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The Ultimate Lineup for the Ultimate Band.


WordWolf
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Ok, someone recently tried limited polling, but I thought this was worth a discussion.

Let's suppose you could pick among the musicians of the past AND the present.  (So, you could pick, say, "Psy right after he released his album" and not be stuck with picking any artist at the present or something.)    

So, let's say you could pick ANY musicians of the past AND present.   For the ultimate tour, I'm thinking there should be 2 band members to handle each of the major positions, and a number of SINGLE musicians for instruments that are NOT considered major.  So, this is going to be a rock-and-roll band, for some value of rock-and-roll, with lots of room for versatility.  

So,   2 vocalists,  2 lead guitarists,  2 bassists, 2 drummers, 2 pianists.  There's room for at least 1 additional keyboardist, as well as 1 for any other instrument. 

Who would you recommend for this ultimate band, and for which positions?

Obviously, there's room for disagreement and discussion, and there's no real wrong answer (it's about OPINION). 

I have some thoughts on some of those positions, but I'm curious who the rest of you will recommend. 

My personal thinking, for my purposes, is to consider all the quality candidates, then to select among them by virtue of versatility.  This works for me, but it's not a rule and may not help you.  It helps me resolve ties in my head, since I can usually rank versatility. 

 

Additionally, we can name this band anything we want.  Any thoughts on the band name?

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I'm old school.  Picking ONE of each:

Vocalist   I'd like to say Dion, but I'll go with Roy Orbison

Lead guitar:  Eric Clapton

Bass:  Paul McCartney (though honestly, I can't think of anyone particularly distinguished there -- kind of like rhythm guitar)

Drummer:  Dave Clark

Piano:  Jerry Lee Lewis

Other keyboard:  Stevie Wonder

George

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Those tribute concerts getting all of the best musicians together comes to mind.  Concert for George Harrison had an iconic line up.  Yes, I have a name for them that I made up with something like this in mind many years ago.  Let me gather some ideas and I'll put together my lineup and the name for the band and put it up.  Thanks WordWolf.   This should be fun.

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12 hours ago, GeorgeStGeorge said:

I'm old school.  Picking ONE of each:

Vocalist   I'd like to say Dion, but I'll go with Roy Orbison

Lead guitar:  Eric Clapton

Bass:  Paul McCartney (though honestly, I can't think of anyone particularly distinguished there -- kind of like rhythm guitar)

Drummer:  Dave Clark

Piano:  Jerry Lee Lewis

Other keyboard:  Stevie Wonder

George

I'll let people chime in a bit before throwing in some of my ideas. However, with 2 artists per position, I posted 2 for one position- and you posted one of them.   At least 1 is a neat choice I didn't even consider.

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On 11/18/2023 at 5:18 PM, GeorgeStGeorge said:

I'm old school.  Picking ONE of each:

Vocalist   I'd like to say Dion, but I'll go with Roy Orbison

Lead guitar:  Eric Clapton

Bass:  Paul McCartney (though honestly, I can't think of anyone particularly distinguished there -- kind of like rhythm guitar)

Drummer:  Dave Clark

Piano:  Jerry Lee Lewis

Other keyboard:  Stevie Wonder

George

 

Still holding off on posting mine. I'd like to mention a few things, in the meantime.

1) I also put Eric Clapton as a lead guitarist.

2) 3 different people put Paul McCartney as bassist. Not me, as I never remember him PLAYING the bass.  Apparently, everyone else does.

3) In the interest of having lots of musicians sit in for a song or 2, I added a violinist, harmonica player, and floutist. Wordpup beat me to suggesting the violinist. I also added someone on sitar.

4) There's still no such thing as a wrong answer, although I'd question a few. Someone asked me about a band they didn't know- so I questioned whether they thought the musicians they didn't know could keep up with this list, and they admitted THEY didn't think so.   I'm still reconsidering one of my lead vocalists, because I'm sure I'm forgetting someone.

 

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Here's my Ultimate Band I've so named ~Loaded in the Sky~".

Clearly, my personal preference in music will play a big part in my selection of artists. When it all started for me I suppose was sitting in front of the television and I remember watching Ed Sullivan and ~The Beatles~..... and that must have played a big part in my taking to English bands from the British Invasion more than I did any early 60's American bands. But I really didn't begin to listen to music much, until I starting listening to Simon & Garfunkle in high school.

I thought I would choose to place an artist in the first group of artists who were from the early 50's or 60's but not later than 1964,  and then take my second choice from artists who played after that for my second pick.  For me there was no question who I would pick for vocalist, bassist or drummer.  Well maybe I went back and forth with Roy Orbison a couple of times for a vocalist.

Musicians by category
 
Vocalist       John Lennon          Robert Plant             Honorable Mention     Roy Orbison
 
 
Guitar          Chuck Berry           Angus Young            Honorable Mention    Mike Campbelll
 
 
Bassist      John Entwistle,         John Paul Jones
 
 
Drums         Keith Moon              John Bonham
 
 
Pianist         Little Richard            Elton John
 
 
Keyboards  Richard Wright          Keith Emerson
 
 
Harmonica Paul Butterfield        Alan Wilson
 
 
Flautist       Ian Anderson            Ray Thomas
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, I asked a few other people.  Just because I can, I'm adding their lists here.

Abby Normal chose the following:

Andrea Boccelli and Celine Dion for vocals,  Prince on lead guitar, Paul Mc Cartney on Bass.  On drums we had Tito Puente and Ringo Starr.   On piano were Eddie Palmieri and Charlie Palmieri.  Featured soloists were Louis Armstrong on trumpet, Benny Goodman on clarinet, and Desi Arnaz on conga drum.

 

Mrs Wolf chose the following:

Sting and David Bowie for vocals, Slash and Keith Richards for lead guitar,  Paul Mc Cartney and Roger Waters for bass, And Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts on drums,  Piano was Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello.  Deatured soloists were Robert Pettinato on saxophone and George Harrison on sitar.

 

My list was the following:

Roger Daltrey and Robert Plant for vocals, Eddie Van Halen and Eric Clapton for lead guitar,  Geddy Lee and Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass.  On drums we had Ringo Starr and Dave Grohl, and piano was covered by Billy Joel and Warren Zevon.   My featured soloists were George Harrison on sitar (Mrs Wolf liked my idea), Charlie Daniels on violin (Wordpup suggested that one), John Popper on harmonica,  and Ian Anderson was my floutist.

 

I need to get a copy of Wordpup's list, but it resembles mine more than a little.  There were a lot of very talented artist who almost made it.  BTW, I just now swapped out Flea for Geddy Lee in the bassist category. In fairness, I know his work better and consider it quality. I know Flea more by reputation.

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