Get your facts straight, Bruce. I said "He was the first rock artist to operate his own label and publishing company". That is accurate. When you typically misread what I stated, I added that Ivory Joe Hunter had owned two labels in the 40's, and as you pointed out others had as well. Since I knew this and was the one who later brought it up, why you'd think I'd claim otherwise in a post about Cooke is beyond me, but you see all sorts of wild conspiracies lurking in the shadows. My original point was that Cooke oversaw EVERYTHING about his label, acting as A&R director, producing the sessions, writing the songs, handling distribution and overseeing the publishing, in other words, being financially independent in every way. No other rock artist that I can find did all of that before Cooke. The one who comes closest to that before him was Johnny Otis.

So it wasn't solely about ownership of the label, but the entire ball of wax, something that was clear in my original post.

It wasn't clear to us, as both me and Trance disputed what you said right away. All you said was "record label and publishing company."

Johnny Otis, among others, did that long before Cooke.

Wikipedia, in general, can be good if it references credible sources, although it's not always easy to determine which are reliable sources and which aren't. Even Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, has addressed this on many occasions. With that being said, no one should take everything at Wikipedia as gospel.

Which is why I brought up Johnny Otis.

I was even thinking about bringing up Bill Haley's Clymax label.

The comment in bold makes it much clearer to me what you were trying to get at.

On the popular musical landscape, Frank Sinatra started Reprise Records in 1960.

You deleted your post, but my point in showing the Dig Record is so we can see that they had their own publishing company (Dig Music).

All your original statement said was....



Johnny Otis owned and operated Dig Records and Dig Music, the publishing company.

Yeah, I also brought up Johnny Otis before, including today. He's the most diverse figure in rock history, but even as Clash just mentioned him being inducted into the R&R HOF as a non-performer, he wore so many hats during his career that his role was always as far more than just a performer, even from the very beginning. I think that's a credit for Johnny and one reason he should make this list.

Sometimes it's not clear, even if you view it as that. Case in point: your definition of "musical impact."

Never denied this...but we're talking about in reference to the Dig label, not Johnny Otis' entire career.

I was the one who brought that up when we were having the discussion of record labels.

I wanted to bring up other rockers who had record labels, but I was thinking more along the lines of what you made clearer today, so at that time I only brought up Johnny Otis' Dig.

Sampson,

For the record, I'm not penalizing you for not being clearer in your initial post; we all do this every now and then. So miscommunication is bound to happen.

I understand. No big deal.

Have you guys ever heard the first Clovers record?

1950 - It just came up on a random playlist I made.

Not on youtube.

I've never heard that one.

I added an explanation to the criteria to the first post. For musical impact, cultural impact, and influence, I used Sampson's words verbatim. I mostly used his language for commercial impact also, but tweaked it a bit. I also decided that as there are often cases where the criteria creates a virtual tie between 2 artists, worldwide popularity can be used as a tiebreaker, so I added a sentence to that effect.

I'll see if I can get Diane to post it on Youtube.

Good job, Brian and Sampson.

The tiebreaker is really good choice.

Re: top overall artists in influence.

The Beatles might beat Chuck Berry for #2, but I think James Brown has to be #1 overall in influence.

The Beatles I think are the #1 artist in terms of changing audience expectations. Depending on the specific ways this is credited, it might actually impact the Beatles' scores in all four areas of the criteria.

But I think James Brown impacted the sounds coming out of speakers around the world more than any other rock artist. Funk evolved directly into disco, and provided the musical underpinnings for much of post-disco dance music, and much of hip-hop. And it wasn't through some minor changes; it was through the radical de-emphasis of melody.

Without trying to dissect all the specifics (emphasis "on the one"; instrumental "hits"; "the break"), let me put it this way:

The Beatles were masters of melody. JB was a master of interlocking, non-melodic parts. Previous to 1964, how many artists would you estimate were successful based on being masters of melody, vs. being masters of interlocking, non-melodic parts? After 1970, same question.