As far as entertainers go, musicians tend to have the shortest life spans. Their fast-paced lifestyles mixed with the demands of the road have taken some of the era’s most shining stars while in their prime and those who have survived their heyday do not go unscathed. Heck, look at Poison’s Bret Michaels. He’s not in the best health these days.
Below is a list of the greatest musicians who are still alive. This list was developed by the Woove Editorial Staff: Matt Clark, Matt Dhillon, Miles Ellenberg, Stu Ruiz, Peter Tesh, Alex Tallant, Rosalie Wind and Ben Woody.
1. B.B. KING (SEPT. 16, 1925)
B.B. King as a guitarist, singer and songwriter cannot be contained to any one locale. His music is rooted in the Mississippi Delta, lives in Chicago, Muscle Shoals and Detroit. It’s impossible to imagine any musician with knowledge of the blues who isn’t inextricably linked to the man’s legacy.
King’s style of guitar is difficult to describe. The playing is never virtuosic, but it still impossible to replicate. There is a sense of emotional depth, brought through with his timing and delicate phrasings, that makes his works a continued touchstone to this day. His guitar tone is the perfect complement — elegant yet raw — marked with occasional squalls of distortion and feedback that match the ragged soul of voice being torn to shreds by an impassioned performance. Now 61 years into his career, King remains the essence of what the blues is about: the opportunity to throw it on the line in a fit of passion in order to cleanse the soul. — Stu Ruiz
2. BOB DYLAN (MAY 24, 1941)
Bob Dylan’s career may not be as long as King’s, but it certainly is just as influential to his genre. There is not a single American folk-rocker out there who has not paid homage to his work.
Dylan is to American music as T.S. Eliot is to American literature. Both are innovative, subversive voices that have experimented with different lyrical narrative structures. Their content also similarly matches up as both discuss the gradual decay of American society in their narratives.
Dylan is a musician who needs no introduction or explanation. His albums “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde” were two of the best albums of the 20th century. — Ben Woody
3. TOM WAITS (DEC. 7, 1949)
A version of this article appeared in the May 5 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Why not David Gilmour?
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Tom Waits is on here and not Eric Clapton....really?
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What a myopic, sexist, Eurocentric list.
They're all male. They're all English-speaking. They're all performers (as opposed to composers, conductors and other types of musicians). And the genres they perform -- rock, jazz, blues -- are all closely-related American inventions.
Was there no room on this list for Aretha Franklin? Nana Mouskouri? John Adams (the composer, not the president)? Daniel Barenboim? Ravi Shankar? Dolly Parton?
With no disrespect to the ten artists who were chosen, how many of these other titans were even considered? The list reads more like "greatest living musicians on my iPod" than the list it claimed to be -- the far more ambitious "musicians of our time" -- and the staff who chose the 'winners' have revealed what a small fraction of music of our time they enjoy.
May the radio station of our campus someday reflect the diversity of our campus.
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Hmm, okay. Quincy Jones was recognized for his compositional and arranging work and not just his skills as a performer. For that criticism, I apologize and stand corrected.
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diversity of campus. lol. otherwise, touche!
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