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I only recall Winwood being likened to ray Charles when he was a 16 year old in the Spencer Davis Group... in the same way the "young" Billy Preston (a Charles protegee) and the "young" Stevie Wonder were...

Ray is definitely the one though. Check out the Live in Brazil DVD to see the "young" Ray Charles (well, "younger)

If one doubt's Clapton's ability, take a listen to his playing at a ridiculously young age of some of the most sophisticated electric blues guitar playing on the Bluesbreakers album, to start with. Make an effort to see him play live on as many occasions as you can over the last 35 years, learn to play guitar yourself, then learn to improvise with speed, dexterity and feel.... and then criticize. And that goes for all the "players" who get criticized for their "playing".

Simple question. Can one do what one criticizes?

Steve Winwood.... let's see... can you compose or co-compose numerous songs that are part of popular musical history by any standards? And will remain so? Can you play all manner of keyboards not just OK, but at all? Can you play several instruments not just passingly, but well? Can you stand in front of a 24 channel mixing board and know what combination of settings to use to produce a particular combination?

Can you join another half dozen musicians on stage, and with a couple of muttered asides know enough to play together, in tune, on time and produce an improvised lyric based on a 12 bar blues... on the spot?

This is not a criticism of any one posting here or their musical tastes, which is fortunately very wide ranging. I like Portishead too.... closer to home I like Dead Can Dance and Not Drowning, Waving and perhaps more eclectically, the catholics, The Necks or 10 part Invention. I also like Miles of almost any period, Ornette Coleman, Jobim, Getz, the Stones, and recently seeing KING OF JAZZ again, I was reminded what a fine jazz singer Crosby was. There's Nat King Cole and Sinatra, both great voices. Elvis had a voice and sound and charisma that will never be touched just as the combination of Lennon and McCartney will never be eclipsed by either of their work solo.

The new Elvis Costello did nothing for me the first 3 listens. By the fourth listen, I was thinking it was among his best - a summation of a whole contribution to his (to date) musical work.

Michael loves Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. Murray has a great set of pipes, among the best of her generation, but personally I pine for her to try different material.

Streisand, one of the great voices of popular music.... STONY END was the closest she ever got for me to the album I wanted to hear... where's the album of blues standards that's yet to be done.

Right now I'm listening to a DVD of various artists in a Sondheim celebration at Carnegie Hall, and I think... Sondheim just may be the great of all modern American composers, and there's Liza (the one people make BAD jokes about because she's re-living her mother's tragic life.... it seems) demonstrating how those Madonna songs in DICK TRACY should have been delivered... because while i like Madonna for her persona and chutzpah in self-marketing and some of her songs and definitely her producer choices, I think she doesn't have much to offer.... but as VANITY FAIR says on the cover of that issue SHE'S NEARLY 50! Fuck me dead.

Like that's important.

Rant over.

Back to Sondheim.

or anywhere, actually....