Well I'm in southern Indiana, so since I'm about 15 minutes away from his home town, I gotta say John Mellencamp. And my favorite artist hailed from Austin, Texas...so Stevie Ray Vaughan has to be the Texas nominee. (P.S. I hope nobody affiliated with the U.S. Mint sees this....they might actually run with the idea lol)
I've always felt that the coinage should be modernized. As much as I like and respect Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, and JFK. I still believe we should change our coinage. The Abe Lincoln 2009, 4 new reverses, are a great start in upgrading our cents. He can stay on the obverse with a newer portrait, IMO. Tom Jefferson had some changes to the obverse & reverse of his nickel recently, and they were good. Now we need some more changes to the nickel before the penny disappears from the US Mint catalog. The Franklin D. Roosevelt dime needs a newer obverse which then calls for a new reverse. FDR or someone else. The reverse is open to anything artistically beautiful. The George Washington Quarter certainly needs an obverse upgrade. The reverse is still up for grabs. The rarely found Half Dollar has had John F. Kennedy on it for 35 years. Maybe if they were used in circulation they could be improved and made available. I just finished spending 1200+ of them and the comments went from: "we don't take those coins here" to, " How much are these worth in American Money?" What's do we do with these 1/2 Dollars? Musicians are a great source of popular personalities. When you look at the coins of other countries you find such a vast variety of themes that it almost puts our coins to shame. I'm not saying I'd like to see LiL Wayne or Lady GaGa on a coin, But John Lennon wouldn't bother me at all. Bruce