Greatest Allround Musician

[Arl arse]

Repped the Stevie Wonder shout, criminal to neg Stevie.

[Jairzinho]

Who negged stevie wonder? The fuck?

 

 

Can't see.

[KMD7]

George Formby

[cloggypop]

Mick Harvey. Blixa Bargeld. Warren Ellis.

 

PJ Harvey plays an incredible range of instruments as does John Entwistle (including the French horn!)

 

Anton Newcombe out of the Brian Jonestown Experience plays over 80 instruments apparently! Brian Jones played a fair few himself.

[The Midnight Rambler]

Anton Newcombe

[Juniper]

Has to be Prince.

 

Played loads of other instruments to a very high standard. Stevie Wonder also up there though for the same reason and he's fucking blind!

[cloggypop]

Anton Newcombe

Indeed. Massively underrated band.

[TheHowieLama]

Dr John started out as a guitar player - Levon Helm and Rick Danko from the Band.

[manwiththestick]

Well it's Prince isn't it? He knew music and how to make it.

[Paul]

No one gets anywhere near Prince. The discussion is around who comes next.

[Bobby Hundreds]

There is no greatest all round musician it's a load of bollocks.

[VladimirIlyich]

Yer ma is superb on the organ.

[PestiRed]

Barry White is the most all round musician

[setreal]

Whoever has the most followers on the tweeter gets my vote.

[VladimirIlyich]

Whoever has the most followers on the tweeter gets my vote.

Definitive.

[Total Longo]

It's Prince all day long. 

 

Matt Johnson (The The), Jonny Greenwood and McCartney are decent as well. 

[Paul]

There is no greatest all round musician it's a load of bollocks.

There is. It's Prince.

[Pureblood]

Phil Collins pushes him close.

[TheHowieLama]

Yea but Kenwood Dennard and Cody Dickinson both play keyboards and drums as well - but they do it at the same time!

[Jennings]

Macca. Also he must the biggest legend alive today - in any field. Any other candidates?

[stringvest]

Macca. Also he must the biggest legend alive today - in any field. Any other candidates?

McCartney is one of the best songwriters there's ever been, and I'm a massive fan, but let's not kid ourselves - he wouldn't get in a half decent pub band as a guitarist, drummer or pianist.

[Mook]

I've just been listening to the LP Jerry Goodman & Jan Hammer made together and Jan Hammer was a motherfucker on drums as well as being one of the great keyboard players of the 70s.

[magicrat]

Les Dawson

[Guest]

Can any of the names mentioned here dance like Rick Astley? If not, he wins.

[G Richards]

To my mind Rushies Tash was on the right lines on page one with the shout for Mozart.

 

If the scope of the question is "best all round musician of all time" then care should be given to consider the claims of other musicians beyond the last couple of generations.

 

Mozart was proficient at playing the main instruments of his day, including piano (and variations thereof) and violin (and variations thereof). His father was a music teacher and there are accounts of Mozart just picking instruments up and sight reading the music and playing the piece perfectly right away, even as a young child. He was one of history's greatest musical prodigies, and impressive as his playing ability was, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of his genius.

 

Consider the difficulty of being able to compose complex and lengthy pieces for whole orchestras, with various moods, themes and movements all within the one overall piece of music. Mozart wrote over 60 such symphonies. In addition he wrote probably thousands of concertos, sonatos and smaller pieces for a variety of instruments. His output was voluminous and all the more remarkable if you consider the brevity of his life.

 

If the question takes into account most popular musician or music form, then it is not difficult to find numerous rock and pop stars who pack out stadiums and other large venues today. Most classical music is far less popular and attracts far smaller audiences.

 

However, if we take into account the level of difficulty of actually playing the music itself, then classical music wins hands down. John Williams has a sassy quote about it taking years to produce a classical guitarist but only hours to produce a rock and roll guitarist. Obviously he's being provocative, but it's fair to say that the most highly trained musicians in the world today are generally classical musicians.

 

The range of expression and technical difficulty of playing some classical pieces is far beyond most modern music. Mozart, as a musician, could do the playing part with ease, and then on top of that, as a composer his music is cherished, taught and celebrated more than 200 years after his death.

 

It will be interesting to fast forward 200 years and see what musicians of the past couple of generations are still revered.