(7 of 13)
ROB REINER:
Well, you know, I, I, Faulkner. I would say, I mean, he's a favorite of mine, as well. I also like reading
Steinbeck, and I like reading S. Fitzgerald. I mean, I love reading
F. Scott Fitzgerald. Uh, and then you talk about people who are
popular, and are very small output, somebody like J.D. Salinger, who had
an enormous influence on, you know, teenagers and adolescents for,
for, since the 50s, from the 50s on. I mean, the man who, you know I
hate to say, the man who killed, John Lennon, was steeped in J.D. Salinger and Catcher in the Rye, so, we know the tremendous impact
that he's had, even though it's a very limited output.
ROBERT HUGHES:
That's okay, Hitler loved Wagner, too.
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE:
Us, sorry, go ahead. No. But I want to lead, you introduced music.
Uh, music. Tell me who you think who ought to be, have under
consideration, as we think about music.
SHERYL CROW:
Well, um, I think no one can dispute the impact that Dylan had,
obviously.
(APPLAUSE)
SHERYL CROW:
Uh, not, not just as a musician, but as an innovator, he actually
created folk rock, by bringing folk into an amplified medium, although
it wasn't popular at the time, and he took a lot of grief over it. It
changed the way rock 'n' roll is now — the way he led the
culture of revolution, his very politically abiding lyrics, his
strange look that wasn't clean cut, everything about him was something
that we had never seen before, and it really changed the world...
CHARLIE ROSE:
What influence did it have on you?
SHERYL CROW:
I was very young, but I still, it's, i—, I go to Steinbeck, I
go to Dylan. I read him like, uh...
CHARLIE ROSE:
John Steinbeck?
ROB REINER:
He added poetry to rock 'n' roll. He was the first man to add poetry to
rock 'n' roll.
SHERYL CROW:
Definitely. And, if you look at Dylan you have to go back and
look at Robert Johnson, you have to look at Hank Williams. And I think
in...
CHARLIE ROSE:
Hank Williams?
SHERYL CROW:
Robert Johnson, yeah, certainly, I mean, you forget how to look at rock
and roll and not address Robert Johnson and the blues, and the people he
affected, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, the people that really, I
think, gave rock 'n' roll its earliest face.
ROB REINER:
Yeah, we were talking about that in the green room and I totally agree.
Robert Johnson, if you don't have Robert Johnson, you don't have rock
'n' roll. I mean he basically, I mean, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino,
CHARLIE ROSE:
Little Richard.
ROB REINER:
Little Richard, they all go back to Robert Johnson, and then...
CHARLIE ROSE:
Where do you put Elvis, and who do you say about Elvis? I read a story
about, now I think it was, I'm not sure what the magazine was on the
plane coming out here and the argument was, the most over rated
musician in this century had been Elvis. And the same argument made the
point the most under rated musician of this century was Louis
Armstrong. Now, what about Elvis?
ROB REINER:
Well, he made, he made the music that Robert Wood Johnson that started,
that came out of the rhythm and blues. He made that popular. He made
that acceptable to mainstream audiences.
SHERYL CROW:
And you talking a time when radio would not play black music, and you
had bands who were being heavily influenced even in early stages by
Chuck Berry, Little Richard, like the Beatles, kind of like...
ROB REINER:
I mean, Hound Dog, Hound Dog was written by a women, uh, by Lieber and
Stoler. And it was recorded a woman by Big Mama Thornton...
SHERYL CROW:
Big Mama Thornton.
ROB REINER:
Who was a tremendous, you know, blues, jazz and blues, and, and,
and R&B singer. But it didn't become popular till Elvis recorded it,
changed the lyrics a little bit...
SHERYL CROW:
Right.
ROB REINER:
....and recorded it and then became part of the mainstream.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Let me ask you something, can you think of anybody who is not black, who
is, apart from Dylan, who you would regard as absolutely fundamental to
the history of rock 'n' roll?
SHERYL CROW:
Anybody who's not black?
ROBERT HUGHES:
Anybody who's not black.
SHERYL CROW:
Well, I don't know the history of rock 'n' roll well enough to say that,
but, this, do you?
ROB REINER:
rock 'n' roll came from the Mississippi Delta.
SHERYL CROW:
Certainly.
ROB REINER:
It came from the Mississippi Delta, all the people you mentioned,
Howling Wolf, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy
Waters, Sun House, all these people came from Mississippi Delta, and
that was the basis of all rock 'n' roll.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Hm.
SHERYL CROW:
But you also think i—, you got to, you got to remember, when black
music came to America, we were still listening very white, European
music, and, uh, that became sort of the, uh, the bed for what later
became a very American art form. You know blues, uh, R&B, rock and
roll, you have to look at Bee-Bop, you have to look at jazz, you got to
look at Duke Ellington, and then certainly Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis,
people who, and Miles Davis, I look at him and I think, he's very
similar to a Marlon Brando, who, he found his voice, you know, was a
counter culture thing, it wasn't about, necessarily, being mainstream
and popular, and they did of did it for themselves, and you had
Coltrane, and Charlie Parker, and those guys in there who were, who were
kind of a counter culture, and they were slowly sort of seeping out, but
that was a complete new and innovative art form to American music, which
later on, James Brown took, and, uh, people like that, and...