There they are the Liverpudlians, looking young and fresh faced. Who knew that folk like them, building on the legacy of Elvis and others, would change the world— not merely the musical tastes of the world,  but the culture of the world as well, its fashion, its form, and yes to some degree even its values.   What does our Rock n’ Roll quiz tell us about us who love this music, a music which saturates that right brained side of the cerebral cortex of so many of us?    Here are few observations, by no means scientific or definitive.

Firstly, most of you picked the Beatles over the Stones, but not by a grand majority. If this was decided on the basis of excellent or even game changing albums, then the Stones lose.  They do not have a body of work that includes the likes of a Hard Days Night, Rubber Soul, Revolver, the White Album, Abbey Road and of course Sgt. Peppers.   The Stones do have both many wonderful  songs, and much more longevity, but they were not the cultural arbiters that the Beatles were. But if you were deciding on which band might do a better job of a live performance that distracted you from your desert island existence, then its the Stones for you. 

Decidedly more of you picked Zepplin over the Who, and interestingly often paired with the Stones.  What this suggest about you is that you preferred the more hard rock edge of the spectrum over the more pop end of the spectrum, though goodness knows the Who could hardly be called just a pop band. No one who has listened to Live at Leeds could say that, perhaps one of the two or three greatest live hard rock albums ever.  And Zepplin despite all it accomplished never showed the creativity of Tommy, an amazing rock opera of sorts.  But I digress. 

In the choice between the Eagles and CSN it seemed to be clearer that many of you who responded are just younger than me— not a bad thing. However, the Eagles were of course later than, and to a real extent modeled themselves on their forebears CSN.  Hotel California is indeed a fine album, but even it has a weak song or two on it.  In terms of live performance of getting to hear either of these bands at their peak, its got to be CSN hands down.  Glen Frey and Don Henley are excellent vocalist, as is Timothy B. Schmidt. But the latter was not always in the band and furthermore the band was dominated by Frey and Henley, as it still is.  In Crosby, Stills, and Nash you had three truly remarkable singers and song writers, each the leader of their own group before they joined forces.  And like Sgt. Peppers and Tommy,  the first two CSN albums were game changers— setting in motion a whole genre of folk and quasi-country rock.  But even for me this would be a hard choice as I have seen them both when they were on top of their game.

I was frankly stunned how many of you picked Cat Stevens over James Taylor even though Stevens only had one landmark album, Tea for the Tillerman and was not either the singer or guitar player live that James still is.  Maybe it was just the sound of his voice?   I like both these two folk rockers, but I’ll take James’ catalog and body of work and live performances any day over Cat Stevens. But then, he is my home boy from Chapel Hill, and I love his brother’s Livingston’s stuff as well.

In the battle of the female tonsils, most of you picked Janis, and rightly so. Go back and listen to her live Big Brother and the Holding Company album— she could blow you right off the platform all by herself, even though she only had a couple of truly wonderful albums, but then the same could be said about the Airplane— Surrealistic Pillow and Volunteers.  I saw the Airplane at Filmore East a month before Woodstock. The opening act was Joe Cocker. The whole concert was amazing. Grace was surrounded by more good players and song writers than Janis to be honest.  And Janis left us much too soon.  I went last year to the old restaurant in Austin where Janis used to sing.  It still had her blues vibe.  Had their been no Janis there would have been no one like Pat Benatar or Melissa Etheridge either.  She showed rock was not just a boys game.

In the battle of the So Cal 60s pop harmonizers, the Mommas and the Papas came out way ahead in your count.  I think I understand this, as they were a nice mixture of male and female voices and they had some killer formative songs like California Dreamin’ or Monday Monday.  If you like this music as well as stuff like Zepplin then there is probably a soft middle inside of the hard chocolate exterior in some of the candies in your box of chocolates.

The vote between the Doors and the Kinks was fairly even with the former winning by a little, and one wondered if this depended on which side of the pond you live on.  The Doors of course have had a revival amongst college students in the last ten years, and understandably so.  Their music was refreshingly different and clear and crisp, if also spooky and bombastic at times.   The Kinks were clearly more creative in the various styles and lyrics and themes they put into songs.   One cannot imagine Jim Morrison or Robbie Krieger coming up with as diverse ouevre as Lola and All the Day and all of the Night…. which by the way was the basis for ‘Hello I love you, want you tell me your name’  (go back and listen to those two songs).

The choice between Jimi and Eric was a painful one for most of you it would appear, and I agree.  Having seen Eric several times and enjoying him a lot last summer with Stevie Winwood it would still be Jimi I would want to see live on that island shredding the dawn with All Along the Watchtower  or serenading us to sleep with Butterflies and Zebras, and then when  the rescue boat came— he would be piping us aboard playing the national anthem!!

Most of you chose Genesis over Traffic, but perhaps I should have been clearer that I was talking about Phil Collin’s Genesis, not the earlier version led by Peter Gabriel.  Of course the later Genesis was much more of a pop band than the earlier interesting group, and in any case Steve Winwood’s Traffic in its second incarnation with John Barleycorn and Low Spark beats the pants off of any of the Collins led Genesis albums if we are talking creativity, musicianship and really exciting live performance.

Yes, despite the surprise and chagrin of some of you Foreigner actually was picked by some, a distinct minority over Pink Floyd.  Yes, I know its hard to believe, but in fact Foreigner had far more hits and singable tunes than Pink Floyd whereas Pink Floyd helped define the terms— concept album and extended play song.   I have heard both these bands and both of them are excellent live, even now at times. Foreigner was the Juke Box hero, but Floyd had more lasting impact and creative juice.  It is interesting to me how often David Gilmour’s name turns up high on the list of great guitarists.  I like him a lot, but Jimi or Eric or even Joe Walsh or Steve Lukather or Eddie Van Halen he is not.