Freddie's songs are just so much fun to sing, and he had such stamina. Known these days as much for his sardonic wit as his musicianship, it's easy to forget that Rick Wakeman is, first an foremost, a bonafide keyboard legend. When I was going out in the Eighties, you could get your ass kicked if you put on Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep" at a house party. Edit: So this post has gained way more traction than I thought it would. Top 10 Greatest Rock Keyboardists and Pianists - TheTopTens Even Elvis Presley knew why Wilson was called "Mr. You can hear their influence everywhere from Joy Division to Guns n' Roses to Public Enemy to the Smiths to Slayer. What bugged me out about the Beasties was that they knew everything about hip-hop the Cold Crush Brothers, the Treacherous Three and Afrika Bambaataa, all the old-school shit. Seeing the Stooges in reunion with Mike Watt from the Minutemen on bass was awesome. Allen Toussaint Southern Nights. The rhythm section is rad. The audience's reaction to those classics cemented their value in my head. We said, "Oh, shit." At 15 minutes, it was so long and so good, it made you feel like now was the time. But I believe that his guitar playing changed radically in the early Seventies because singing and songwriting became more important to him, and Robert Johnson had a lot to do with that. As I climbed the stone steps toward the theater's entrance, the doors flew open and out walked a girl I'd never seen before someone from the high school, maybe wearing a gauzy sundress and a notable lack of hair spray in her long hair. She was captivating, romantic. You could sing his solos like songs in themselves. That bugged me out. I was on holiday with my parents in the late Sixties when I heard "I Wish It Would Rain." As a kid, I used to sit at home after school and just bang out those songs on the piano. That's something the average rapper just could not do: build an entire album around that concept, and stay in that negative space. They had so many things going on. Bath At first I was star-struck, but within 30 minutes I was begging him to mix my next album. And that is it, really. Of all the bands I'd come across in my life, they were the finest arrangers. I was lucky enough to see the Allmans up close in the beginning. We loved what they did with the song. When we played the Reading and Leeds festivals, we had to follow Slayer, and got bottles of piss thrown at us. What is memorable today is the ease and efficiency with which we three found our harmonies. As he said this, strands, splodges and blots from a Pollock early-Fifties "drip" painting materialized in front of our faces. But the thing that caught my eye: She was wearing a Fables of the Reconstruction T-shirt. "I know you can make it," he exhorted to soul-stirring harmonizing. Sometimes, while we were making Exile on Main Street in France, the three of us would be plonking away on Hank Williams songs while waiting for the rest of the band to arrive. They were definitely going for a hit single with the song "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." Elvis ended up covering the song and took a lot of the glory there. There's not a fake bone in his body. You don't realize how powerful that is when you're just a listener. In 1984, I was on tour with my band, somewhere in the middle of America. "Hail Mary" is just perfect: "Picture paragraphs unloaded/Wise words being quoted." As you read this book, remember: This is what we have to live up to. In the songs he wrote with Robert Hunter, and in Bob Weir's stuff too, you're also hearing music from 40 years ago. His melodies weave in and out and all over the place, and you can tell they just spring out of him. I first heard R.E.M. They're so alive. I sat there listening to it over and over, and totally blew off this girl. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, the Tempts had an unprecedented string of hits: "My Girl," "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Just My Imagination." I had heard that they hadn't seen each other in quite a while, so there was some apprehension when the three of them took the stage. They didn't play emotional songs. Guns n' Roses revived our kind of rock. Their music is forever. Hearing Al as a kid made me want to become a singer and showed me that it was OK to have a softer, more falsetto voice. Oscar Wilde said that an artist has succeeded if people don't understand his work but they still like it. Some people might not know that Carl played guitar with Johnny Cash for 10 years on the road. I was simply staggered by the amount of equipment they had: by Ginger Baker's double bass drum, by Jack Bruce's two 4-by-12 Marshall amps and by all of Eric Clapton's gear. They were an integrated band half white, half black. They used to have to go out there and tape foam rubber around everything that Axl could touch from his teleprompter to his mic stand to make sure he wouldn't break anything, or hurt himself. They certainly hadn't planned to perform. A million people can program beats, but can they put together an entire album like it's a movie? And he used to put on such a show. Rolling Stone panel of top guitarists and experts picks 100 Greatest Guitarists, . Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote "Up on the Roof." Put on "Steppin' Out." But the right people did. I had this picture of a gorgeous vista when it's really a kind of grimy area. He was brash, cocky and talented. It was well-rehearsed, but it never actually happened. Listening to Radiohead makes me feel like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart. His anger, vulnerability and humor come out. It presented this facade that everything around us is solid and real and going to be here forever, even though we know we created it. The 100+ Greatest Piano Players of All Time, Ranked When Chick Corea died earlier this year, the world lost a true pioneer - one of the greatest jazz pianists of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the innovators of jazz fusion. Make the guitar parts more rhythmic. If vocal-cord vibration were like surfing off the swelling of the heart, James would be my favorite rider on the cusp a little in the air, sublime in the spray. Hardcore was very rigid. Shirley was more sentimental and street. The Beasties were a punk band listening to hip-hop. I was told that. It is an inexplicable, awesome thing, and I bow down to it. Booker T. and the MGs had that Southern funk flavor. Following exhaustive searches to find the greatest pre-'80s, '80s/'90s and 21st-century keyboard players, we narrowed down our field of GOATs to just 15, and asked you to vote for the one true 'greatest of all time'. All rights reserved. It has perhaps the Dullest Expensive Album Cover ever, with the foldout profiles of the band members, but it sat proudly next to Devo, Kiss, the Yardbirds, the Stones' early albums (they were cheap), the Decline of Western Civilization soundtrack and the Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. in 1986, a song tacked on to the end of a demos collection of a Eugene, Oregon, band that my uncle, then in school at U of O, sent to me for Christmas. You should always try to keep moving forward. Murmur, Reckoning even Dead Letter Office, with its beer-soaked goofs and discarded B sides, provided a much-needed insulation against the cruel, Queensrche-and-Garth-Brooks-listening world. It was like I unlocked a box: His music spoke to me. When I did my first sessions at Stax, I learned everything about record production from those guys. And I hope he breaks into another grin from ear to ear as he feels "that's why I'm here.". Al Kooper (Blood Sweat & Tears) 11. and the soul numbers ("Long As I Can See the Light"). He hit the drums harder than anyone I've ever seen, with the possible exception of Keith Moon. Whatever gets thrown at them, they persevere and they get stronger; they are a family. This is not to say that Jay-Z never wore tank tops, but he was (and continues to be) an exceedingly rare combination of intelligence, weirdness, seriousness and pop appeal. I remember riding my bike back to my grandma's house knowing that my life had changed forever. With Frank, his musicians were pushed to the absolute brink. His fists were as big as a car tire. I first saw Clapton with Cream, at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York in 1967 sort of. It was like they were weaving a beautiful piece of cloth. The reason I got a chance to play on sessions with him on songs like "Killing Floor," "Built for Comfort" and "300 Pounds of Joy" and a lot of musicians better than me didn't get those dates, was because they would come in thinking, "This is my opportunity to blow the Wolf offstage." Pink Floyd were always a group of great creative minds who did whatever the fuck they wanted and didn't worry about all the little rules. I've made the imaginary "Top Ten Keyboard Players" list that RS might print. And when I saw Wolf, yes, he was a big guy. Rolling Stone's Top Ten Keyboard Playersdo you agree? They rapped about shit they knew about: skateboarding, going to White Castle, angel dust and television. 1. Eminem lives, sleeps and breathes music he's a bit like me in that respect. Then Green came around, and suddenly this band was on a major label, playing arenas, and every human in America with two ears and access to radio was being demanded to "Stand." The Dead still believe in that message. The Rolling Stones are postponing tours due to the pandemic. I always loved the way the mistakes were kept in on his albums, like the way the band is almost out of sync at the beginning of "Love and Happiness." When he sang "The Wonder of You," the vulnerability and passion got in real close. The fourth member, Addie "Micki" Harris, had died in 1982. We'd spend hours and hours at the piano, swapping ideas. : players like Remi/mygh69 excluded due to suspicious activity. Carl was actually there in the studio when the Beatles cut some of them. It still sounds incredible today. Carl was the real deal a true rockabilly cat. His music is impeccable. They were the first group from the neighborhood that sang modern harmony: They could sing like a gospel group but then do R&B like no one else. When King left, we worked with him as a solo artist, and the Drifters kept on having hits too, first with Rudy Lewis as the new lead singer. But I've noticed that there's been a rediscovery of the haunting quality of Hank Williams' music. It takes economy and simplicity to get to an idea or emotion in a song, and there's no better example of that than Hank Williams. When Paul's Boutique came out, it didn't sell as well as their debut. But I loved AC/DC. I love singers whom you can identify the first second they open their mouth, and Levi Stubbs is one of those; he's one of the greatest of all time. From the start, I have always admired Eminem's thinking. I also remember being on a long cross-country family road trip as a kid, driving across the Texas desert at night. In the early days of rap, the conventional wisdom was that only black people were supposed to like hip-hop and only white people were supposed to like rock. I'll never forget the first time I saw him live, in New York, when I was in high school. Many of us first heard him as backing vocalist in the Impressions behind Jerry Butler, singing "For Your Precious Love." Intellectually, Clapton was a purist, although there was little evidence of it in the beginning. She's transformed herself into an international sensation an elegant powerhouse. Some DJs wouldn't play that song or "Flash Light," because a fight would start: The crazy motherfuckers at parties would become real crazy. Quickly soaked in sweat (nobody knew how to sweat as good as Jackie Wilson), he took off his jacket and pretended he was going to throw it to the crowd, creating a pure sexual enchantment. It's always, "Do what you think is right.". He was not the kind of guy to blow his own horn; he was very humble. On songs like "Tired of Being Alone," the horns are tasteful and restrained but completely funky. Nicky Hopkins 9. Steve Jones is one of the best guitarists of all time, as far as I'm concerned he taught me how a Gibson should sound. The greatest keyboard players of all time, revealed | MusicRadar We got to go back and do some digging. "The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time" is a special issue published by the American magazine Rolling Stone in two parts in 2004 and 2005 and updated in 2011. Rod Argent (Zombies, Argent) 9. Al Kooper 10. Of course, the Police were amazing musicians. His background was in classical music; he looks at the bass guitar as a piece of the orchestra, like a low-pitch brass instrument. The more I learned about producing hip-hop, the more I respected what Dre was doing. But he really came into focus in Butler's next big hit, "He Will Break Your Heart," which was written by Mayfield and features his strumming electric guitar to a saucy tango beat that you can hear echoing in Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem.". Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - Pianote He has that distinctive voice, and his range is staggering. Axl knew how to work an audience. It was precise and explosive and heavy. I would definitely have to quit smoking to be able to do what he did. When you heard him play, you knew it couldn't be anyone else. With the votes counted, we can now bring you the top 10, but that's not quite end of it, as the top five keyboard players from each era will now face-off to vie for the honour of being included in our final GOAT line-up. The guitar player suddenly became the most important guy in the band. Scott Asheton played drums as if he was in an electric-blues band. Then there's Jack Bruce probably the most musically gifted bass player who's ever been. And this music comes on the radio. Hargus "Pig" Robbins, a member of Nashville's A-team of session players who added keyboards and piano to albums by Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Miranda Lambert, Ween, and many more,. From Frdric Chopin and Franz Liszt, to Sergei Rachmaninoff and Grigory Sokolov, this lists features all of the most talented, famous piano-playing musical geniuses to walk the earth. He called me and said, "Steven, the Yardbirds are playing here, and you can open up."