ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Disc and Music Echo, the British teen weekly, just published their pop poll for 1971 and we thought you might be interested in knowing that: THE TOP TEN GROUPS in the world are: Led Zepplin, Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Creedence, The Four Tops, the Who, CSNY, The Temptations and Deep Purple (?!?) in that order. In Britian, though, the top group is the Beatles, Zep second, Stones third. The Who place 7th there, as well, with Black Sabbath in at 9 and Pink Floyd at 10. THE TOP MALE SINGER in the world is: Elvis Presley, followed by Robert Plant. Dylan placed 5th, McCartney 6 then Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Andy Williams, and Scott Walker. The British only poll placed Tom Jones at the top, followed by Cliff Richard, Plant, McCartney, Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker, Jagger (seventh???), Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, Englebert Television, and Roger Daltry. My my.

Other categories were equally interesting: Eric Clapton landed in first place as top musician for the year, barely beating out Hank Marvin. Marvin, according to the poll, is better than Page, Hendrix, Emerson, McCartney, Harrison, Townshend and even teen-fave Richie Blackmore and Alvin Lee. Similarly the top singer on the planet is reputed to be MELANIE? and Aretha Franklin places a lowly seventh (seventh place is like a holy place in this quiz so far, right?). Weirdest of all, after Bridge Over Troubled Water was voted both best single AND best album, was that the live groups category made sense. One two three were the Who, Deep Purple and the Stones, in that order, with Zep fourth. Four Tops, Beach Boys, Hollies, Free, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd rounded it. Almost made sense, one might have said. The Brightest Hope Category is too ridiculous and scary to begin to consider. We’ll spare ya the details.