Who is the greatest musician of all time

Henry Nagle · Post by **Henry Nagle** » 25 Jan 2005 11:05 pm

This is kind of fun. I am enjoying myself, but best musician on earth? We might as well vote for prettiest snowflake. Unfortunately I live in California and I don't see a lot of snow.
What about Lemmy from Motorhead? Now that guy can play!

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 26 Jan 2005 12:03 am

Clearly Bach and then Motzart.
Their works have been passed down orally and on paper for hudreds of years and are still a major teaching form.

Bach invented boogie woogie, the classic blues / rock bass line,
and completed the cycle of the musical form of his time.
If instruments had developed far enough, he would have gone farther.

Motzart had some what more more advanced instruments,
but died too young to really have surpassed Bach in output.
But he went much farther in structure, and set new organizational forms,
plus was a serious improvisor as was Bach.

Franz Liszt was the 1st widely aclaimed "International Music Star", at a time when only news papers, printed materials and live concerts were the only way to be known.

He had the benifit of a true advance in the piano.
The Erhardt action allowed him to move to new levels of technique,
so he could also in his writing.
He gigged with 4-5 pianos, because he broke 5-10 strings per performance... a real dynamic player!

He then retired from performance at age 35, and he became
a full time composer and teacher, and pushed the enevelope even more.
His Trancendental Etudes are only for the most advanced pianists, and his orchestral colorations set the stage for many modern composers.

The beboppers like Miles, Coletrain and Parker, did move theory ahead,
but not as much as the 3 above.
These guys were serious small form composers and improvisers, but not on the orchestral scale. They hired arrangers to do their larger orchestrations.

Bach, Motzart and Liszt did it all themselves, and were serious ear improvisors to boot.
I have no doubts sitting them at a piano with any bebopers,
these cats could have played right along, ears WIDE open.
[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 26 January 2005 at 12:42 AM.]

Rick Garrett · Post by **Rick Garrett** » 26 Jan 2005 1:19 am

Michael Jackson??

HA!!

I heard the news channel refer to him as a "Musician" the other day and almost threw up.

Paul Mc Cartney is a good choice.

Rick

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 26 Jan 2005 2:12 am

Millie and Vanillie..

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 26 Jan 2005 4:02 am

Pheobe from Friends... Her song "Smelly Cat" certainly ranks her high up among the greatest musicians that ever lived....

Roger Kelly · Post by **Roger Kelly** » 26 Jan 2005 4:41 am

Elvis....Who else?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 26 Jan 2005 6:15 am

I gotta go with Bach too. I think Beethoven did a better job of cranking it along further than Mozart, but that's just opinion - Mozart sounds kind of poofty and over-mannered to me, but he was a victim of his times, you know? Bach was the man. Play a single page of the sheet music for his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and you'll have enough melodic ideas to last you a week. And there's a lot of pages.

Jimmie Misenheimer · Post by **Jimmie Misenheimer** » 26 Jan 2005 6:19 am

We talkin' Union or Non-Union here?? Jimmie

Bob Doran · Post by **Bob Doran** » 26 Jan 2005 6:29 am

Interesting responses.
It seems many feel you can't choose a "best musician" as it is too subjective.
Others did make a choice and made valid points for their opinion.
Sounds like Bach was the winner.
I do think the opinion of a large group such as this will arrive at the best answer possible.
And it does seem like an answerable question.
Just like who was the greatest/smartest scientist of all time.
That is easy, IMO, Einstein or Newton.
Just ask the scientists.
Bob

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 26 Jan 2005 7:23 am

Alan Parsons, he was able to play all those instruments at the same time

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 26 Jan 2005 7:35 am

Think about McCartney for a moment...

1) THE classic rock and roll voice for the last 40 years.
2) His innovative bass playing shaped rock bass and changed the way bass and bassists are viewed by musicians and the public.
3) A DARN good guitar player.
4) Functioned as the musical director of the Beatles. Called the shots onstage, counted the tunes, rehearsed the band.
5) Wrote a catalog of tunes (with and without Lennon) that will stand up against anyone's songs...(sure, he wrote some trite stuff, too... but think about "Yesterday", "The Long and Winding Road" "Let Me Roll It", "Hello Goodbye", "Penny Lane," (George Martin credits Paul for that piccolo trpt. solo), "My Love", etc., etc. I could go on and on.
6) The quintessential live performer. No one better. He loves to entertain.
7) He's even written some symphonic music. It hasn't been well-received by the critics, but the fact that he had the guts to try (with no formal education) says a lot.

He even had the good sense to use pedal steel on some tracks.

McCartney certainly stands on the shoulders of Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and all the other greats (as we all do)... but history will remember him as (at least) equal to them. At any rate, he's at the top of my list.

Rick[This message was edited by Rick McDuffie on 26 January 2005 at 08:12 AM.]

Dave Zirbel · Post by **Dave Zirbel** » 26 Jan 2005 7:51 am

I never actually never heard Bach or Mozart play. Aren't these guys from the 17th or 18th century?

I wasn't around back then to hear them play.

[This message was edited by Dave Zirbel on 26 January 2005 at 08:16 AM.]

Savell · Post by **Savell** » 26 Jan 2005 8:07 am

.[This message was edited by Savell on 29 May 2005 at 07:04 PM.]

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 26 Jan 2005 8:08 am

Da Bears.

Bobby Bowman · Post by **Bobby Bowman** » 26 Jan 2005 8:09 am

I think it is a matter of personal taste. Your answer should be based on "what/who turns your crank the best" and gives you the most pleasure when listening to his/her performance. For me it's none other than BUDDY EMMONS!!!! After all, I am a steel guitar player, this is a steel guitar forum and although there are a lot of other steel guitar players that are truely great, as well as a gigantic multitude of other musicians in all fields of music, for all of time, that can be considered as great, none have been so dear to me personally as Buddy Emmons. He is my benchmark of musical excellence. Besides all that,,,I just like the guy.

!
BB
BTW,,,,Happy Birthday to Buddy Gene tomorrow, the 27'th.

------------------
If you play 'em, play 'em good!
If you build 'em, build 'em good!

[This message was edited by Bobby Bowman on 26 January 2005 at 08:25 AM.]

Rick McDuffie · Post by **Rick McDuffie** » 26 Jan 2005 8:13 am

I hope Paul will read this and call me.

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 26 Jan 2005 8:47 am

Pete Best.

Earl Yarbro · Post by **Earl Yarbro** » 26 Jan 2005 9:48 am

Binggg Crosby

Roy Ayres · Post by **Roy Ayres** » 26 Jan 2005 9:58 am

Pete Rugulo -- who wrote all of those great arrangements for Stan Kenton.

------------------
Visit my Web Site at RoysFootprints.com
Browse my Photo Album and be sure to sign my Guest Book.

Terry Edwards · Post by **Terry Edwards** » 26 Jan 2005 10:02 am

I once heard Steve Martin sing and play a slide ukelele blues song on live TV using a plastic baby bottle as a slide bar.

You have to be the best musician in the world to pull that off.

End of discussion!

Terry

Brian Henry · Post by **Brian Henry** » 26 Jan 2005 10:04 am

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Thomas Bancroft · Post by **Thomas Bancroft** » 26 Jan 2005 10:22 am

McCartney was my favorite Beatle and a hell of a musician. But I always tell people that the best I've ever seen was Ihtzak Pearlman who can play just about any classical piece from memory and with feeling. He is really "playing" with the violin. Or maybe Rashan Roland Kirk. Three saxophones at once with whistles stuffed up his nose! I get short of breath just thinking about that guy![This message was edited by Thomas Bancroft on 26 January 2005 at 10:25 AM.]

Dave Zirbel · Post by **Dave Zirbel** » 26 Jan 2005 10:40 am

Ravi Shankar is pretty phenominal.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 26 Jan 2005 11:32 am

I suspect Buddy Emmons would say he listens to classical to learn something there.
He has taken the time to learn and record some classical.

My criteria is :

Known to play extraordinarily well on several instruments

Compose astoundingly for most all instruments of his day,
and have a functional ability to play on them also

Was subsidized by both the church and the powers that be King Duke etc.
Dance popular in its day,
processionals for state occasions,
litugical music of the highest order written ever week for decades

Left a body of work amazing for that time period

That body of work is still studied today, and is still amazing, It is studied by players of instruments that DIDN'T EXIST at the time it was written.

200+ year old instruments are maintained at exorbitant costs JUST to play this music in a proper setting ( church organs)

Is the basis and still has resonance with many musical styles, not yet invented at the time.

Will cause individuals to spend their ENTIRE LIFE trying to just play this well even in part.

BACH, certainly shines above all other heads INHO

I love McCartney, he was great, I have the complete Beatles collection.
But Geroge Martin was the classical mind behind Paul's ideas, and did the arranging of the classical elements. Yes later Paul did try his hand at clasical arranging. But no one will study it in 300 years.
Paul's SONG crafating is up there with the best no question!

I also. like Beethoven, I have played his 9th symphony with 90 singers and 70 players. He is ceretainly in the running, but was less a player and more a composer, though he ceretainly DID play fabulously

Motzart was a super player, and did church music and Opera beuf for the common people,
all the required music for hire by the Dukes, and many experimental works that moved things forward.
If he had but lived to 70 years, k who knows what he might have left us.

One person Jim sent me an email stating King David was the greatest : The text >
******************************
with all due respect---King David (your namesake, no doubt) has to
have been the best because the Good Lord included his songs, along with
several other musicians songs in the Book of Psaims. the Scriptures,
themselves, speak of him as being "the sweet singer of Israel" plus
inventing, building, & playing musical instruments. may the Good Lord
bless & keep You
---jim---
**************************
I couldn't replay the return address wasn't working I replied

I am sure he was good, and noteworthy,
but "Kings" do get better press than most musicians in the bible and other places too.

Bach's majority of music was liturgical, he wrote more church music than most any one.

Motzart also did amazing church music too. His Requiem is a classic,
and he wrote lots of organ music.
I think God was clearly smiling on both these great men.

Also, I have no memory of any musical notation in the Psalms.
So certainly King David was an eloquent lyricist and his sense of meter was sure, but no musical refrences are there... to my knowlege.

Bach was hired to put MANY of the Psalms to music,
and most churches seem to STILL use many of his arrangments on King David's texts.

Not trying to besmirch King David's work in any way.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 26 Jan 2005 12:52 pm

There's a famous quote from some conductor (forget who). Someone asked him what he thought of Wagner. He said, "Wagner is next to God." They asked, "What about Beethoven?" And he said, "Beethoven was God."

Nevertheless, I would have to agree with all the above about Bach. A multiple console organ, with foot pedals and many stops, is the most complicated instrument to play. And Bach played the most complicated music on it, both prearranged and improv. And he wrote for full orchestras or any single instrument. And he left a body of compositions unequaled since.

Mozart and Beethoven come in close seconds. Mozart toured Europe as a child prodigy, then matured into a great composer of some of the most beautiful simple tunes (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the middle movement of the clarinet concerto in A - the most gorgeous simple scale melody you'll ever hear), and the most complex symphonic pieces (the late symphonies), and the most popular Operas of all time. (David Mason, yeah a lot of it was kind of prissy and stylized, but the late symphonies and operas are more Beethovenesque, and in fact got Beethoven started in the stormy direction he took.)

Beethoven's odd numbered symphonies are more emotionally moving than Bach or Mozart. But his talent was not as expansive over all instruments and genres the way Mozart and Bach were. Likewise for Wagner.

I know those are all classical musicians, but in my experience classical music takes more practice, skill, brain power, concentration and endurance than any other genre. Unlike popular genres and jazz, classical pieces consist of very long non-repeating passages, and any repeats are often not exact repeats. I can't imagine any mental feat more difficult than memorizing a long piano concerto, and playing it note for note, without a noticable mistake. And writing complex symphonic pieces and operas that last through the ages requires the same kind of super rare genius we see in Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

Of course I love popular music genres just as much, and play and listen to them more. But the genius in these forms lies in the musical ideas and emotions, not the skill level. On the other hand, I did see Rhasan Roland Kirk once play multiple saxes, nose flute, etc. And while he was playing, he systematically tore up the folding chair he was sitting on - and it fit with the timing and emotions of the music. And he was blind. But Paul McCarthy - give me a break. I'd put Hank Sr., Elvis and BB King ahead of him easy. [This message was edited by David Doggett on 26 January 2005 at 12:59 PM.]