Hank the Grifter said:

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Without even reading your list my answer is Buddy Holly. He was so far ahead of his time. He would have been an absolute legend.

And no offense to The Big Bopper or his family but thank God Waylon lost that coin flip.

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The coin flip was between Ritchie Valens and Tommy Allsup. Jennings gave up his seat on the plane because the Big Bopper had the flu.

You're right.
My point still stands.

Captain Winky said:

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How is Freddy Mercury not on that list, but 2Pac and Biggie are?

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Exactly. Or Prince.

OP drew the line at 40. Prince was damn near 60 and Mercury was over age 40 I'm pretty sure

Captain Winky said:

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How is Freddy Mercury not on that list, but 2Pac and Biggie are?

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Well he was 45 but as I said include anyone you want.

If I had to pick one, it would be Bonham. I think his death just crushed the other members. If they all would have remained living, I believe that they likely would not have soldiered on as they had in the early in mid-70's. But neither would they have let the magic that they had fizzle out and would have become even bigger with a broader younger generation. Close second would be RVZ and Gaines.

On a personal level some influential characters I have not seen mentioned, that I would have been much interested in seeing how they progressed would be (and it shows my penchant for the Glam scene):

Brian Connally from Sweet. He didn't die outright but the beating that he took changed the band forever and eventually was a root cause of his death. Without that incident I think The Sweet has a much bigger presence in the States.

Steve Marriott (Small Faces & Humble Pie): Very talented musician, very creative and truly underrated and overlooked. Difficult dude, but really talented.

Mark Bolan: Many credit him with starting the Glam genre which later influenced so much of the metal and hair bands. Great performer and very talented as well.

Zeppelin is my favorite band, and Bonham is my favorite drummer, except when I'm in a Rush mood...

That said, if we could somehow intervene to where Bonham didn't drink himself to death that particular day, there was always the next day or the next where he could have done it again. And, my favorite band was in trouble at that point in time. Bonham's drinking and Page's heroin made In Through The Out Door largely a Plant/Jones product. I don't think the group would have survived much longer without major interventions/rehab, even had Bonham lived thru that day. Erase the tragedy, and we might still not get another significant (if any at all) Zeppelin album.

On the other hand, SRV (my favorite guitar player) had just cleaned up his act. He put out a Grammy winning album as his last one, plus the bonus Family Style album, which was at least fun and... bonus! I cried the day SRV died, because of all the music we missed. Erase THIS tragedy, and I think there would be TONS of stuff we'd be cherishing today. SRV is my pick here every day of the week, and twice on Sundays!

If I got a bonus pick, i'd chose Buddy Holly.

Otis Redding all day long.
Dead at 26. What else he could have done

Quote:

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That said, if we could somehow intervene to where Bonham didn't drink himself to death that particular day, there was always the next day or the next where he could have done it again. And, my favorite band was in trouble at that point in time. Bonham's drinking and Page's heroin made In Through The Out Door largely a Plant/Jones product. I don't think the group would have survived much longer without major interventions/rehab, even had Bonham lived thru that day. Erase the tragedy, and we might still not get another significant (if any at all) Zeppelin album.

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I agree with you for the most part. Very apt points. As Bonham was young he might have made it to a rehab/clean or cleaner moment. When he died he had no drugs in his system and had kicked a heroin habit the year before.

Zep was still pretty huge at the time of Bonham's death, if their touring would have dropped way off who knows how big they would have remained. But if they could have made it to the digital age a few years ahead, who knows maybe things would have continued on. Plant and Bonham were very close, Page was Page, but I think he realized that without group his greatness was much diminished, hence I don't think Zep was headed for a breakup due to differences, and JPJ was steady all through things.

Even Richard Cole and Peter Grant cleaned up in later life. But what a serious tragedy this was, I remember exactly where I was when I read the newspaper article about his death.

bonfarr said:

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Elvis Presley.

Watch the YouTube video of his last recorded performance. Even as a sick, bloated, drug addicted shell of his former self the talent is mind-blowing and only a handful of performers approached his level in the last 100 years

Edit did not see the cutoff for 40 until too late but Elvis didn't make it much past that threshold

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It's not a cutoff per se just that many were before that age or after 50. Very few in their 40s. But you can always pick them if you ant to anyway I just wasn't listing them. Partly to keep the list more concise and also focus on died mcuh too you like when they were both active and highly creative of new music.


Elvis and Freddie Mercury were the two biggies I can think of in their mid 40s.

And both are huge names.


If we included 41+ I might have to go Freddie over Bonham. Freddie was just such a massive icon and enigma and Queens music was also so pushing boundaries and styles - imagining Queen throughout the 90s and 00s with the different styles they likely would have delved into. Crazy.

Elvis for me was kind of why I put the Mendoza like at 40 and under. I love Elvis and do really appreciate that even his early 70s performances were still so damn good - that comeback special and clips you do see of his shows despite being fat and sweating profusely were still gold. But he wasn't making a lot of new music any more after 1972 and I think his days of making hits was over. He had a few charted songs but his last Top 10 hit was 1972 and his last #1 was 1969. My only reason to pick Elvis would be to have seen him in person.

Can you imagine the great music Buddy Holly would have made if he lived past 22?

Mowdy Ag said:

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Scholz did indeed chase perfection in a way few, if any, others have ever matched. …and he came pretty darn close to it on that first album, thanks in large part to Delp's fantastic vocals. The later albums were good but never quite recaptured the magic of the first.

Beyond himself (and maybe Brad to some extent), it appears that he saw the rest of the band as expendable talented hired guns so there was a lot of turnover through time - a pretty clear case of Tom's way or the highway. BUT, his contributions to the writing, the recording, creation of the unique sound, a disproportionate % of the instrumentation, and business management made him THE driving force, so he saw Boston as his baby, right or wrong.

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Here's a thought experiment for this thread that'll make you look at the other side of the coin. What if Scholz had died after Don't Look Back? How many of us would have him at the top of this list, imagining all the amazing music we certainly missed out on because he "died too soon"? Would knowing that in a parallel universe (i.e., ours) he only produced Third Stage and Walk On between 1979 and 1994 be a tremendous let down? Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Boston fan. (Well, at least until Corporate America, of course.)


ETA: Revisiting Walk On this morning, and I had forgotten how completely brilliant Scholz' bridge from 3:56 to 4:30 in "Surrender To Me" was. Lots of great ideas in that album.

Thought of another one just yesterday. Can't believe I forgot

Michael Hutchence

Scholz was such a genius, that he was too much of a genius. Aside from that he is a stubborn genius as well. If I had to pick 3 albums, and only 3 albums, to listen to for the rest of my life the first album would be my first pick, not necessarily my favorite pick, but my first pick due to the greatness of its entirety.

I think the protracted legal issues that Scholz was involved in really stymied both any semblance of continuity that the band had, as it really was only Delp and Scholz that were firm members, but also likely hurt Scholz's creativity.

I agree. Ironically, the quality of the later records is more uneven precisely because Scholz started sharing more of the writing and vocals with artists that, though talented and earnest, just didn't share the same level of genius. (Plus, the lyrics shifted to more deliberately political and Green themes.)

Otis Redding would be my pick as well!

I have always found it astounding that Boston got to be as big, popular, and enduring as they were/are. Not that their music wasn't bad ass, just that their timing was poor. As a kid back then I remember the waning of AOR as the disco crap was starting up and hit full force by 78/79' with the Sat Night Fever stuff being unbearable. More Than a Feeling was released late 78', and that year and 79' were huge in disco.

I remember my buddies older sisters that had turned us on to REO, Queen, Sweet and other true rock bands all of a sudden wearing platform pumps and disco pants and listening KC and Sunshine Band and stuff. That Boston achieved what they did in that period remains impressive, at least to me.

Epic rejected Scholz' demo tape the first time he submitted it because the record company thought Boston wouldn't be able to compete with disco. Fortunately, he submitted it again, and Epic signed him.

Lotta good bands struggled in that time period, and likely we never heard some real talent that prolly ended up pumping gas or selling insurance. That disco time period still grieves me.

I mean yeah but there were still a lot of great rock groups that came out then - some new wave for sure but not disco at least

1978 or 1979
Police
Dire Straits
Van Halen
Toto
Cars
Joy Division
The Motels
B-52s
Pat Benatar
Joe Jackson
Gary Numan
The Cure
The Knack
Red Rider

…and I have always put Kansas and Styx in the same memory set as Boston. They all had unique, distinctive sounds but to this day I have a hard time thinking about one of those bands without bringing the others to mind.

Yep. I was 11 in 1977 and just getting into rock. Those bands and the eagles and rush were the biggest. And even ac/dc. There was tons of rock in 75-80. You couldn't escape some disco but I was listening to rock. You didnt have to hear it except in movies etc. it was trendy but rock was still thriving too.

You are right, AOR was still prevalent and quite a bit of decent, to great, music was recorded and released at the zenith of the disco era. But at that time, say 77'-80', disco music and all the ancillary BS related to it was so in your face at a time when the media was limited that it force fed America a popularity that was created for them.

We/I could write a really long thesis on the disco vs. AOR scenario of the late 70's. You and I are close to the same age, and if you remember so much of what we heard or were influenced by was, at least for me, via the radio. What I clearly remember about the late 70's into the early 80's was seemingly a large transition, or inclusion if you will, of disco music on the radio.

Years ago, like 20 or so, I remember watching a documentary about the music industry in the 70's. One of the recurring themes was that the industry embraced disco, and promoted the hell outta of it, due to it being "producer" driven instead of "artist" driven. Production and talent costs for disco music were much less than what had been traditional Top 40 and or AOR. So much of the disco stuff was just crap and about any somewhat photogenic scrub could be made to have a disco hit. From 12-14 years old my proudest possession was a "Disco Sucks" Tshirt.

All the transitions of the 1970's in music are really interesting to look at, and the influences of the genres that blew up, then faded, and then morphed, and somewhat re-emerged is also really interesting.

RGV AG said:

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You are right, AOR was still prevalent and quite a bit of decent, to great, music was recorded and released at the zenith of the disco era. But at that time, say 77'-80', disco music and all the ancillary BS related to it was so in your face at a time when the media was limited that it force fed America a popularity that was created for them.

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I think disco's domination of pop culture during that era is one reason for yacht rock's resurgence today, as people discover, or rediscover, how good a lot of that music was.

"What a Fool Believes" was released by Kenny Loggins in the summer of '78 (and the more popular Doobies version in the fall of '78) -- the year five of the top 10 Billboard songs were by either the Bee Gees or Andy Gibb, along with one other disco song.

In '79, when the Doobies' release of "What a Fool Believes" hit No. 1, seven of the year's Billboard Top 10 were disco songs, with another one being a ballad by disco/R&B singers.

Heck, in '79, Leif Garrett's "I Was Made for Dancing" finished higher on the charts than Toto's "Hold the Line," Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler," Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing," and other songs with far greater cultural staying power.