Most Influential American Musician of All Time?

Louis Armstrong hands down. He and his peers created solo improvisation as we know it today and his vocal phrasing forever changed the way singers sing. There isn't ANYONE in popular western music outside of classical music that does not owe much of what they do and how they do it to Louis "pops" Armstrong. Robert Johnson was important to the development of country blues and later ,by extension, R&B and R&R as well as hard bop. However everything in modern R&B,R&R as well as people like Sinatra,Bennett,Vaughn,Holiday,Fitzgerald,Nat Cole,Miles,Coletrane,Simone owe much of what they do to Pops. Duke Ellington was and is an enormous force in western music. He wanted to extend the musical field beyond boundries like "jazz" and "classical". He played dance music but he always wanted to write (and did) truly American popular long format "classical" music. I give Pops the nod because as a country (and as a world) we have gravitated more to rock, pop, jazz,small goup instumental or vocalist than to complex popular large group arrangements. ( yes I know Duke had plenty of small group jazz sessions but in them even he is indebted to Pops) This is all just pure opinion on my part. Feel free to fire away if you disagree. I love this stuff. - Jim

aldavis: thanks for articulating so well what got me started on this topic. the more i learn about louis armstrong, the more it seems that he represented a fundamental turning point in music and set the course for the development of poplular music in the 20th century. it seems that his individual talents came along at exactly the right moment in time -- from a social/cultural perspective -- to achieve maximum influence.

Wasn't Leadbelly A blues biggie from way back?
Also, Bob Wills was a giant with his "Texas Swing".

Certainly Pops is a great candidate, since he pretty much invented the modern concept of soloing in, around and on top of the beat. His elastic sense of time made it possible for all subsequent explorations of the beat in Western popular music. But how about Charlie Christian? Can someone think of a person that played the guitar like he did before his arrival, and can anyone identify an important guitar stylist from a later era that did not display some critical element of Christian's style? In fact, you could argue that Christian's innovations inspired subsequent guitarists, and even vocalists to use horn-like phrasing. A case can also be made for Albert King, as every major blues and rock guitarist since him has used his style of attack and note bending. Its true that BB preceded Albert and is every bit as great, but for some reason everyone still tries to sound like Albert in some way or another.

If the question was " who was Americas most influential guitarist" then I would say Charlie Christian. Charlie died of TB in his 20's and had he lived I'm sure he would have been even more influential. Blues guitarists harken back to Robert Johnson. For me there are too many great ones over the last 50 years to choose just one like Albert King. Now if you asked Albert he of course would say he was the best. Thats classic Albert King. Albert once famously said of Jimi Hendrix "I can do everything he does but he can't do everything I do".(which might be true) The only time I heard him speak of another guitarist with reverence was on the Albert King/SRV live disc where he admits that SRV was more than his equal. No knocks on Charlie or Albert I just think it's a stretch to call either of them Americas most influential musician as their influences are a little too narrow for me. JMNSHO no offense intended. - Jim