Most Influential American Musician of All Time?

Louis Armstrong hands down. He and his peers created solo improvisation as we know it today and his vocal phrasing forever changed the way singers sing. There isn't ANYONE in popular western music outside of classical music that does not owe much of what they do and how they do it to Louis "pops" Armstrong. Robert Johnson was important to the development of country blues and later ,by extension, R&B and R&R as well as hard bop. However everything in modern R&B,R&R as well as people like Sinatra,Bennett,Vaughn,Holiday,Fitzgerald,Nat Cole,Miles,Coletrane,Simone owe much of what they do to Pops. Duke Ellington was and is an enormous force in western music. He wanted to extend the musical field beyond boundries like "jazz" and "classical". He played dance music but he always wanted to write (and did) truly American popular long format "classical" music. I give Pops the nod because as a country (and as a world) we have gravitated more to rock, pop, jazz,small goup instumental or vocalist than to complex popular large group arrangements. ( yes I know Duke had plenty of small group jazz sessions but in them even he is indebted to Pops) This is all just pure opinion on my part. Feel free to fire away if you disagree. I love this stuff. - Jim

If the question was " who was Americas most influential guitarist" then I would say Charlie Christian. Charlie died of TB in his 20's and had he lived I'm sure he would have been even more influential. Blues guitarists harken back to Robert Johnson. For me there are too many great ones over the last 50 years to choose just one like Albert King. Now if you asked Albert he of course would say he was the best. Thats classic Albert King. Albert once famously said of Jimi Hendrix "I can do everything he does but he can't do everything I do".(which might be true) The only time I heard him speak of another guitarist with reverence was on the Albert King/SRV live disc where he admits that SRV was more than his equal. No knocks on Charlie or Albert I just think it's a stretch to call either of them Americas most influential musician as their influences are a little too narrow for me. JMNSHO no offense intended. - Jim