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Let's not forget the Grateful Dead. Love 'em or hate 'em, they fused a jazz sensibility with blues and country to create a strictly American style of Pychadelia that later went on to influence the Allman Brothers and all of Southern rock, as well as the Eagles, Little Feat, Bruce Hornsby, Phish, Widespread Panic, and every other jam band out there.
Another one I don't see mentioned, because it's kind of hard to trace their influence, is Talking Heads. Perhaps bringing polyrhythmic percussion into pop music, starting off the sort of softer punk style, and influencing some of the quirkier bands out there: They Might Be Giants and Cake spring to mind.
Of Course, the history of Rock and Roll really begins and ends with Blue Öyster Cult. Tounge and cheek though I am, you can sometimes pick up little bits of Buck Dharma in almost any hard rock guitar solo. Whether it's direct influence or a more esoteric emanation of greatness is an open question, but he is clearly responsible for 90% or hard rock guitar in this day and age.
Seriously, though, ask yourself where Tool would be wihtout BÖC opening the mainstream ear to weird. And they're not the only ones, it's just that, it is so patently obvious to me that BÖC is the finest Rock and Roll band ever that the influence they have on the music of others is either irrelevent or embarrassing. (Skid Row? Cinderella? Autograph? Hair metal was DOA without BÖC preparing the ground.)
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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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