Quote:
Originally Posted by Goliath|Audio  Duke Ellington
Woodie Guthrie
Jimi Hendrix
Ray Charles
Billy Ray Cyrus
Bob Dylan |
Excuse me if I'm wrong but none of these artists are 'bands' and that's what the thread is about.....
The '60ies phenomenon' in Britan surely had a lot to do with the system where bright young men were enrolled in 'Art Schools' where a lot of them formed bands or just practiced the heck out of their guitars. The US never had such a system (or artists being able to collect unemployment money)
So anybody in the US who wanted to be a rock musician would mainly need to play in cover bands or starve. That and the general tolerance of the British towards eccentric behaviour and artists in general surely was a big factor why so many influental artitsts and bands were and are British.
I think it mainly relates to pop/rock music though. Jazz, Blues, Soul, Funk, Country, Americana, Hip-Hop, etc surely is a COMPLETELY different story.
I think the same applies (or did apply) to engineering. No doubt that some of the best ever records were US made, be it Sinatra or Steely Dan or lots of points in between. But there's also no doubt that England was all about innovation, whether it was Joe Meek, the sundry Beatles engineers or Eno, just to name a few examples. Just think of rock guitar: The origins were American (Chicago blues mainly) but the art of capturing great rock guitar (and drum) sounds was really first mastered in Britan: Clapton/Bluesbreakers, Who, Kinks, Jeff Beck, Zeppelin, Sabbath, etc
As great as a lot of the 60ies bands in the US were (Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Doors, Moby Grape, CCR, Jefferson Airplane, etc) and as great as the studios in LA and other places were, it seemes to me that guitar-wise it was still very much about folk-influenced cleaner sounds and more conservative recording techniques in general. Like Tony Visconti said in 'Behind the Glass': Brits are just wild men!
It's surely no coincidence that Jimi Hendrix needed to go to England to both develop his music and have it properly recorded. The whole thing just bloomed there and it's the same with Stones/Beatles building on Blues/early Rock and Roll and Motown and punk building on the Stooges/MC5 and the 'Nuggets'-era bands.