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7 Bands That Made Me Do What I Do

This is part of a multi-blog post that started over at www.matthewebel.com

Every music site I sign up for has the same Influences field. To say that an artist influenced me is rather trivial... I may not like 50 Cent, but his work has influenced me (in the "dear God don't ever let me sound like that" kind of way).

There are a certain number of acts, however, that throughout my development have made me want to play better, write better, entertain better, and be better. They are the ones that made me ask, "why can't I do that?" And then I asked, "what can I do to be like that?" It's the line between influence and inspiration, and there's 7 on my list that cross that line.

Of course, to read the list you're going to need to travel around the net a little. I'm posting one inspiring act here, but the rest are elsewhere. Here's where you'll find them:

1. Ben Folds - Facebook
2. Pat Monihan/Train - MySpace
3. Jason Mraz - iLike
4. Pink Floyd - Last.fm
5. Billy Joel - Here!
6. Dave Matthews Band - PMN
7. Derek Webb - matthewebel.com

Billy Joel Obviously Mr. William Joel has inspired me as a piano player, songwriter, and singer. When you ask most people to name a piano rocker, they'll give you his name or Elton John. While Sir Elton has influenced me, Billy Joel's style struck more of a chord with me growing up. The fact that he wasn't a keyboardist but a pianist really did it for me, too. There were plenty of synth and organ idols to love, from Emerson to Rudess, but Billy made his living on a giant hammer-action behemoth. As someone who grew up in the classical piano lesson world, that gave me a lot of hope.

For the rest of the artists, just click on one of the links above!

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