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The 6 Degrees of Mona and Lisa!
I hope everyone’s familiar with the concept of the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The way it works is you take a Hollywood actor and try to see how close he/she is to Kevin Bacon through movies they might have made with Bacon- which would be 1 degree away, movies they might have played in with somebody who played in a film with Bacon- 2 degrees or films they might have played in with somebody who played in a film with somebody who played in a film with Bacon- 3 degrees. The idea is that nobody is more than 3 degrees from Bacon in the motion picture industry.
So for fun, I’m going to list some recording artists- and either through songs that the Twins recorded or personal meetings- your job is to show how many degrees they are from Mona and Lisa and to show the artists who bring them together.
With some of these- I’ve no way of being certain the meetings actually took place. But hopefully we can enjoy this anyway:
Example: The Twins never met Linda Ronstadt nor have they recorded any of her songs.
However they have met both Donovan and Michael McCartney who likely met Peter Asher who produced songs for Ronstadt. So there would be 1 degree to Donovan, 2 degrees to Asher and 3 degrees to Ronstadt.
On the recording front, they recorded A World Without Love which was originally recorded by Peter and Gordon- Peter Asher again- who produced Ronstadt’s song, The Tracks of My Tears. So that would be 2 degrees to Ronstadt through songs they recorded. I realize we’re fudging the game by taking covers they recorded instead of finding people who worked on records leading to someone else. But because there have been so few people who have worked on MLT records that wouldn’t work very well.
Another example: How many degrees to the Carpenters?
By record, The Twins recorded You’re Going To Lose That Girl by The Beatles and the Carpenters recorded Ticket to Ride so there are 2 degrees to the Carpenters by recording. By personal meeting- they met Donovan, who met Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary who met John Denver who met the Carpenters. So that’s 4 degrees away by personal meeting.
How many degrees to Bob Dylan?
How many degrees to Peter, Paul and Mary?
How many degrees to Eric Clapton?
How many degrees to Jimi Hendrix?
How many degrees to Elvis?
How many degrees to Elton John?
How many degrees to Queen?
How many degrees to David Bowie?
How many degrees to Paul Simon?If I’ve explained this poorly and somebody else gets it and can explain it more clearly- please do! I was amazed just how close Mona and Lisa are in terms of degrees to some of the real immortals of rock.
I’ve personally met Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary who met Dylan who met Lennon who met Elvis so I am 2 degrees from Dylan, 3 degrees from Lennon and 4 degrees from Elvis. Hey- now I’m impressed with myself!! -
4 Replies
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Didn’t know about this one until now Tim, but I know about the ‘Six degrees of separation’ idea.
“Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps away from each other so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and popularized in an eponymous 1990 play written by John Guare. It is sometimes generalized to the average social distance being logarithmic in the size of the population.”
As for “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, this is a parlor game based on the “six degrees of separation” concept, Movie buffs challenge each other to find the shortest path between an arbitrary actor and prolific actor Kevin Bacon. It rests on the assumption that anyone involved in the Hollywood film industry can be linked through their film roles to Bacon within six steps. In 2007, Bacon started a charitable organization called SixDegrees.org.
In 1994 a lengthy newsgroup thread which was headed “Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe” appeared. The Bacon number of an actor is the number of degrees of separation he or she has from Bacon, as defined by the game. This is an application of the Erdős number concept to the Hollywood movie industry. The higher the Bacon number, the greater the separation from Kevin Bacon the actor is.
The computation of a Bacon number for actor X is a “shortest path” algorithm, applied to the co-stardom network:
Kevin Bacon himself has a Bacon number of 0. Those actors who have worked directly with Kevin Bacon have a Bacon number of 1. If the lowest Bacon number of any actor with whom X has appeared in any movie is N, X’s Bacon number is N+1.
For example: Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner. Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon Therefore, Asner has a Bacon number of 1, and Presley (who never appeared in a film with Bacon) has a Bacon number of 2.
So in Tim’s example, MLT would have a MLT number of 0 (centre of the universe) and John Sebastian would have a MLT number of 1. Anyone who worked wit Sebastian, but not MLT would have a MLT number of 2.
I hope this helps!
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Thanks Howard,
You are a master researcher! I appreciate your taking all the time that must have taken. Spoiler!!!!
Don’t look at this if you want to try and answer the questions above yourself:
How many degrees to Bob Dylan? They recorded Dylan; they met Donovan who met Dylan
How many degrees to Peter, Paul and Mary? They recorded Dylan who recorded songs done by Peter, Paul and Mary; they met Donovan who met Peter, Paul and Mary
How many degrees to Eric Clapton? They recorded Clapton; they met Michael McCartney who probably met Clapton, if not on to Paul through Michael and then Clapton
How many degrees to Jimi Hendrix? They recorded Dylan who did songs that were also done by Hendrix; Michael to Paul to Hendrix
How many degrees to Elvis? They recorded an Elvis song; Donovan to Lennon to Elvis
How many degrees to Elton John? They recorded Beatles as did Elton; Michael to Lennon to Elton
How many degrees to Queen? They recorded Beatles, David Bowie recorded Beatles, Queen and Bowie did a song together; They met Donovan, who met Lennon, who met Bowie who met Queen
How many degrees to David Bowie? They recorded Beatles, David Bowie recorded Beatles; They met Donovan, who met Lennon, who met Bowie
How many degrees to Paul Simon? They recorded Simon and Garfunkel; They met Donovan who met Dylan who met Simon.Please feel free to correct any mistakes or to shorten any degrees.
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I’m not familiar with the 6 degrees thing.. I’ve heard of it .. That’s as far as my interest of it went… Lol
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OK. Does it work this way, too. They recorded For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills) which puts them in close proximity (4 steps or less) to everyone in the Country-Rock genre (Poco, Pure Prairie League, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Eagles, Byrds and others)…..and if you go one or two steps from some of those, they are likely in touch with 90% of the music business. Mike.
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