My own personal peep into the strange and beautiful heart of Arkansas music. Whether it’s the butter-knife slide of CeDell Davis, Pharaoh Sanders’ sheets of sound, Jim Dickinson’s irreverent approach to recording or the prepared-piano-player compositions of Conlon Nancarrow, Arkansas has always produced sounds that ignore the rules. I left off a few of the unusual suspects in favor of curve balls like The Insect Trust whose founding member Robert Palmer not only was the first full-time rock writer for the New York Times but also grew up next door to Pharoah Sanders. I also wanted to highlight a few of the early architects of rock-n-roll like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Louis Jordan as well as a few familiar names like Glen Campbell and Al Green. Some entries might need a little explaining. For instance, I had somehow missed the fact that Little Rock native, Al Bell, the founder of Stax Records, was also the songwriter behind songs like Eddie Floyd’s Raise Your Hand as well as the Staple Singers smash I’ll Take You There. One of the gifts of growing up in a state that often flies under the cultural radar is that you can let your freak flag fly and with that in mind I close out the list with incomparable Elton and Betty White.Photo Credit: Bobby Fisher
