I listen to what Louis Jordan was doing in the late 40's and while the "1-4-5" had been around for decades, it hadn't quited rocked like THAT before

I hear ya, but I disagree mildly, as there are exceptions to that. Granted, Jordan really refined what others did bits & pieces of, stuff that was rockin', but I enjoy hearing those bits & pieces. Like some of the more aggressive-sounding swing stuff, like Big Joe Turner's 'Roll 'Em Pete,' like Illinois Jacquet's 'Flying Home,' like Wynonie Harris, like Prima, like a few things Nat King Cole was doing in the late 30s (most notably 'Please Be Mine-a-ble'), like Jimmie Lunceford, like some of the stuff on labels like Specialty & Mercury in 1944 & 1945, stuff in that vein. Nobody's going to make a credible case that anyone or anything here made more of an imprint on r'n'r than Jordan (save perhaps Louis Prima). But they're there, & this is stuff I seek out actively & am always on the lookout for. There's plenty I haven't heard. If this sort of stuff rocks yr boat, check out Nick Toshes' 'Unsung Heroes Of Rock'n'Roll.'

You can make a case for several people or groups of people as the progentors of RNR. I choose the people I do because of when they did it, how they did it. They might not be the ONLY one's but they were among the first.

I agree completely. Jordan is probably the key figure, though I think Prima is equally deserving. Outside of recognizing those two, I concur that it was a group effort. Turner's contribution, I believe, was rooted & focused more firmly towards the blues side of the spectrum, though. Which is not to say that he wasn't influential, but I think Jordan rates ahead of him in that regard.

Unh you gonna have to prove that one to me.

On Streisand? Do you have absolute pitch? Go back & listen to the records. She's flat. Always was. Today they might use pitch shifters, but the woman always sang flat. Not outrageously flat, but painful to my ears nonetheless. And I listen to plenty of rock music with off-key singing that doesn't bother me; but it's not a genre where that's of tremendous importance. Streisand's brand of pop music highlights professionalism, if not perfection, and it's always been a source of consternation to me that nobody ever acknowledges her flat singing. It's there. Trust me. Again, not to denigrate her abilities in other areas, though it's not my cup of tea, the woman is talented. But her pitch was always off.

we're talking about RNR here. I don't get his relevance to this conversation.

You said 'modern popular music.' Specifically, you said They, along with Big Joe Turner and perhaps Louis Jordan and His Tympany 5, are the founders of modern popular muisc. That's why I brought up Bing Crosby, Les Paul, Sinatra, & Streisand. Sorry if this seems anal, but I'm not going to assume that you're talking only about rock music when you make a statement like that. And I have what I think is a pretty good reason: way too many fans of rock music--and I certainly don't include you in this--are so rock-centric that they never bother with anything that's NOT rock. This is a disturbing attitude, but I wasn't accusing you of it, just making a point. I think it's important to acknowledge what these artists did. There's already enough people running around who think there was no such thing as music, or good music, prior to rock and roll. It's that crappy attitude that I was addressing, more so than yr comment specifically. So pardon me.

If you'd read my original post you'd realize that I was merely ADDING Turner's and Jordan's name to the list of early progenetors provided by "Nobody". I'm not foolish enough to give any two people credit for inventing a musical genre.. RnR evolved from the Blues

I read the post. I didn't imply you were giving them & only them credit, just that there's a lot more to it, & yr post read like an overstatement of the importance of Jordan & Turner. That's my opinion, but I think it's pretty firmly grounded in fact. Go back & take a look at that post, and then read the last sentence in the post I just excerpted above. It completely ignores the influence of country & western. If you're talking about blues & jazz, that's one thing. If you're talking r'n'r, that's a different story altogether, & to completely ignore country just doesn't wash.

To continue our running battle as to the importance and influence of the Beatles on popular music today. I don't know if we're ever going to agree on this one.

Perhaps not.

Of course we're talking post Sgt. Peppers Beatles not the Fab 4 that were covering Motown songs.

We are? Just the fact that you think of the Fab 4 as a band that was 'covering Motown songs' tells me that you're viewing them through a very strange prism. What'd they cover, 3 Motown songs? 4? In 1963? We're talking about an act that managed 7 full-length, 12 or 14 song albums in less than 4 years between 1963 & 1966. Not counting non-LP singles, B-sides, & EP tracks. 4 Motown covers out of what, 90 or 100 songs?

I'd say that songs like And I Love Her, Yesterday, & Michelle all had a pretty big impact; you'll hear those in the supermarket before you'll hear anything they did after 1966. I remember reading somewhere that by the early 1970s--perhaps 1970--there were 1,000 recorded cover versions of 'Yesterday.' Oh, and 'Something' was one of the songs, if not the song, that changed Frank Sinatra's mind about rock'n'roll--no mean feat.

I admit Sgt. Peppers was/is ground breaking but I still don't feel it was a lasting "sea change" in popular music.

Sounds like what you said about Pet Sounds. Sgt. Pepper was as ground breaking as it was in some part because the followup to Pet Sounds wasn't finished on time & never was, & still hasn't been released to this day. Had it been released in January of 1967 we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I don't buy the Sgt. Pepper hype either, but the record is considered to be the most important album and the most important artistic statement by the band widely considered to be the most successful & influential rock band ever. So it has to carry some weight. It's certainly not a fraud. Its problem is that it seems more of its time now than it probably did at the time; it hasn't aged well. But that's partly because so many took inspiration from new ideas & put out work that explored those ideas more fully than the Beatles did, in some cases exploring those ideas to a fault (pretentious, overblown concept albums & the like). When that happens one can tend to lose sight of how important the original actually was. And it was important. But there were also things going on on Pet Sounds that the Beatles incorporated into that record, and on its followup as well. Maybe someday it'll see the light of day.

I listen to it (particularly after these conversations) and it still don't hear it reflected around me today as much as say James Brown's "Funky Drummer

Yeah, but that conveniently ignores the fact that Funky Drummer almost singlehandedly inspired the hip-hop aspect of rap music--not to mention that Serge Gainsbourg had a VERY similar beat going on on a tune of his done over a year before James Brown recorded it. Rock & rap are two different forms; rock is not one that could or would be so influenced by one & only one song in particular, so the comparison is unfair. If you're exposed to stuff influenced by Funky Drummer, fine. If you're listening to a classic rock radio station, which a lot of people apparently do, it's a joke to suggest that you don't hear the influence of Sgt. Pepper reflected today. Its influence is all over those playlists, which inexplicably manage to keep radio stations afloat. Keep in mind that prior to the lawsuit regulating the use of samples, 'Funky Drummer' was the illegally-used blueprint for approximately half of the rap recorded during its first decade. And I don't say that to downplay its influence, only to point out that the circumstances under which that influence flowered were somewhat artificial, relative to rock music. Bits & pieces of rock records were not used without license by rock bands influenced by those bits & pieces. And lest you take these remarks the wrong way, I am not anti-sampling & never have been (I get sick & tired of hearing from people who call themselves 'musicians' that sampling is this or that...always prefaced by 'I'm a musician,' as though that's supposed to mean something, that they're supposed to have a license for a blanket denunciation of sampling as being a crime against nature, or something. I'm a 'musician,' too. So what? Sampling has become a function of music, whether they like it or not). But it's quite possible that had the law reflected that the creators of work & owners of copyright had to be properly compensated for sampling some 25 years ago, that 'Funky Drummer' might not have had the impact it did--and in fact rap may have grown in a very different way.

More significantly, you're not taking into account that the Beatles' influence is sometimes hard to detect because it's gone through so many filters. Sit down & compare the Please Please Me Album to Rubber Soul, then compare Help! to the White Album, then try Revolver vs. Abbey Road, lastly A Hard Day's Night with Sgt. Pepper. The difference in years between each of those records is three years, or close to it. The stylistic range is pretty impressive, I believe. But the Beatles not only pioneered many of the styles they dabbled in (which is not to say that influences aren't recognizable, only that they're not exactly derivative), but they were also pretty darn good at most of 'em. They didn't spend much time doing stuff they weren't good at. If you take the time to divide their music by style or period, you can look at acts that were specifically & directly influenced by what they did. In some you can hear garage band influence based on their early material; in others you can hear syrupy ballads; in others you can hear psychedelic work reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper itself, or 'pop opera' conceits inspired by side two of Abbey Road. The list is long & impressive. And I say that anything that those acts influenced--and that's not exactly a short list, either--probably has something of a Beatles influence in one form or another. Oasis wasn't the only band in the past 10 years that was influenced by the Beatles.

Simply put, there haven't been many acts in rock music in the past 40 years that weren't influenced by the Beatles in some way, or at least influenced by artists that were themselves influenced by the Beatles, or...and so on.