I'd have to say if we think of impact on music and the world surely it must be without a doubt Duke Ellington?
with Marvin Gaye clearly esconced in second place....I been listening to a lot of Marvin the past year.. man he is just fantastic....he's got the best "WHOOOOOOO" and "WOOOOOOOOOHHHH" and "OOOOOOOOOHHHH OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH"'s in the business! Michael Jackson definitely has a good "WHOOOOOO" too...
Ian MacKaye would merit a mention somewhere on the list I suppose....just because of his impact with Minor Threat, Fugazi, the Dischord label, etc...
some of the others I just can't take seriously and would be lower down on the list.... like Peaches and Herb .. even Chuck Brown and the whole go go scene... its rare I hear a go go song that knocks me out.. so many Chuck Brown singles are basically covers. .2001 (that'll work) or the Duke Ellington song he turns into go go....
Thievery Corporation had their success but greatness does not come to mind...
Probably one of the bigger selling musicians from the area was the jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd I suppose..but he was not from the area originally. he was from Suffolk, VA (southern VA)...he did some important stuff like the record with Stan Getz that I think led to the Getz Gilberto one and the bossa nova craze in the US....
It strikes me as rather remarkable given the city's importance in the black community.... how little musical talent seemed to emerge from DC>. DC was always a top destination for people like James Brown but we didn't have any local funk masters as far as I can tell.. maybe a bit player here or there (Joe QUatermain).. And cities like Philly and Pittsburgh gave rise to a huge roster of fine jazz hard bop musicians but for whatever reason I can't think of any from DC although there must be a few...
Also, DC never gave rise to any succesful national record label which is surprising.....I mean Philly had the TSOP/Gamble-Huff/Philly Groove..... the DC record labels I have come across have been very minor labels with very few releases... the other day i found one called DC International.. ONE record is all they have I think! Maybe the labels that flourished most would be Dischord and the go go labels like TTED.. I guess we also had Teenbeat? but nothing resembling other cities like Cincinnatti with KING or Detroit with MOTOWN or Chicago with CHESS/Cadet/Argo....
And lets face it.. Duke Ellington was a product of DC but he had to move to NYC to "make it"... kind of like bands do today...
DC probably deserves some ownership of the whole Parliament/Funkadelic/George Clinton thing given it is Chocolate City and a sort of home base for the whole thing...DC definitely loves the PFUNK.. but no, it was not a DC thing or did not come from DC... George CLinton I think grew up New Jersey or something and moved to Detroit.. Detroit didn't just have Motown .. they had mutliple labels. he landed on Westbound which had its own roster of cool music (Dennis Coffey, Ohio Players)
Ralph Stanley was from Virginia but the southwestern tip.. might as well be Kentucky...certainly not our region... Patsy Cline was originally from Winchester but again..far...
I recently heard a DC band called "The Originals" which was interesting.. they were a soul disco band fronted by a gay singer with a falsetto and their music really recalls the BeeGees... people wonder if that is where the BeeGees stumbled onto their sound...but, again, they sold very few records I think...still, I guess notable for being Motown's first openly gay act..
I suppose DC had a very big reggae scene in the 1980s.... there was the RAS record label which put out a ton of stuff.. and I think was based in DC..but I cant' think of any local reggae that went anywhere...
for such an international town it is remarkable how little in international music has been accomplished... NYC with the Bronx and some of those boroughs full of Latinos gave the world the FANIA label, boogaloo....
Maybe DC just has too many white people or something...or the government being here is an issue... I've lived in DC many years now... I used to go to HR57 to catch live jazz very regularly and just about all they had was Antonio Parker (really good sax player.. even I think tried out for Prince or may have played).. and they had this guy Benito who could jam on the piano... but not much else....I even saw Buck Hill there who must have been like mid 80s... the famous wailing postman who played baritone sax in the 50s and 60s including with Charlie Byrd but gave it up to be a postman and then came back...maybe his problem was not moving out of DC.. maybe DC can't support its musicians for whatever reason..
I think John K is based in DC now but he is not a product of DC as far as I know...
