Is there anybody around we could truly call a musical genius?

To be fair, modern technology allows more exposure through recordings and broadcast than in the past. There are quite a few talented individuals in the world. Everyone has a different threshold where they say they are geniuses as opposed to talents. Certainly with the many thousands of recordings out there the relatively few music stars that outlast their own generation should be accorded respect. It is just more difficult to assign individual credit given the collaborative nature of most jazz and pop music. At least with someone like Shostakovich or Xenakis you can study their scores independent of some performance of it.

 

Lenny Breau, I suppose, for being a guitar virtuoso that many other guitar virtuosos envy. Does that a genius make? It's all in the interpretation of the term; I would definitely call him a genius at playing the guitar. Ted Greene might better fit the bill for his extremely technical knowledge.

All around genius? I would probably defer to the orchestral music composer experts around here.

 

Not really going to try and justify my opinions;

However,
"A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of an unprecedented leap of insight. This may refer to a particular aspect of an individual, or the individual in his or her entirety; to a scholar in many subjects (e.g. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz or Leonardo da Vinci[1]), or a scholar in a single subject (e.g., Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin). There is no scientifically precise definition of genius, and the question of whether the notion itself has any real meaning has long been a subject of debate."

For me, John Martyn fulfilled many of the above criteria.

I saw him perform live many times and have many of his recordings, as I'm sure, do you.

Consistently, his music just makes me feel 'More alive:
He refused to be "type cast" nor play the Music Industry game.
For him, only the music mattered, yet, he managed to change direction many times, always to great effect.
His music crosses generations, My son loves his music and not because it was spoon-fed to him by me.

I appreciate he had his faults, me too, and in a way that makes him all the more remarkable.

Perhaps I am missing the point of this thread, but for me JM fulfils the definition of genius. That's good enough for me.
Apologies if I have upset anyone.

Please explain why he isn't

 

My genius list.....

Zappa
Lennon-McCartney (George Martin)
Monk
Miles Davis
Philip Glass
Mozart
Bach
Beethoven
Bob Marley

 

Also, "all the women are strong and all the men are good-looking"...

 

Prince

 

In order to change the course of music, the musician/ composer has to be fairly well known and not someone obscure, unless they are destined to be "discovered" posthumously like some famous painters were. Unlikely in this day and age IMHO.

However, simply having popularity and "changing" music probably doesn't qualify someone to be called a genius. Otherwise, Black Sabbath and The Ramones would be musical geniuses. In some ways, they probably were.

On the other hand, if we insist that the individual has to have the highest level of music knowledge and technical ability, then we are dismissing the creative genius of people like Chuck Berry, Dylan and yes, The Beatles.

Therein lies the dilemma for me. I think I'm just going to enjoy the music and not worry about the genius factor!

 

A lot of folks think the multi-instrumentalist, Brian Carroll (aka Buckethead) is downright too weird and strange to take seriously. However, over the past few years, this guy has essentially been living out of his studio and releasing music at a pace that is just mind-blowing. The music is of the avant-garde, progressive and eclectic variety. Granted, he's best known for his guitar licks, but his Pike series of records is entirely him on all instruments. It's almost depressing to know a single person is mastering so much when I can barely get proficient at one instrument. It's really hard to fathom for me anyway. And it's not just the noodling he's known for in the past. His song-writing abilities have gone through the roof. Check out Pike's #51 if you want to be left a pile of ashes. If you want something more pristine and softer, try any of the albums, Electric Sea, Electric Tears, Rainy Days, and so forth. There's just so much great music coming out of that man right now. Yeah, I'll say he's a definitely a savant, a genius, or whatever superlative you want to throw at him. There are few out there doing what he's doing right now.

 

Just citing those alive, I'd add:

Rickie Lee Jones
Donald Fagen
Steve Winwood

 

There's more, but certainly Roky Erickson and Arthur Lee should be on any "musical genius list"

 

That was one of many bad choices. His marriage history is another indication of how erratic and "unmanaged' his personal life was. Conveniently enough, Yardbird's Legend—a forerunner to the sex, drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll to follow—made him an awful role model for years to come.

In case, Beethoven was more opiated than Yardbird, you could look it up.

 

McCartney
Stevie Wonder
Ray Davies

 

"genius?" Not many of those in popular music. Probably Miles Davis. Maybe Frank Zappa.

 

Ryan Adams

 

His point is that the thread topic is "Is there anybody AROUND that you could call a genius."
and ................ Ray is not AROUND, thus doesn't qualify.

 

Boy are you projecting.

 

My post was meant to be somewhat sarcastic as I didn't see him mention Bach, Beethoven and several others that were mentioned. Maybe they're still around.

 

John Lennon, Paul McCartney

 

The concept of the indivi

Ah!. Yeah, posters immediately started ignoring that aspect of the topic.

 

There's more, but certainly Roky Erickson should be on any "musical genius list"

 

Smokey Robinson

 

Just from the range of answers is clear that no two posters have the same idea of what "genius" might mean,
in spite of an earnest attempt by OP too clarify his intention.

 

Perhaps Beethoven had a different start in life?

 

Brian Wilson is all around musical genius.

Possibly Prince in regards to his innate musical abilities.

An argument could be made for John Williams as a composer.

There are not many who could be considered to rise to the level of true "genius". We've reduce what the word means because it's used any time someone we support is really good at something. There are a good amount of people who are "extraordinary", lot's of "great", huge amount of "really good", but "genius" is a very rarefied strata.

 

I don't think there was one in the 20th century. Lots of talented people for sure!