Mt. Rushmore of rock

Driving home for the holidays, I played a new CD -- Paul McCartney's "Good Evening New York City." It's a live recording of his concert in Citi Field in New York earlier this year. In some ways, it's a reprisal of the Beatles' performance at New York's Shea Stadium in which they sang 12 songs in 30 minutes and no one could hear them because of 55,000 screaming fans.

This was better. Much better. More than half of the music was the iconic Beatles songs he wrote, a few with Wings, and a few on some of his later releases.

With everyone in the car sawing logs, I got to thinking about McCartney's place in rock and roll history, which is right at the top. If there were a Mt. Rushmore for rock and roll, who would be the four figures carved into the mountain?

I'm not including groups, so anyone included from a group would have to be singled out for their contribution to the overall group.

I actually came up with three rather easily and I would imagine these would be on most lists in no particular order:

1. Elvis Presley.
2. Paul McCartney.
3. Mick Jagger.

What about the fourth? That would prompt a lot of discussion. Just throwing out a few off the top of my head for consideration: Chuck Barry, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Elton John, Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Bono, Keith Richards, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and probably a few others that I'm blanking out on.