Most Influential American Musician of All Time?

Tvad, FWIW I think your definition of 'musician' might be a bit narrow, especially in view of how it's defined in my dictionary, i.e. a composer or performer of music and as an alternative a performer esp of instrumental music.

Re Robert Johnson's importance (to me) I'd never heard of him 'til you mentioned him. I though you were referring to a relatively obscure jazz personality from early 1900, James P Johnson who was an African American composer and piano player who developed the Stride style of jazz piano. He also composed hit tunes, waltzes, ballet, opera and symphonic music. He taught Fats Waller and influenced Gershwin, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk, ad infinitum.

LMAO at my own ignorance and willingness to sign on just to be equitable. I'm not into Blue's. I went straight from hillbilly ('folk music' for the elitists and 'blue grass' for the generic non-hillbilly) to classical and jazz. Who is Robert Johnson? :-)

T-Bone Walker was more influential than Muddy Waters. His writing, singing, guitar playing and dancing were a major influence on Muddy, B.B. King and Chuck Berry. Jimi Hendrix wasn't the first to play the guitar behind his head.

That said, my vote goes to Mr. Louis Armstrong. He invented modern popular singing. 2nd place goes to Nat King Cole. Every piano lounge player is channeling Nat. 3rd place - tie between Elvis and Frank S.

I have to agree with my colleagues:

Gershwin and Ellington without a doubt. Their music extends way past the time and idiom in which it was written. And I think that many on the thread confuse great performers and performances with great music composition and its influence, especially on other musicians.

I don't want to exclude anyone but without those two creators the canon of American music gets pretty thin, pretty fast.

On a more humorous note, i am reminded of the SNL skit from 1975 when Chevy Chase announces that the first message from intelligent life from outer space has been received in response to our Pioneer One spacecraft that had our location, periodic table, prime numbers, and selections of music by Mozart, Chuck Berry, and poetry by Robert Frost embedded in a gold recorded disc.

"And the message is a simple four word message: 'Send More Chuck Berry'"

a classic.

h.

Nina Simone
http://www.ninasimone.com/nina.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone