Often called the radio friendly version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Atlanta Rhythm Section was an underappreciated Southern Rock band who tasted success in the last half of the 70’s. Although they often drew comparisons to Skynyrd and the Allmans, the accomplished Georgia based musicians had a subtle Blue Eyed Soul sound that gave them a lot of appeal. It was however these subtleties that may have made this band easy to forget as they were never in your face and always in the shadow. Still, if you are looking for understated Southern Rock, this is a great place to look.

With a solid place in history as becoming the first Metal band to crack the top five, Quiet Riot helped to usher in a new wave of Metal that showed that it could be a commercially successful entity. They helped to usher in a new era of Pop Metal which would run rough shot over the next decade. Although they helped to bring it in with their successful album, Metal Health, they never did come close to that level again and essentially imploded within the industry.

Of the Krautrock bands, the band labeled as the most mythical (due mostly to dropping off the musical landscape for awhile) is easily Faust. Their early 70’s work has been credited with laying some of the early fabrics of Ambient and even Industrial with their Experimental work. With Faust there is the question as to whether they were more influential or mysterious, and if the two adjectives helped perpetuate the other.

The original “gangster of love” may have had the most versatile axe careers of all the guitarists on this list. Johnny “Guitar” Watson was a Blues star in the 50’s and easily one of the masters of the Stratocaster. Watson switched off to become a Funk specialist in the 70’s, which showed off his range and ability. The amount of guitarists (Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Miller and Sly Stone for example) who claimed to have learned or borrowed from Watson is a long one indeed. What hurts Watson for induction is as acclaimed as he was in music circles, he too often drifted out of the spotlight and he just isn’t known as much as he probably should be.