"seems kinda lame and simple". And there you have why I have always found Frank Zappa and Steely Dan so not to my liking. As if complexity alone denotes quality. Give me "God Only Knows" and "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" any day of the week.
"All sound and fury, signifying nothing". Except for look at me, aren’t I smart and/or talented. Gratuitous displays of empty virtuosity, as I am wont to say. See, I’m smart too. ;-)
"No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive." I call Hank Williams the Hillbilly Genius, yet Buddy Rich, as big a Jazz snob as there has ever been, dismissed all Country & Western music as beneath him. F Buddy Rich, no matter how fast and even he could play a double-stroke roll. Big deal. He played in service to his ego, not a great song.
Not that I’m against smart musicianship. Jim Keltner’s playing reveals a great degree of intelligence. But I love what George Harrison said to Jim, as Jim disclosed in an interview: "You don’t have to say everything you think." Leon Russell asked Elton John to dismiss Keltner during the recording sessions of the album they were making together. "He reacts to everything he hears" is how Leon characterized Jim’s playing. As many Jazz great have said, "The notes you don’t play are as important as those you do." That’s called musical wisdom, a quality I value above talent alone.
Like Hank Williams, Levon Helm was a hillbilly. Yet he was as wise a musician as I have ever heard. And, like all my other favorite musicians, he played in service to the song, as noble a calling as I am aware of.
