Hillary points us to something I'd actually been meaning to mention--the Rolling Stone immortals list, wherein artists write testimonials about other artists. She's got some good picks, but you can't miss Little Richard on himself, Iggy on Bo Diddly, Vernon Reid on Nirvana ("And Cobain was a terrific guitarist. I said that to a big Joe Satriani fan, and he got really upset with me; he didn't think Cobain had enough chops. You can't say Cobain was a great songwriter but not a great guitarist -- because he couldn't have written those songs without the guitar. You can't separate out his Big Muff guitar playing - it was essential to the music he made, and his altered tunings were incredibly influential. Just like body piercing really took off as a trend after the first Lollapalooza, I think altered, tuned-down guitars were much more prominent in the music after Nirvana."), and claps blog fav John Mellencamp on Buddy Holly, another artist dear to my heart, and said entry leads off with a Very Smart Thing:

Buddy Holly was a complete and utter hillbilly. I'm very proud of that. So much of our musical heritage is from the country. People always ask me, "Why do you stay in Indiana?" Well, I have to. Just about every song, every sound that we emulate and listen to was created by a hillbilly, born out of the frustration of a small town where there ain't much to do in the evening. That's one thing that I loved about Buddy Holly.

Pop music is the release of frustration into excitement.
posted by Mike B. at 5:36 PM 0 comments