Dylan in America

I get a lot of unsolicited posts on facebook that are music related.  Most of these posts I scroll past.  However, this morning was a list of 25 best albums from 1994 by Radio X.  It was the era of grunge, so those albums topped the list.  Not that I didn't like some of these albums, but I didn't see any of my favorite albums on there so I added Tom Petty's Wildflowers, Black Crowes' Amorica, Dave Matthews Band's Under the Table and Dreaming and Rusted Root's When I Woke.  There was music other than Grunge and Electronica.  For me, the 90s was the return of jam bands.  Widespread Panic was another one of my favorite bands from the era but they didn't release an album in 1994.  Although I should have added Phish's Hoist.

I've only recently discovered Radiohead.  I found out about them through one of these unsolicited posts.  They straddled 1994 with Pablo Honey and OK Computer, which explains why they weren't on that list.  Musically, I like them a lot but not a big fan of Thom Yorke's voice.  He has a tinny sound that I get tired of listening to pretty quickly.  Nevertheless, they are a very influential band to read these rave reviews. 

Sadly, most of the music posts are about one famous musician dissing another.  Keith Richards likes to sound off on the blokes he didn't like, but what got me was how he so poorly characterized Jimi Hendrix.  Keith lumped Jimi's music into the psychedelia of the times, oblivious to the fact that Jimi never considered himself psychedelic.  Keith thought Jimi was at the end of his rope when he shockingly died in 1970.  People give some cred to Keith's comments because they knew each other and he once lent Jimi a guitar, but I don't think Keith really knew Jimi.  

Mostly these posts are designed to generate hits.  The writers know that disgruntled readers will respond and so they can boost their ad revenue.  Most of these "magazines" are purely online creations.  What irks me the most is this constant adoration of The Beatles as if they were the greatest band the world has ever seen.  It's not enough to praise their music but their musicianship as well.  The other day I saw a post where John Paul Jones was extolling the prowess of Paul McCartney's bass playing.  The funny part is that Jones was noting how much Paul had improved since leaving The Beatles.  People forget that this band only clung together for 10 years, after which they went their separate ways.

Musically, they were just boys.  None of them were on the same musical level as contemporary bands like The Kinks, The Yardbirds or even The Rolling Stones.  As far as harmonies go, they were second rate as well.  They didn't reshape music so much as they redefined pop music.  They showed that you could make any folk or rock song into a pop hit by dumbing it down to its essential chords and lyrics.  This is apparently what attracted Dave Crosby, Roger McGuinn and a host of others to them. They wanted to get their music on the airwaves.  The Byrds succeeded with Mr. Tambourine Man, which they took from Bob Dylan.  

It is useless pointing this out in these posts, as I am soon assaulted by other commentators.  No one disses The Beatles!  Still, it galls me to see Ringo Starr listed as one of the greatest drummers of all time.  Rolling Stone has Ringo ahead of Buddy Rich, if you can imagine that.

Any rock or pop musician worth his salt knows that the jazz drummers were the best.  Not only did they create the template, they excelled beyond measure.  Charlie Watts recognized this.  His personal list of greatest drummers is almost entirely jazz drummers.  He loved nothing more than playing jazz standards in a big band he created when he wasn't keeping time for the Stones.  Yet, only a handful of these great drummers make the Rolling Stone list.

Even when it came to playing the guitar, Duane Allman once famously said that he wanted Dickie and himself to sound like John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on stage, trading licks as they jammed to Blue Sky and Whipping Post.  The two jazz giants played together in Miles Davis' Quintet, trading sax solos on All Blues, with Miles' plaintive trumpet rolling in so soft and sweet.  Coltrane was a personal hero to Duane.  He even tried his hand at My Favorite Things in a 1963 studio recording.  Yet, I hear nary a mention of this in these musical posts that keep popping up on my timeline.

It's like rock and roll magically emerged out of some musical void.  Nothing existed before or after that could match it, to look at many of these lists.  Oh sure, these lists pay deference to Blues legends like Muddy Waters and B.B. King, as their jukebox heroes note them as their heroes.  But, for the most part these Blues and Jazz legends are treated like crazy uncles at Thanksgiving dinner.  Yet, here is Jeff Beck playing a few licks from Goodbye Pork Pie before drifting into a Blues number, Mingus being one of his favorites.  Unlike those who write these articles, the artists themselves dug deep into Blues and Jazz to find their unique musical take.

That's the way it has always been with music.  I liked the way Dexter Gordon phrased it in the French movie Round Midnight.  He was an old man at this point but could still blow a pretty mean horn.  He said that music was like the branching of a tree.  He was always trying to break down the notes, half-notes, quarter-notes, even eighth-notes, trying to find something no one else had found yet, or words to that effect.

It's really a shame because if more of these online magazines noted the many precedents to their beloved music, kids would start exploring Blues and Jazz themselves, as my son did.  For that matter, there should be more interest paid to classical music, which is so rich and varied.  Here is Jeff Beck playing a piece from Turandot.  Not bad, eh?

Unfortunately, most of these contemporary pop bands draw their inspiration from other pop bands with the end result being a dumbed down music that is an assault on the ears.  The many music reality shows don't help either, as they perpetuate a certain of style of music regardless of how talented the young person might be.  We allow Simon Cowell to become the arbiter of music, creating boy bands like One Direction.  As David Grohl once said, form a garage band, play your hearts out, don't listen to these douche bags, or words to that affect.  I couldn't agree more.

1994 was probably the turning point.  It used to be a band played the college bar circuit to get itself heard, hoping to make a name for itself.  A band's reputation initially spread by word of mouth.  After the 90s, the reality shows and song contests took over, like they had in the 70s, leading to dumbed-down music that just made your head ache.  It was such a welcome relief to hear real music again, regardless of musical tastes.  That's the way it was briefly with MySpace.  I hope it will be the case again soon.