The Beatles

You are entitled to your own opinion, but many top drummers disagree with you, as I showed. And any top drummers list that doesn't include Hal Blaine or Jim Keltner is flawed, anyway.

 

It's not a barometer for talent, it's a barometer for success.

 

It's an almost impossible task to rank anything these days. It's like trying to place Y.A. Tittle in the ranking of greatest QBs of all time. The numbers aren't there, but he was in a totally different era and he was one of the very first QBs to excel at throwing the forward pass.

You mention a session drummer like Hal Blaine (and Keltner for that matter) which most people have never heard of, but he has played on 50 #1 hit songs. Not sure if there has been any more success than that.

 

Look amigo, I don't think that rappers can sing worth a shit either. But I can recognize that their voices are stylistically appropriate to the tunes that they are playing. Do you see what I'm trying to say? An artist can be a great singer without being a perfect vocalist.

You really don't listen to a lot of Dylan so understandably you compare him to pop singers. But he's a folk singer at heart and the best folk singers have never been generic clear, perfect vocalists but more singers with a more authentic sound. They have always had distinctive vocal styles and Dylan's is certainly that. Same with rockers. Janis Joplin was not a generic voice, but she was fabulous at what she did. The goes for Joe Cocker and the same with Dylan. If you had actually downloaded the two songs I mentioned and listened to them, you just might agree that Dylan's voice was perfect for them.

I bet you hate Tom Waits. Another gravelly voice that was perfect for his music.

Or Satchmo . . .

 

For many years I never appreciated Hal Blaine. I just thought that the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkle, The Association, The Tijuana Brass, The Fifth Dimension, Marvin Gaye, Johnny Rivers all had fabulous drummers. But they were all Hal Blaine. Even the top bands with their own drummers would have Hal do the recording sessions-- The Byrds, America, Beach Boys, Grass Roots and many more.

But I have appreciated Jim Keltner from the start. He kept showing up on all of the records of the musicians I listened to in the 70's -- Dylan, George Harrison, Steely Dan, Joe Cocker, Delanie and Bonnie, Traveling Wilburys, John Lennon, Carly Simon, Pink Floyd, Crosby Stills & Nash and on and on. Plus, he got out on tour some. He was in The Concert for Bangla Desh and toured with CSN, Dylan, and others.

 

It's worse with Bob Pettit and he has the numbers. Kids at LSU today have never heard of him, but in his era he was All-Everything. One of the first big men in the NBA, he won the first All-Star MVP and ended up with four (matched only by Kobe), two NBA MVP's, 11 All-Star games, and finished his career as the highest scorer in the NBA. But youngsters today wouldn't even place him on an all-time LSU starting five.

 

Forget it. You can't grasp what I'm saying. Pity.