The Top 100 Rock & Rollers of All Time
(An Excerpt) LIFE.com PRESENTS THE TOP 25
Every kid who has ever spent Friday night at a concert or a dance, or been mesmerized by the light of a jukebox, has his or her own Top 100. And it's safe to say that no two Top 100s are alike. The fun is in the fighting. What do you mean Jimi's not No. 1? Hey, where's Britney? Of LIFE's Top 100 we can say only this for certain: They rocked our world. We're betting a lot of them rocked yours.
1. ELVIS PRESLEY
In the 20th century, only a few individuals in the world of popular music were so far above and beyond what surrounded them that they became stars of a different, greater magnitude. Bing Crosby was one, so was Frank Sinatra. The third member of that tiny but brilliant constellation was a young man who emerged from a hardscrabble Mississippi background to become a phenomenon that may have been the biggest of them all — Elvis.
2. THE BEATLES
John Lennon, never a falsely modest man, once said that without Elvis, there was no Beatles. Indeed, the rockabilly craze ignited by Elvis was the formative influence on each of the four young Beatles-in-waiting as they grew up in near-poor to middle class circumstances in the oil-slicked English port city of Liverpool. Without Elvis, the Beatles wouldn't have wanted to be what they eventually became.
3. BOB DYLAN
In the mid-1950s a high school freshman in Hibbing, Minn., named Bobby Zimmerman, whose ultimate ambition was "to join Little Richard," formed a band called the Golden Chords. Thus began the astonishing musical journey of the one who, even before leaving the Midwest for New York City in 1961, had been reborn as Bob Dylan. At first performing in a style resonant of his hero, Woody Guthrie, Dylan conquered the world in stages: the Greenwich Village folk scene, the rock arena, the Nashville crowd. As the millennium turned, he was playing at special audiences for Presidents and popes, meanwhile creating new, vibrant music that continued to thrill.
4. JAMES BROWN
The most influential black artist in rock's history, Brown burst onto the scene in 1956 when he and the Famous Flames recorded "Please, Please, Please." Like many another, he had a gospel background, but he also drew on stints as a semipro boxer and baseball player. His stage shows were an explosion of jumps, splits and rapid-fire dance moves that earned him the nickname Mr. Dynamite.
5. THE ROLLING STONES
For many they are, simply, the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. In the early '60s, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts joined forces in London for music that was mostly covers of Chuck Berry and Chicago blues. While those influences would remain, Jagger and Richards soon became a team that wrote one great song after another.
6. MADONNA
Christopher Ciccone once called his sister Madonna Louise "her own masterpiece." That she is, an intricately crafted figure of great rarity who may or may not be a feminist icon, may or may not be much of a singer, may or may not be a narcissistic empty vessel, but is one thing for sure: a rock star of the highest order, one with savvy, style and legs.
7. STEVIE WONDER
Stevie Wonder is one of the most "musical" people rock has ever known, musical in the sense that Louis Armstrong was musical, where the sound is always special. He opened everyone's ears when his third single, "Fingertips (Part 2)," and its accompanying album both hit No. 1 in 1963. His vital, inventive singing and harmonica playing made it clear that someone important had arrived. For the rest of the decade, he hit one pop homer after another, equally comfortable with gentle ballads or swirling rockers.
8. CHUCK BERRY
He was rock's first poet, spinning three-minute sagas of teen angst that cleverly reflected that manic-depressive reality, whether it was the doldrums of school ("the teacher don't know how mean she looks"), the liberation of the automobile ("we parked way out on the Kokomo") or the allure of fine young things ("she's too cute to be a minute over seventeen"). Driving the lyrics were some of rock's immortal melodies, with guitar licks (and piano riffs from Johnnie Johnson) that remain fresh despite having graced the songs of a thousand others.
9. MICHAEL JACKSON
Born in 1958, he was already a member of the Jackson 5 by age five, and hasn't left the stage since — a fact that made him a star beyond measure and, meantime, cost him dearly. He has often lamented his lost boyhood, and cited this as a reason for his wistful, childlike personality. Jackson's enigmatic nature — some call it plain old strangeness, what with the oddly evolving facial structure and skin tone — often overwhelms an appreciation of his extraordinary gifts.
10. KURT COBAIN
Growing up in a small town in Washington, he was a happy boy who loved the Beatles. His parents divorced when he was eight, and the next year Cobain became a devotee of heavier music: Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. (He once said that he hoped his band, Nirvana, might marry Beatlesque melody to Sabbath's power.) In 1987, Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic began expressing their anger in loud, edgy, intoxicating songs. Eventually joined by drummer Dave Grohl, they released, in 1991, a disc that was the very definition of seminal.
the best of the rest:
11. Eric Clapton
12. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
13. Smokey Robinson
14. Aretha Franklin
15. Bruce Springsteen
16. Jimi Hendrix
17. Ray Charles
18. The Everly Brothers
19. The Drifters
20. The Beach Boys
21. Buddy Holly
22. The Band
23. Bob Marley
24. The Four Tops
25. Grateful Dead
"Rock & Roll at 50" contains the full list of the 100 best rockers, and descriptions of their contributions to the history of Rock & Roll.
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