I gotta side with the parallel bands theory....but rather than just band A 
and band B setting the tone for generations, I believe there are a number of 
acts (post-Elvis) who served up musical branches that were NOT Beatle 
spawned. The obvious would be the Who and The Stones who, though competitive 
at times were wholly exclusive animals forging their own sounds....just 
listen to the catalogues of both....you know a record by The Who is 
different than a record by The Stones and neither sound like records by The 
Beatles except in atmosphere or fad of the day. And each of the three of 
those acts had their steadfast supporters (many times to the exclusion of 
the other two).

Similarly, I can't imagine that Black Sabbath or Zeppelin were keeping track 
of where "The Ballad of John & Yoko" was on the charts. And both acts have 
serious post-1970 recordings that launched garage bands for ANOTHER 
generation of kids.

I'm not saying these acts are more influential than the Beatles, but who 
would have thought that the Velvet Underground would have been name-checked 
by half the alternative rock scene in the 1980s and NOT the Fabs?

To that end, I believe Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead spawned more acid 
soaked basement and experimental musical exploration than anything offered 
up by the Fab Four (except for some moments on "Sgt. Pepper" and the song 
"Strawberry Fields" itself).

"The Wall" owes nothing to The Beatles. It was produced by Bob Ezrin. It 
SOUNDS like Bob Ezrin. Ezrin was a student of Jack Richardson...the man who 
single-handedly created The Guess Who's sound. The Guess Who stopped being a 
British Invasion sound-alike the minute Cummings walked into Richardson's 
Nimbus 9 facility in 1969. He ended the imitation and instead brought out 
the Cummings/Bachman prairie inflicted R & B, soul, country and jazz vibe 
amalgam dating back to the dustbowl in the '20s. And not a Beatle among 
those sounds. Cummings' biggest influence was '50s rock and roll. Bachman's 
was jazz guitarist Lenny Breau. Ezrin, a quick study of Richardson's, was 
given a dose of Richardson's BIG BAND experience (having been a bass player 
in the Billy O'Connor Big Band in the 1950's and 1960's). Ezrin learned well 
and used his orchestration and arrangement skills to mold albums like Alice 
Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare", Lou Reed's "Berlin", KISS's "Destroyer" 
and "The Wall" into operatic conceptual pieces. You'd be hard pressed to 
find a "yeah, yeah, yeah" or mellotron on any of them.

Oh, and Dylan owes part of his career to Conway Twitty. Gary Gold is better 
at connecting the dots, but suffice it to say that Alabama-born Ronnie 
Hawkins, and NOT Dylan, played the biggest role in the Americana music 
movement (thanks to a push from Twitty).

Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye

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