Music Favorite non-American singers

[Spang]

I will also add Laura Mvula to the list:

 

[GingerFoxx]

On my current rotation:

Dallas Green from City and Colour
Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine
Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit

 

[Mischief]

Tinariwen

 

[Dedalus]

All the US could every produce was "Christian rock" and honky-tonk "stay with your man" country music about sick dogs and cheating wives

Well - we (the U.S.) have Bob Dylan. And every single blues musician in the Delta South and beyond that influenced every. Single. Band. In this thread. There would never have been a Led Zeppelin, a Rolling Stones, a <insert your fave band here> without Robert Johnson. Muddy Waters. B.B King.

I rest my case.

 

[Second Summer]

Well - we (the U.S.) have Bob Dylan. And every single blues musician in the Delta South and beyond that influenced every. Single. Band. In this thread. There would never have been a Led Zeppelin, a Rolling Stones, a <insert your fave band here> without Robert Johnson. Muddy Waters. B.B King.

I rest my case.

It's probably time for me to apologize for that statement - I'm sorry! You guys have produced a couple of decent musicians. Generally not conforming to my personal taste, though, that is the problem.

 

[ledboots]

Well - we (the U.S.) have Bob Dylan. And every single blues musician in the Delta South and beyond that influenced every. Single. Band. In this thread. There would never have been a Led Zeppelin, a Rolling Stones, a <insert your fave band here> without Robert Johnson. Muddy Waters. B.B King.

I rest my case.

And Joni Mitchell, who was more of a songwriter than a singer, but changed music forever.

 

[Jeremy]

Dedalus definitely does have a good point. The roots of all popular music is the blues and jazz, from pop to rap, to country, to rock, to metal. Good things in music certainly were a product of the USA. We owe a huge debt to people like Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, John Lee Hooker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and probably above them all Willie Dixon who was in my opinion the best song writer of the 20th century and to his credit single handedly penned nearly every single hit song to come from the Chicago blues scene in his active years with Chess Records. You can even extend that debt to more pop(ish) figures like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, The Doors, and as ledboots already said Joni Mitchell deserves due credit too.

UK bands take a lot of the thunder from their influences in their delivery, and quite a few for good reason. I'll probably take some heat for this but there are a couple bands that I never understood why they take as much credit as they do. First being The Rolling Stones, three quarters of their sets back in the day were Chicago blues covers, need I say more? Second being Led Zeppelin, who committed plagiary more than a little bit.

Oh and IS.... You asked what has America ever done for progressive... Ever heard of Dream Theater? Sheesh

 

[Second Summer]

Oh and IS.... You asked what has America ever done for progressive... Ever heard of Dream Theater? Sheesh

I have one CD with Dream Theatre. One. I wanted to like it. But it was not good. It wasn't properly progressive. It started out alright, instrumentally, but then I heard the vocals, and it went downhill from there on. I was in doubt if I had bought something in the heavy genre.

From Wikipedia's Progressive Rock article, section North America:

Progressive rock came to be appreciated overseas, but it mostly remained a European, and especially British, phenomenon. Few American bands engaged in it, and the purest representatives of the genre, such as Starcastle and Happy the Man, remained limited to their own geographic regions.[248] This is at least in part due to music industry differences between the US and Great Britain. Radio airplay was less important in the UK, where popular music recordings had never been played on official radio (as opposed to on pirate radio) until the 1967 launch of BBC Radio 1.[249] UK audiences were accustomed to hearing bands in clubs, and British bands could support themselves through touring. US audiences were first exposed to new music on the radio, and bands in the US required radio airplay for success.[250] Radio stations were averse to progressive rock's longer-form compositions, which hampered advertising sales.[251] Cultural factors were also involved, as US musicians tended to come from a blues background, while Europeans tended to have a foundation in classical music.[252]

Well, I'm just saying ...!

 

[Jeremy]

I have one CD with Dream Theatre. One. I wanted to like it. But it was not good. It wasn't properly progressive. It started out alright, instrumentally, but then I heard the vocals, and it went downhill from there on. I was in doubt if I had bought something in the heavy genre.

From Wikipedia's Progressive Rock article, section North America:

Well, I'm just saying ...!

Lol... I was being kind of tongue in cheek actually... I'm not a great fan of Dream Theater either. Honestly, when I think progressive rock, first thing I think about is mid 70's Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore trading blues/renaissance infused licks with Tony Carry, Jon Lord or some other organ/synth prodigy over the soaring vocals of a young Ronnie James Dio... Stargazer, Gates of Babylon, Kill The King

 

[PTree15]

I have one CD with Dream Theatre. One. I wanted to like it. But it was not good. It wasn't properly progressive. It started out alright, instrumentally, but then I heard the vocals, and it went downhill from there on. I was in doubt if I had bought something in the heavy genre.

From Wikipedia's Progressive Rock article, section North America:

Well, I'm just saying ...!

My exact feeling on Dream Theater regarding the vocals. Totally ruined them for me. I do have the instrumental Liquid Tension Experiment, which I did like, as it was free of James Labrie's vocals.

 

[Cerebellion]

Lol... I was being kind of tongue in cheek actually... I'm not a great fan of Dream Theater either. Honestly, when I think progressive rock, first thing I think about is mid 70's Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore trading blues/renaissance infused licks with Tony Carry, Jon Lord or some other organ/synth prodigy over the soaring vocals of a young Ronnie James Dio... Stargazer, Gates of Babylon, Kill The King

Man on the Silver Mountain?

 

[Jeremy]

Man on the Silver Mountain?

Yep! That one too lol

 

[Cerebellion]

Yep! That one too lol

Probably one of my favorite Dio performances outside of his run with Black Sabbath.

 

[Cerebellion]

My exact feeling on Dream Theater regarding the vocals. Totally ruined them for me. I do have the instrumental Liquid Tension Experiment, which I did like, as it was free of James Labrie's vocals.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gave up on Dream Theater because of Labrie. I never thought his style fit the music that the band was playing. He's not a bad vocalist, but his voice doesn't have the muscle that the music warrants. There's my two cents.

 

[PTree15]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gave up on Dream Theater because of Labrie. I never thought his style fit the music that the band was playing. He's not a bad vocalist, but his voice doesn't have the muscle that the music warrants. There's my two cents.

That's a good way to put it. Upon my first listen, I pretty much cringed when the vocals kicked in.

 

[Cerebellion]

Duke Garwood, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh offhandedly come to mind.

 

[Jeremy]

Probably one of my favorite Dio performances outside of his run with Black Sabbath.

As much as I like the albums he did with Sabbath, I think Ronnie was at his best with Ritchie... There's just moments with Rainbow that gives chills, particularly the ballads like Catch the Rainbow, Rainbow Eyes, etc.

 

[Cerebellion]

As much as I like Blackmore, I like Iommi a bit better. I admit my bias: The Mob Rules album is probably my favorite album of all time. Dio's vocals are just ******* righteous from beginning to end, especially on 'Falling off the edge of the world'.

 

[Jeremy]

As much as I like Blackmore, I like Iommi a bit better. I admit my bias: The Mob Rules album is probably my favorite album of all time. Dio's vocals are just ****ing righteous from beginning to end, especially on 'Falling off the edge of the world'.

To be enthusiastic about music is all about bias But hey, on the topic; Ronnie was someone who always gave 110%, you'd be hard pressed to find a performance where it wasn't fantastic. He breathed new life in a band that was truly dying, Iommi was a very smart man to change frontmen when he did and couldn't have made a better choice in choosing Ronnie.