to which I must completely disagree. I won't get into that here, I'll just offer up the music. Who says you can't learn anything constructive in prison?
Robert Johnson is my next choice.
Probably not a great one in terms of catalog but in terms of influence? So what if you can quibble with their overall grasp of the overall, damn near everyone who played guitar for a few decades claimed Johnson as an influence. The fact that we have so little quality left is not proof that he shouldn't be here, in fact the fact that he still reaches so far into the future might be proof that he just may have had something. I'll let you decide:
Oh my. This means I have one more choice and that's it. Was I right? i'll only know after I've read everyone else's choices. I can be swayed. But I am missing Jazz. Jazz. I can't overlook jazz, but Bird, Louis, Benny, Dizzy, so many. I have decided to settle with Duke.
I'm pretty sure everyone played with him and I know he wrote 2 billion songs, so I stick with it until the rest of you prove another gets the nod. Here's a few to sift through:
Right or wrong I think these all deserve to get in. 1950 or 2011- I think we have some winners here!
Great job Dave, I had everyone on your list too! Like what you said about Johnson...good stuff, I am getting a thrill out of peoples take on musicians that I was going to list and the perspective is quite unique from my own view...this is going to be a wondrous blog!
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