who are the 3 most underrated artists you can think of?

Klaatu
Jim Carroll Band
War

 

Honestly, in this forum:

Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney

C'mon guys, he needs to be worshipped more!

 

Roy Harper
The Go-Betweens (sadly defunct but a great legacy that SHOULD be up there with the Beatles)
The Triffids (ditto above)

 

Rebert H. Harris, original lead singer of the Soul Stirrers and one of the greatest and most important voices and singing stylists in gospel whose style really paved the way for a lot of the most basic techniques of soul singing. Gospel and soul music wouldn't be sung the way it's song today without Harris' influence in the late 30s through the early '50s.

Charlie Poole, one of the most important and best of the early country singers, country music's original hell-raising outlaw really, kind of like country music's Charley Patton, should be mentioned routinely alongside mentions of the likes of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, but isn't.

Lonnie Johnson, one of the best and most influential blues guitarists of all time, who even most purported blues fans today don't know.

Three hugely important figures who made great music who are barely appreciated today.

 

Richard Thompson.
Thea Gilmore.
Roy Harper.

 

Thea Gilmore
Lonnie Johnson
Already mentioned but I second the choice

 

The Shaggs
Daniel Johnston
Tay Zonday

 

I am probably unaware of the existence of the 3 most underrated artists.

 

Bobbie Gentry
Garland Jeffreys
John Mellencamp
The Kinks
The Zombies
Tony Joe White
Terry Reid
Johnny Rivers
Rick Nelson
Cyndi Lauper

 

That actually gave me a good chuckle this morning, thanks for that!

I, however, have about thirty artists or bands that fit the "most underrated" list and here are my top 3 ...

MIKE VIOLA -
(Mike is easily one of the most talented singer/songwriters that I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. This recent live video clip, will give you a small glimpse into Mike's great abilities.) (Warning: Language)



CHRIS RICE -
(On the complete other end of the musical spectrum is this equally talented singer/songwriter. I actually found the music of Chris Rice one day while driving around town and desperately looking for anything good to hear on the radio. Somehow the dial ended up on the local Christian radio station and the following song spilled out of the car speakers at me, as if I was meant to hear it. The production of the song first caught my ear and then the lyrics really made me think. It didn't take me long to buy the album from which the song came from, called "Smell The Color 9" and I was hooked!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-IJ7sEEHaY

ANDREW GOLD -
(The son of famous movie score composer Ernest Gold and famous "real voice to the stars" Marni Nixon, the late, great Andrew Gold's music has brought me as much sunshine, as any singer/songwriter ever has.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_p8xtRcVcQ

 

Alive - Israel Nash Gripka
Dead - John Martyn. Is he underrated? Possibly in this forum.

 

this could change any day, but here is my current list:
Robbie Fulks
Mike Henderson (still fixing guitars at Joe Glaser Nashville by the way?)
Little Barrie (Barrie Cadogan plays guitar for Primal Scream a.o., in his band you will also find drummer Virgil Howe, son of Steve, maybe Steve was a Thunderbirds fan?)

 

Jody Williams - Several of his riffs were borrowed by other blues greats.
Lefty Frizzell - Everyone says they want to be like Hank, but they end up sounding like Lefty.
Doug Sahm - A human jukebox. Folks here know him but most only know a couple of hits. He offered so much more.

 

Rory Gallagher
UFO
Blue Oyster Cult

 

These guys are more "underknown" than "underrated" since the folks who do know them rate them very highly, but:

The Sadies
Howe Gelb / Giant Sand
Bill Callahan / Smog

(and you can't really mention those three without also including Calexico)

 

More or less every artist is overrated by his fans and underrated by everyone else. Still, it's hard not to play this game.

There have been a couple of mentions of Roy Harper, but he's been getting rave notices recently and he seems to be pretty well estimated by those few who know him. It's the same with Richard Thompson.

I think Marc Almond heads my list because, although he's respected by a few, he's widely thought of as some sort of talentless freak. He gets no respect at all as a vocalist or songwriter, yet he has put together an impressive body of work and has shown himself to be one of the most adventurous artists of his generation.

Another one, who's related to Almond because they worked together and were both on the same label, is J. G. Thirwell (a.k.a. Foetus). He's a bit of a hipster darling, sure, but based on the quality of his work you'd have thought by now that he'd be mentioned in the same breath as Frank Zappa.

Finally, since I have to stop at three, Jimmy Webb. One of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, should be ranked with Elton John, and all anyone ever talks about is 'that song about the cake'.

 

Bruce Cockburn
John Martyn
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Over The Rhine
DADA
Riverside
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Big Head Todd & the Monsters
Airbag
Gazpacho (Norway)
Pendragon
and many, many other non-American bands that don't fit the formula so they don't ever get played in the US. I could go on and on about bands I only learned about in the past 10 years that have been out there for a long time. For instance, I never heard anything by Porcupine Tree until Deadwing came out. The Pineapple Thief are still very obscure with what, 10 albums? And it's not just proggy bands, how many albums did Muse do before they caught on in America and have possibly faded away already? Some kids in New Zealand called Evermore put out a fine album called Dreams and didn't get any notice so they turned around and put out a pop album with a dance hit, Hey Boys and Girls, and became teenage idols down under, but have you heard of them? There's just so much music that's never played in the US, I could type until my fingers go numb...

 

I just heard her version of "I'll never fall in love again" for the first time recently... trumps Dionne Warwick, less "airy" much more "feeling"

 

Me
Myself
I

 

Yes, John Martyn is underrated. You can't hardly buy his music in America even when there were music stores on every corner.

BTW, have you heard Dan Arborise? If you dig JM, you should check out Dan.

 

The Wolfhounds
Dexys Midnight Runners
Pulp

 

Edie Brickell
Ben Folds
Harry Nilsson

or maybe

Fishbone

 

That's 3 great choices. Here's a few more:

Shawn Colvin
Warren Zevon
Bruce Cockburn

 

Patti Smith
The Kinks
X

 

Jackie Leven
Reg King (lead singer of 60's Brit band, The Action)
Francoise Hardy (nobody in the USA seems to know who she is...thanks to Wes Anderson for using her song in Moonrise Kingdom)