Rock ‘N’ Roll Musicians Agree With Fans: Beatles Rule Vh1 List Puts Stones, Hendrix, Zepplin And Dylan In Top Five

Ask today’s top musicians to name the greatest artists in rock ‘n’ roll history and their opinions aren’t much different than most fans’ - the Beatles and the Rolling Stones top the list.

Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan fill out the top five in voting conducted by the VH1 television network and released Sunday.

The King - wherever he is - won’t be pleased with his placement: musicians ranked Elvis Presley eighth.

The cable network, looking to compile a list of the 100 greatest rock ‘n’ roll artists, bypassed critics and fans and went straight to the musicians who have had videos appear on the channel, said Jeff Gaspin, VH1’s senior vice president of programming.

More than 100 responded, among them Johnny Cash, George Harrison, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Elvis Costello, Jewel and members of Boyz II Men, Foo Fighters, the Bee Gees and Hootie & the Blowfish. They were all asked to name the top 100 artists.

VH1 appeals to an older audience than its cousin MTV, and the poll results reflected this. Nirvana (No. 42) was the only band to come of age in the 1990s on the list.

Similarly, the poll was rough on rock ‘n’ roll’s originators. Jerry Lee Lewis and the late Carl Perkins didn’t appear at all.

Nostalgia for the 1970s seemed to help Kiss (No. 67), the Bee Gees (No. 76) and Devo (No. 82).

One surprise in the top 10 was the Police. Its former leader, Sting, also logged in at No. 63 as a solo artist.

“A lot of the younger bands put the Police on a pedestal,” said Bill Flanagan, VH1’s vice president and editorial director.

Other artists in the top 10 included James Brown, David Bowie and The Who.

The musicians also seemed to pay homage to some of their favorite instrumentalists, as seen by their placement of Hendrix and Led Zeppelin above Dylan and Presley.

“There’s no guitar player that doesn’t worship Jimi Hendrix or drummer that doesn’t worship (Led Zeppelin’s John) ‘Bonzo’ Bonham,” Flanagan said.

VH1 is devoting five days of programming starting March 31 to counting down the list with features on each of the artists selected.

The musicians’ list is probably closer to what fans would select instead of critics, Flanagan said. The critics would probably be more sentimental, Gaspin said.

“There aren’t that many artists there that you would say, ‘how did they get on there?”’ he said.