Are we losing all the greats names

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:53 PM

It would suit me fine if there never was another John Wayne. He amde William Shatner look deep. (Shoot me, now...)

Current actors who I feel will be well remembered (although not pop icons) are Robert Duvall, Billy Joe Thornton and Harrison Ford. I suppose that you'd have to add Robert DeNiro to that list. I can't get too warmed up over Tom Cruise, although he can act, when required. Jack Nicholson will have a good career to look back on, although he seems usually to play variations on a smart ass. Once the old studio system broke down, and "stars" weren't "owned" by a single studio, they had the freedom to go into a wide variety of movies.

One question... why is Ben Afleck considered to be the Sexiest Man on earth (recent headline.) I'd like to see him in the life story of Ken (before and after he was jilted by Barbie.)

Now we have Adam Sandler doing the Jimmy Stewart roles? Maybe they'll do a re-make of On The Waterfront with him in the Brando role..

Ecch..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: khandu
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:28 PM

Dick Gaughan, what a guy!

k

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:23 PM

what is happening is that the techniques for marketing of music is changing just as the styles and performers are changing. What is 'great' and what makes lot of money are NOT usually closely connected.

Performers like Ewan McColl or Peter Bellamy or Jeanie Robertson were noted as pretty special during their lifetimes....some will only be recognized years later....I know people who have never made a recording who are amazing artists, and will no doubt never be widely known. But, it has always been that way.....
The Shania Twains of the world will be 'famous', but I hope not called 'great'.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 09:19 PM

As far as music goes, I think we're coming to the end of a period, if not an era. It happens, things change, they move on. I, on the other hand, am going to stay right here.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Gurney
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 08:34 PM

Great actors? Never really understood how an actor can be 'great.' The Director is the one with the vision, with help from the cutting room. Actors just 'pretend,' sometimes successfully. I'm thinking of film stars here, not stage actors, who are in the limelight like any other performer. Are we losing great performers? Sure are. What's the life of a man any more than a leaf?

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: harvey andrews
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 07:03 PM

Ronnie Carroll, Ann Shelton and..The Everley Brothers?
That's like putting Fabian,and Frankie Avalon in with Buddy Holly!

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:12 PM

There are greats around, we just don't recognise them as such now... one day we'll be talking about these to our grandchildren and great grandchildren...

'sing us one of the old songs Grandma?'

Grandma launches into the Sex Pistols version of 'God save the queen'.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 04:56 PM

What did James Keelaghan sing??

"Who dies? Everyone dies..."

Heh... all things pass... and get replaces, and the heroes of today are the worm farms of tomorrow... And eventually everything is forgotten in favour of the stuff that came after it...

I guess it mostly kinda goes like this... First, a lot of people you've never heard of die... Then people you're more familliar with... eventually people you called heroes fade... then come people who are your contemporaries... Then it's your turn for the big dirt nap... Meanwhile the cycle starts all over again for someone else...

But really, life's too short to worry about any of that... Just enjoy what and who ya got, while ya got 'em...

;-)

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Ireland
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 04:56 PM

Thanks for the names, now I have a base to work from and learn about.
I agree with Andrew, but from my limited experience, not that I really know.

Are there Divas in the folk scene? lol

How's it going Tim.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Big Tim
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 04:13 PM

Hey: good thread Ireland.

I like Dylan as well!

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: allanwill
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 03:38 PM

I'd like Bob Bolton to give his thoughts on this topic from an Australian perspective.

We've lost some greats like Declan Affley and Gordon McIntyre, who I would rate right up there with some of the names mentioned above, but we've still got Danny Spooner, Dobe Newton and Warren Fahey keeping the ball alive.

Bob, who do you think are the future in OZ.

Allan

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 03:09 PM

Well said Andrew I'll add Hamish Henderson, Keith Marsden, Woody and
Derroll Adams to the list.
Cheers, Dave

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Schantieman
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:52 PM

Hear hear!

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Crane Driver
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:47 PM

The Folk arena? Try A L (Bert) Lloyd, Ewan MaColl, Alex Campbell, Hamish Imlach, Peter Bellamy, Tony Rose - yeah, even great folk grow old and die (not always in that order) and their deaths diminish us all, but new greats arise. The strength of folk music is that no-one expects greatness to spring up fully formed at age 16 (in a few cases it does, but it's the exception). There are no greats in pap music any more because no-one pays their dues any more, going round playing rough clubs until the public are forced to pay attention. It's all prefabricated "Pap Stars" that fall apart as quickly as they appear, all marketing hype and none of the strength that comes of making it against the odds. Music shouldn't be an industry.

{Rant mode off}

Andrew

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: kendall
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:42 PM

Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Ireland
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:01 PM

I'm not talking about the abilities of those I mentioned, what I meant was this,who on earth does not know of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Bob Dylan.

What or who is going to replace the people others see as great what evers.

This is were my lack of knowledge of all the great folk singers is highlighted, so my picking Wayne and Eastwood was to illustrate my point,as there are too many actors that can hold the title of being a giant in their industry.

But if we watch a movie remake why is it that it is no where near the original, why for example when On Golden Pond is shown with Hepburn and Fonda, they alone make the film worth watching. Will there be in years to come actors of the stature, that good no matter what age they are worth watching.

Will there be another John Wayne, just as will there ever be another Clancy Bros or Dylan? Will folk stay the same as many new singers bring their own flavour to the scene, River Dance for example shows how trad dancing can be taken off in a different tangent.

I was sort of hoping some would put up names of who they admire in the folk arena, so I can go and check em out.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 11:12 AM

Well, leave the Fistful of Dollars crowd out of it and reflect on the passage of Katherine Hepburn, George C. Scott, George Burns, and a lot of other great actors and actresses.

My impression, FWIW, is that actually there is a difference, and that it stems from the proximity of the participants to live performance, stage, vaudeville, and so on, rather than a completely synthesized arcade career mentality. But that's just MHO.

A

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:41 AM

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that the style of acting the public responds to the best seems to have changed, hence a change in top actors. For example, Pierce Brosnan as Bond? Honestly. But in music, there is no similar excuse. Who knows where the next will come from?

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: kendall
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 09:48 AM

John Wayne was a great name compared to Marion Morrison, but, great actor? He only played one role, John Wayne.
When I think of great names, I think of Jascha Heifitz and Andres' Segovia.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Schantieman
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 06:34 AM

They're being replaced by the up-and-coming youngsters like Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy & Damien Barber. (Actually, those three aren't really up-and-coming any more - they've arrived - and Damien's over thirty (I think - I hope I'm not offending him!) but you know what I mean).

Steve

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:35 AM

I admit I also liked Alma Cogan and Edmundo Ros(though I never laid out good money to buy their records!!).

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:32 AM

Some of the young unknowns of today will be the great names to be missed by our kids in fifty years.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:31 AM

Just got tha'sen born at t'right time - didn't tha? To be fair, there were probably fourteen year old kids at the time who spent their money on Ronnie Carroll, The Everleys and Ann Shelton!

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 05:20 AM

Well I know what michaelr means about teenage jusgment being clouded by hormones. But my 14 year old pocket money went on lonnie Donegan, leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and I havent felt the need to revise my judgement in the following forty years.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 02:36 AM

I'd be careful about labelling John Wayne a great actor, but I can't really imagine Laurence Olivier carrying off the swagger of Marshall Rooster Coburn in "True Grit". Sometimes what makes something seem great is the fortuitous coming together of different things at the right time. That can go for music too.

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 01:19 AM

Far be it from me to burst anyone's bubble, but it's becoming more and more apparent to me that the performers we tend to label "the greats" are usually the ones we loved when we were teenagers, during a time when our judgment skills, newly developing as they were, were clouded by acute hormone imbalance. In other words, young adults tend to be intensely infatuated with third-grade pop pap.

As we age, we remember the intensity of those infatuations, and continue to carry a torch for the heroes of our adolescence. We defend them against the younger generation who call them crap and advance their own heroes. In the process, we often lose sight of the fact that our heroes really were crap.

I submit that neither Wayne nor Eastwood were anywhere near what can be called "great actors". Neither were Elvis, Sinatra, or Zeppelin "great musicians". What they were/are is pop stars of their era like Eminem, Madonna, and Ben Affleck are pop stars of their era.

To think of them as "greats" is to view your world through the rose-colored glasses of show business. (Rant off.)

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: khandu
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 12:44 AM

...Perhaps it never was...

k

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 12:41 AM

Yep -- (sigh) -- nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

Michael

Subject: RE: Are we losing all the greats names
From: khandu
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 12:24 AM

I don't know. I look at the present day actors and , as yet, I fail to see any that fit my model of "greats". Perhaps it is a generational thing, but I don't really think so. I look back to the generation that preceded mine and I can list many of them that I call "greats".

As for musicians, I have seen so many copycats over the years. How many groups have copied Led Zepplin's vocal styles? Or how many Stevie Ray "replacements" have arisen? Too many to count.

But I have lost touch with rock music so much that I really can't give a qualified opinion.

Country music? It seems almost all of it has sold out and gone to hell. Folk? I don't know. I listen to the old guys too much to worry about the new ones.

Some of the greatest musicians I have heard are unknowns. And I bet that has been the case forever.

khandu

Subject: Are we losing all the greats names
From: Ireland
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 12:15 AM

With the recent deaths of many well known actors and musicians is the reserve running low?

I'm thinking of the big names, will there be another John Wayne, Elvis, Sinatra, Dylan etc I know Dylan is not taddie breaded yet but his music defined a generation.

What do people think makes a person great, are the greats ? seen as part of their generation. For me there will never be another Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, as I grew up with their movies. Do we have any real reserves or up an coming people of the *old school*?