Everybody Must Have Influences

Interesting appreciation of Bob Dylan in this week's The New Yorker. But this non-Dylan bit stood out:

Musicians don’t follow roads. Most of them have much more eclectic musical interests than their fans do[....]Muddy Waters had more songs in his repertoire by Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, than by any blues musician;[...]Louis Armstrong’s favorite band was Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians;[...]Robert Johnson played Bing Crosby songs. “If I had only one artist to listen to through eternity,” Chuck Berry said, “it would be Nat Cole.”

It makes sense--fans listen to an artist for a particular sound, not for the sounds the artists likes. This is a good reason not to put down any particular type of music; all music is related, and liking one type will lead to liking another, and into the entire world of sound.