ION INDIE MAGAZINE August 2014, Volume 3 | Page 49

“Exactly. Azalea. Not Marigold or Chrysanthemum. Probably ‘cause there’s already an artist out there
called Kris San Themum. I’ll have to Google it. At any rate, Iggy is at #3 with a song called “Fancy”
featuring Charli XCX.”
“What the heck is that?” I asked coming to attention in my chair, bouncing my feet off the floor. “What’s
with the Roman Numeral thing? What would it be anyway? Let me see…”
“Don’t hurt yourself. If it was, it’d be 100. But it can’t be because all she would need is the C. Who the
hell knows? I’ll tell you this, four of the top 10 songs are featuring somebody else. Even Snoop Dogg is
making an appearance on a song called “Wiggle.” He must be so proud. Not sure why everyone has to
be featured. If Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck wanted to play with someone, they just showed up. They never
needed to see their name alongside another artist’s name. Same with Billy Preston, he played with just
about everybody. What if the Traveling Wilburys followed the same logic? Hell, we’d have a list of artists
longer than the number of songs. What was my point? Oh yeah, still think you can name a better song
than Johnny Cash covering “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face? Even better was his version of Nine Inch
Nails “Hurt”.”
“Ok. I’ll check it out.” I was in no mood to argue and frankly, since I couldn’t come up with a better song,
nor did I know any of those in the top 10, I figured, Darrell had a point. “You do realize Johnny Cash is
dead?”
“Of course, and that’s just it. We’ve recently lost Richie Havens, Ray Charles is gone, Glen Campbell is
sick. We’re losing the classic artists. Those left have got to get to work.”
“Glen Campbell a classic artist? Really?”
“You know what I mean. There’s a lot of artists that need to give it another go. They don’t have to write
anything new, just cover some solid rock and roll songs.”
“Like who?”
“Well, I can tell who we don’t need to hear from anymore. Paul Simon can stop now unless he and Art
Garfunkel want to give it a go. Billy Joel, you had a nice run, now stop. I know it’s not a popular sentiment,
but Paul McCartney should give up on anything new and stick to Beatles and Wings material.”
“Wow, taking on Sir Paul. Gutsy!”
“Whatever. He doesn’t know me. I’d like to hear from Kris Kristofferson. He’s closing in on 80 years old.
Who’d you like to hear from?”
Darrell was right. There are plenty of classic artists we need to hear from again. Who’s on your list?