Best American rock 'n roll band ever?
- Thread starter gamecockcat
- Start date
Drummer and bassist for Jimi Hendrix were British.
"The whole damn band was white, except for Jimi", laugh every time that line is said.
Jimi Hendrix plus two British nobodies. The only member that counts was Merican.
From the very first post in the thread:
"Remember American rock bands - not individuals like Elvis or Chuck Berry.."
By the way, Mitch Mitchell was hardly a British nobody.
All of this is accurate. Their idol was Elvis, as he was in a different stratosphere from everybody…he was the Beatles before the Beatles. But in terms of their actual musical influences, I’d say they borrowed from Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Everly Brothers, but more than anything, Buddy Holly and the Crickets. They even named their band after the Crickets.
-The Beatles are basically untouchable, musically. There’s never been anybody that has approached their total body of work, and what’s funny is that they were basically the first modern rock ‘n’ roll band. After music has evolved over a 60-year time period, there’s still been nobody as good as the Beatles.
-The Beach Boys had the Beatles sweating for a bit, as they had a songwriting rivalry in the mid-to-late sixties. Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney used to hang out together. Legend has it that McCartney took an acetate of “Only God Knows Why” back to John Lennon, and McCartney wasn’t sure they could beat it. But they released Strawberry Fields Forever, and Brian Wilson first heard it on a cab ride, when he said, “That is exactly the sound I was looking for.” The Beach Boys would have looked a lot different, historically, if Brian had beaten McCartney and Lennon to the punch. I still maintain they were the best American rock band of all time.
