My Mount Rushmore of 20th Century Music

I want to talk about Mount Rushmore today. I'm talking about Mount Rushmore the concept rather than the historic landmark. The concept is putting four people, in metaphoric stone, above all others for eternity. My friends have a Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches for example. It generally includes Vince Lombardi, Chuck Noll, and Bill Walsh with the fourth spot being hotly contested. The Mount Rushmore I'm speaking of today is for 20th century music, which, with all due respect to Beethoven, Bach, et al, is when music took off with the birth of rock and roll. The first person carved into my rock is Robert Johnson. He laid the foundation for electric blues and the other three men on my monument. He only recorded 38 songs but they are some of the most important recordings in music history. Even Eric Clapton said he'd never heard anything more soulful. The second is Muddy Waters. McKinley Morganfield was from Mississippi, like Johnson and learned the guitar while working on Stovall Plantation. He took the blues sound to Chicago and electrified it, changing his name to Muddy Waters along the way. In the movie "Crossroads" Willie Brown says "Muddy Waters discovered electricity" and he couldn't be more correct. Waters crossed over and took delta blues to new heights. Howlin' Wolf is the third member of my Mount Rushmore. Wolf was an amazing vocalist and bandleader, who along with Waters, influenced some working class kids from England, with names like Clapton, Page, Jagger, and Richards, and started a revolution called the British Invasion. The last one may raise some eyebrows because I think he's the king of rock and roll but I'm in the minority; it's Chuck Berry. Now Elvis fans are going to be upset with me but there's some logic behind my thinking. I really thin Elvis was the first "brand" entertainer. He was bigger than just a musician. He was a movie star and American icon. We still print stamps of him 30 years after his death. Chuck Berry on the other hand, was a rock star. He also had a hand in the British Invasion and laid the foundation for modern guitar rock. These four gentlemen represent the most influential and best the twentieth century has to offer.