Who's the most influential American musician with the least amout of recorded works ? (1 Viewer)

I'm thinking Robert Johnson.. any other takes ?>

By the way, I'm researching this for a class (History of American Music)


Others I can think of of ..

Richie Valens
Buddy Holly

Second Robert Johnson.

Clifford Brown

I think in the modern rock world, one artist who has had much influence and has a modest amount of work is Jimi Hendrix (compared to his peers at the time).

Pixies

Nirvana's gotta be up there, too.

Charlie Christian

Big Star:

First two records one of the key influences on power pop.

Third record considered one of the early hallmarks of alt. rock.

Easy one: the Sex Pistols. Only one original legit release, but they spawned the whole punk movement, which begat new wave and alternative music.

< Oops, they aren't American now are they... :b >

Yeah, the Sex Pistols aren't American.


But along those lines, I guess you could say Television, too.



I think they only had 3 albums.



Doh.. totally forgot The Velvet Underground

Definitely a contender here.

Definitely Robert Johnson. He had more influence than anyone else listed here, with a tiny fraction of the recorded output. I mean, *everything* the man recorded, including alternate takes, barely requires 2 CDs.

I really don't see anyone else coming close.

Valens had a similar amount of material, but, while certainly talented, wasn't nearly as influential.

Holly had the influence, but a lot more stuff on record. (He actually released a couple of albums.)

Ryan

I second The Pixies. I hope no one seconds Nirvana.

Well, yeah, Nirvana were definitely influential, but they had three full studio albums, a rarities album, and an "unplugged" show all before Cobain died. Not to mention all the live bootlegs, TV appearances, soundtrack contributions and what not. Not in the same league at all in terms of recorded output.

And the Pixies have many CDs worth of stuff out there, between the studio albums, rarities collections, demos, live stuff and so on.

Ryan

Bending the rules a bit again for a minute and going outside of America...

THE STONE ROSES

Well, not to drop names here, but back in the late 70's, I found myself sitting next to Stevie Ray Vaughn at a party in Austin and he was going on and on about Robert Johnson.

I'll go outside America as I can't find a better example than Robert Johnson, but The Velvet Underground and Nick Drake were hugely influential given their small body of work (they weren't very successful either).

I would go with Robert Johnson as well. I've had this conversation with people that don't know alot about music history, and they all say, "Robert who"?
I recently made a CD for travelling with every song he recorded(minus alternate takes) and they all fit on one disc.
I also think that if you list Johnson, you also have to consider Charley Patton. Very influential in his own right, and also a big influence on Johnson.

Regards
KrisM

NP - Duke Robillard - Live, DVD

I agree with the Charley Patton, alothough he recorded a lot more records.

Another I would think of that had great influence on Johnson and even less recordings was Willie Brown (the first one) .. He recorded only 3 songs.


Speaking of Charley Patton.. when we had to do a biography on an american mucisian, I asked my professor if I could do it on him .. Her response, "Charley who?" I couldn't beleive it.
She also didn't know of Skip James. However, she spent two days covering Robert Johnson in the course. I think I now understand the compilations like "The Roots of Robert Johnson" by Yazoo... people think he started it all. Even though he may have been the best of the Delta bluesmen, you can't just dismiss the rest.