[sonci]

It would be better to ask, What is the most influent musician of your life, that would be easier to answer; for me Pink Floyd

 

[krmathis]

Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, ...

 

[miscreant]

the 1st position chords on guitar are the most influential bits of music.

edit: so the guy that invented 6-string guitar with the standard tuning is the most influential musician. who is he?

 

[john53]

Kraftwerk,J.M.Jarre,G.Moroder,Vangelis were some artists that influenced the electronic music of the next years.And of course classic 70's disco,electro pop,euro/italo disco of the 80's had influenced the dance music we are listening today.

 

[Bender Rodriguez]

Bobs Dylan and Marley, J.S. Bach, Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix. BTW, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc are all groups, not individual musicians, as that is what I interpret to be the intent of the OP and why he said musician, not musicians or groups.

 

[Henry Flower]

'Most influential musician of all time' is a term which cries out for a sense of perspective. Anyone from your own culture and era is highly unlikely to fit the bill.

 

[elbuzzard]

African Slaves invented Rock and Roll.

 

[DavidMahler]

Guido d'Arezzo - inventor of modern music notation

 

[THAY BRAN]

I personally dont think that MJ was that influential as a Musician ( did he play an instrument? ) He was definitely one of if not the best performance artist of recent times.

PRINCE , HENDRIX , LEDZEP , MARVIN GAYE , PINK FLOYD, KRAFTWERK, BOWIE , MILES DAVIES to name a few.

 

[dallan]

Grateful Dead-Jam bands

 

[Laokid18]

for me Joe Strummer.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laokid18 /img/forum/go_quote.gif for me Joe Strummer.

I loved the Clash, and have posted extensively about my experiences of them live. They were great. He was great (Especially Earthquake Weather.)

But come on! The most influential musician of all time? That seems excessive to me. I remember hearing and reading interviews in which he seemed more interested in discussing the musicians who had influenced him, rather than holding forth on his own importance.

I think this thread, while interesting, poses an essentially unanswerable question. How does one make an apples-to-apples comparison among geniuses like Bob Marley, J.S. Bach, Bob Dylan, Fela Kuti, Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, Arnold Shoenberg, and Aretha Franklin? I don't really think it can be done, and the above is just a very short list of the possible candidates.

Perhaps it would be possible to list the members of a top tier, but I would have trouble limiting that list to 50 names. Never mind just one.

We all have our personal favorites, no doubt, but I think the universe of great music is too rich and varied to allow for the designation of a single "most influential" musician of all time.

But it has certainly been interesting to see the names that have come up in the course of this thread.

 

[minimus]

By genres that I know something about
Jazz: Louis Armstrong
Rock: Muddy Waters
Pop: Brian Wilson

They were influential, in that other musicians followed in their tracks.

 

[scytheavatar]

Those mentioning MJ need to realize first that music as a whole stopped developing after the 70's, so pretty much any of the 80's/90's/00's musician can't be considered influential in any shape or form.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scytheavatar /img/forum/go_quote.gif Those mentioning MJ need to realize first that music as a whole stopped developing after the 70's, so pretty much any of the 80's/90's/00's musician can't be considered influential in any shape or form.

I think you are going to take a LOT of heat from that statement. Where do all of the incarnations of Death Metal factor into this assertion? While I may agree with you if you aimed at U.S. radio music, I think music as a whole is still evolving.