So who do you totally worship as a musician/songwriter, that may seem unlikely or peculiar (given our indie leanings)?

Me...
Smokey Robinson

I absoloutely WORSHIP this man as a songwriter, as well as a performer.
His lyrics are brilliant and his sense of melody is pretty much unsurpassed.

He is a songwriting god among men.
And I don't think I'll get any arguements from you good folks, still it may not seem like a likely first choice.

np: (guess)

I don't know about it really being unlikely or all that peculiar but I think Jeff Lynne is aces in performance and production.


...and a king hell monger to boot.

Wow.
Look at my avatar.
I think the menacing guy standing behind me would disagree with you a little. He's the former bandmate from who Jeff stole the entire concept for ELO and then kicked out... of his own band!

But that's cool.
I'm not here to argue, just find out.
And I like some ELO stuff pretty well.

Erykah Badu

even tho it's not a surprise for me, since i have a bunch of "leanings", i'd choose phil collins

Michael Cretu of Enigma

The Rolling Stones

I think most (epa, etc) would be surprised to know that I like the Beatles almost as well.

Favorite Rapper: Ice Cube. Maybe not so much the later stuff, but Amerikkka's Most --->Lethal Injection. yeeah.

Oh, and I am obsessed with Phil Spector. Own the box set. But I guess most of this makes sense since I love hook-y stuff. Whatevs.

Todd, who is the dude in your pic? I've never heard that story before.

'Tis Roy Wood, Senator. Genius mastermind behind the Move, ELO, and Wizzard. Also the first guy to ever even think about throwing some bagpipes onto a rock'n'roll song. He's somewhat sadly best known in North America for Cheap Trick's version of his "California Man" on Heaven Tonight.

Thx. Rads...Is that London Quireboys song some early Rod shit?

bob mould......period

Only sounds like it. The Quireboys lifted from the Faces as blatantly as Robbers On High Street lift from Spoon.

PopTodd

WOW. Pretty good impression. They must be pros, cos they stole that shit...and did it well. There are a LOT of good songs on these three, man...you have it down to a science, nay an art. As I said, look out New Orleans at 8pm, we'll be pumping Flowers by The Flaming Sideburns..at 4am...probably Here Comes A Regular.

Duran Duran

Buddy Holly
Sonny Rollins

Harry Chapin
i grew up listening to his 7 to 16 minute story songs with simple sounding but actually complicated arangements.

My Steely Dan lovin' ways are already well known to most of the board regulars.

I'm also quite into Gene Vincent, but mainly because his original guitarist Cliff Gallup was doing amazing things with a guitar 10 years before your Hendrix or your Clapton.

some likely , some possibly unlikely:

As singers & songwriters: Nick Cave, Morrissey, Sam Prekop, Laeticia from Stereolab, Bjork and PJ Harvey.

As singers: Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Astrud Gilberto.

Songwriters: Leonard Cohen, Cole Porter, Joni Mitchell, Robert Smith, Lou Reed.

Unclassified: Brian Eno

Don't really worship anyone, but there's a lot of non-indie-apparent folks I have great love for.

I've already mentioned many of mine many times (Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Bowie, David Sylvian, etc.) but a few not so readily apparent:

Larry Norman - one of the founders of Jesus Rock. Very influential on me when I was a kid. Pretty much the Christian Dylan before Dylan went Christian.

Also, Bruce Cockburn, up until the late 80's.

Paul Kelly. The man is an incredible songwriter.

Solomon Burke, too.

Sade. Yes. Sade. What a woman.

Natalie Merchant. What a woman.

Neil Finn.

The Association

UB40 (once were considered cool, but no longer)

Supertramp, Jethro Tull, Genesis (though Duke), Queen, Humblebums, Al Stewart, Gerry Rafferty, Steely Dan, Harry Chapin, Harry Nilsson, ZZ Top, Temptations, Staples Singers, Pink Floyd, Springsteen, etc, etc.

That doesn't even begin to add in the Norah Jones people that indie fiends love to loathe.

And the ultimate in unusual:

JD Sumner (of JD Sumner & The Stamps and Elvis' bass singer).
The man could hit notes unheard of by regular humans and, along with class acts like The Florida Boys, The Kingsmen and The Cathedrals, kept the "SoGo" in Southern Gospel quartets and kept it from becoming all hideous Country Gospel.

Do hipsters diss on Neil? I'll get into a ruckus with anyone who slanders his good name.

Oh my goodness. I had a bit of a crazy experience about a month ago. I walked out of the store where I work and had someone nearly bump into me-- he apologized, I apologized, took two steps forward and then realized it was Bruce Cockburn.

When I came back from lunch I realized he was actually in the store.

Now I wouldn't really go so far as to say that I'm a fan of his music--I only know a couple of songs (which I enjoy) and I don't own anything, but... in my mind he is just soooo coooool.

He has just never been affraid to be himself and not buy into lame trends and most of all to standup for social issues. For this I think he deserves serious props.

So... when he came up to the cash I completely embarrassed myself and spurted out how I just wanted to thanks for being such an inspiration to Canadian musicians, etc etc.

As expected, he was super nice and modest. He said thank you & asked about my band. I was totally *bright red*. Anyway, I'm happy I said something. He's cool.

Not for songwriting, but for great, unexpected guitar work I love Lyle Workman, who played guitar on Frank Black's first two solo records among other things. still listen to those and marvel at how fresh his approach to guitar was, within a "rock" context. He wasn't super out-there, but he found different ways to do the same old things, and that's underrated.

did you konw the hip hopish RnB hit "no diggidty" is a bill withers sample?
and i believe it was produced by Dr Dre