I am more impressed with direct influence. If you are going to there than the people who invented the instruments and the recording technology before rock and roll who made it big are then the biggest influences in rock and roll. It doesn't work that way.

Then go get your own website and make your own list.

I strongly disagree with the Beatles being #2 on the influence list what can I say.

The Pete Townshend quote was from

The songwriting secrets of the Beatles By Dominic Pedler

Also here is an interesting interview with Pete Townshend where he mentions the Beatles a lot.

A Pete Townshend interview.
http://www.thewho.org/pete.htm

To your knowledge were you the first to use controlled feedback?
PT: To tell the truth, Dave Davies, Jeff (Beck) and me have got a tacit agreement that we will all squabble ‘til the day we die that we invented it. I think possibly the truth is that it was happening in a lot of places at once. As the level went up, as people started to use bigger amps, and we were all still using semi-acoustic instruments, it started to happen quite naturally. I think the development of it was the word was around the street and then Lennon used it at the beginning of that record I Feel Fine and then it became quite common and a lot of people started to use it.

How did you happen to choose a Rickenbacker?
PT: I liked the look of it, I think because The Beatles were using them. They picked theirs up in Germany, they were real German ones. I stayed with Rickenbackers for a long time and then I started to use Fenders. I never liked Gibsons at all - I still don’t very much (laughs). Then I started to get interested in a wide variety of guitars. I just tried anything that was around. I tried a Grimshaw for a while which is an English guitar. I tried a semi-acoustic Gibson ES335, I flitted around a lot and then Hendrix came along and I started to use Strats again. But that didn’t last long because the sound of them wasn’t quite right for what I wanted. And then Henry at Manny’s (music store in New York) introduced me to a guitar which had just come out. I don’t know what you call them; it was a thin crimson-coloured guitar…

Also on "You Can't Do That" as rock critic Lester Bangs not always kind to the Beatles by the way wrote years later), "built on one of the bitterest and most iron-indestructible riffs ever conceived". Lennon handled the lead guitar himself, hammering out a wiry solo which grew into a furious flurry of chords, totally unlike anything that George Harrison performed on the rest of the album

I love the lengths you go to dismiss the Beatles. Please that is not long hair and people in both America and the U.K freaked over the Beatles long hair. The long hair look influenced by the Beatles became the look of practically rock band.

Thomas Edison is the most important person in rock and roll history.

Then why have a list if you can't debate it. I see there was no problem with you and others voicing your opinion when the VH1 100 GREATEST ARTIST POLL came out. I see there was no problem debating or trying to dismiss Acclaimed Music lists. I also have a hard time believing that Elvis was the first to actually act on stage with a overt sexual manner also.

[/quote]

Please, Sophie Tucker was doing that 100 years ago.

I fail to see how any of this makes the Beatles more influential than Elvis Presley. Sorry.

He was the first to have a major impact on popular music and popular culture with it.

Give us a few hit records from the past 20 years where you hear an Elvis influence.

Not on television reaching an audience of tens of millions.

What you actually mean is the he was the first to have a major impact on "white" music and "white" culture with it. Lots of black artists were doing it and having an impact on black music and black culture with it. Wynonie Harris, Sonny Til, Howlin' Wolf with the soda bottle trick, etc...

Rock and roll didn't suddenly become important merely because the geeky white suburban kids finally discovered it with Elvis.

Of course you don't it's only a small piece of a large puzzle when it comes to the Beatles influence. The 12 string Rickenbocker was the instrument George Harrison influenced Roger McGuinn to use which became the sound of the Byrds and much of folk rock, power pop, and jangle pop. The Who and the Animals also used the instrument.

The Beatles use of intentional guitar feedback brief as it is on "I Feel Fine" became an important element not only to psychedelic rock but to the sound of hard rock and heavy metal. Pete is acknowledging the Beatles impact on both areas I guess as a Who fan as you claim to be respect it.

You know what I know you don't agree with everything I have said especially when it came to Hank Williams rockabilly and that's cool with me. But I appreciate some of the information you are giving. It’s kind of giving me a new perspective on past popular music.