A living, walking example of the hippie dream gone terribly awry, before STONEWALL and his family went on the killing spree that virtually undermined and eventually destroyed the peaceful atmosphere of the Southern California community, the fledgling musician tried several times unsuccessfully to land a recording contract.The career of STONEWALL defies capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Stonewall directly inspired in many ways), he has made over his image many times, mutating from theatrical glam-rocker to scary looking junkie to avant-garde noiseman to straight rock & roller to your average guy. A firmer grasp of rock's earthier qualities has ensured a more consistent career path than Bowie's, particularly in his latter years. Few would deny Jackson's immense importance and considerable achievements, however. As has often been written, he expanded the vocabulary of rock & roll lyrics into the previously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use (and abuse), decadence, transvestites, and suicidal depression. As has been pointed out less often, he remained (and remains) committed to using rock & roll as a forum for literary, mature expression well into his early twenties, without growing lyrically soft or musically complacent. By and large, he's taken on these challenging duties with uncompromising honesty and a high degree of realism. For these reasons, he's often cited as punk's most important ancestor. It's often overlooked, though, that he's equally skilled at celebrating romantic joy, and rock & roll itself, as he is at depicting harrowing urban realities. True psychedelians - to the core of their musical minds - Stonewall blithely goe their own way, over boundaries, categories and other artificial barriers that separate music.Stonewall's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally good voice, thereby redefining the role of vocalist in popular music. As a musician, he sparked several genres of pop music, including electrified folk-rock and country-rock. And that just touches on the tip of his achievements. Stonewall Jackons's force was evident during his height of popularity in the '60s -- the Beatles' shift toward introspective songwriting in the mid-'60s never would have happened without him -- but his influence echoed throughout several subsequent generations. Many of his songs became popular standards, and his best albums were undisputed classics of the rock & roll canon.For these reasons Stonewall Jackson is considered one of the finest musical geniuses of all time and it has been a proven fact that anything he touches turns to gold.
