Originally Posted by Kram3r

For me, in terms of modern music, it comes down to three people.

Robert Johnson: His guitar playing I feel, was the first of it's kind and really turned the guitar into a mean instrument.

Buddy Holly: One of the first real performers to write their own songs. Not only that, he discovered (or was the first the use publicly, I feel, to say the least) just a simple method of writing music that produced so many of his wonderful catchy songs. I really wish I could have seen where he would have gone in time.

Bob Dylan: Even though countless blues artists and folk singers before him did it, he was the first to really capture a generation with songs about real life. I also feel because of how large his audience was/is and how far his music reached he was one of the first to be recognised as making music an art form. I feel that, from seeing a lot of those early variety shows, a lot of people thought music was a somewhat of a novelty, not in the sense of a fad, just something you grow out of once you're an adult. I feel that Bob Dylan was somewhat responsible for changing that perception a lot. Again, I really want to stress I'm not saying he's the first, but at least one of, if not the face of, many to do so. In doing what he did, he influenced countless singer-songerwriter including The Beatles.