(12-30-2016 07:16 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  

(12-30-2016 07:02 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(12-30-2016 06:42 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  

(12-30-2016 05:13 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(12-30-2016 03:44 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  I think you are over using the term. Many you list were important figures but they don't really rise to the level of being the symbol of a period or movement. Maurice White was the leader of a good band but not really groundbreaking. Bowie you might make a case for being a groundbreaker symbolizing androgynous glam rock. Guy Clark would represent the Texas singer / songwriter movement. Merle Haggard the Bakersfield Sound. How is George Michael iconic? He didn't introduce or change music. He was a popular singer for about a decade. Carrie Fisher was an actress and writer not the leader of a distinctive movement. For an actor to be iconic they need to be someone like Bogart who would represent the film noir genre.

George Michael was a groundbreaker that he was the first white male to reach the R&B and Soul music charts. He paved the way for the likes of Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke.

Another icon would be the country singer Red Simpson who created the movement of the truck driver and Smokey songs. He wrote the Junior Brown's song Highway Patrol. He paved the way for C.W. McCall's Covey and Jerry Reed's theme song for Smokey and The Bandit.

Kitty Kallen would be an icon since she was the first to perform to the troops back in her time of the 1940s and 50s. Her song was You Can't Say No To A Soldier.

Prince was an Icon because he did something different with music videos in the 1980s, and songs like Kiss was something. Plus some of his songs sounded vulgar at times.

Blowfly who also died, had songs that sounded like a porno movie.

Emerson, Lake and Powell or Palmer also were influential with their music.

Country singer Joey Feek and her husband Rory of Joey and Rory had a video diary of her struggles and fight against cancer, and was bringing awareness to cancer. She did, and Rory continued the video diary of the aftermath of the lost of his wife, and their 3 year old down syndrome daughter who would not know what happened to her mother.

Carrie Fisher was working to bring awareness to mental health issues before she died.

Some important accomplishments but the term losses it's meaning when it is applied so liberally. Are you sure about the George Michaels charts thing? There are a lot of blue eyed soul and R & B singers that predate him. It is hard for me to imagine he was the first to chart.

DavidSt has apparently never heard of the Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield and a few other acts from the 60s and 70s dubbed as Blue-Eyed Soul". back then, people heard their songs on the radio first and were shocked when the found out they were white. Those three all hit the r&b and soul charts.

Boz Skaggs' Lowdown was top 5 on R & B chart in 76 and that same year Wild Cherry was # 1 with Play that Funky Music on the Hot Soul Singles chart. The Bee Gees had two soul chart # 1 albums in the late 70s. I'm pretty confident Hall and Oates charted in that era as well.

Of course the best (IMHO) BES singer has had the worst record label luck so he never got much air play. That would be Delbert McClinton.

Delbert wound up hitting the country music charts back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Maybe George was the first white guy who sang a duet with the Queen of Soul with I knew you were waiting for me.