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The first song on his first record opens with an acoustic guitar riff that sounds like it was snatched from David Bowie's "Space Oddity." Then Lenny Kravitz sings, not in an affected, deep-from-the-heart-of-glam Ziggy fashion, but in a voice drifting between funk-blues and indie rock.

Ten years ago Kravitz got famous, thanks in part to his once-famous, now ex-wife, Lisa Bonet, but in larger part to his rank infatuation with classic rock. "Let Love Rule" glistened with many sounds of that era: Beatle-ish pop ("I Build This Garden"), Sly Stone funk ("Fear") and Hendrix psychedelia ("Blues for Sister Someone").

Kravitz wore his love for that era everywhere, not only on his paisley sleeves. A half-generation before anyone figured "That '70s Show" might actually float on prime-time TV, Kravitz was already wearing bell-bottoms, beads and other hippie baubles, looking like a lost but hellbent Woodstock re-enactor.

For all those affectations, Kravitz took his licks, especially when grunge erupted in the early 1990s and he looked even more like a glaring anomaly.

"I was the guy to pick on," he told The Star recently. "In fact, because I was so far ahead of the curve, in some places I get blamed for bringing it all back.

"The music I play is what's in me, which comes from what I heard growing up. My styles change all the time. Everything -- my clothes, my music -- is about expressing wherever I am in my life at a certain point, not about starting a fad."

Kravitz was born in 1964, so his formative years were part of the disco era more than the Woodstock generation. And in his later albums, more contemporary influences started showing up, primarily Prince. Still he's been tattooed by many, particularly in the media, as a wannabe or a pretender. Is it fair?

"Man, Lenny gets it all day," Rich Robinson, guitarist for the Black Crowes, a band that has been hammered itself by some critics for being nothing more than first-rate, classic-rock rejuvenators.

Comparisons of the Crowes to bands like the Stones and Faces are fair to a point, but there's a lot more going on than just an exhibit of old-school licks, said Robinson, whose brother Chris is the band's lead vocalist.

"Mostly the bad stuff comes from journalists who refuse to admit our band has its own identity," he said. "We've been around for 10 years, and you know we wouldn't still be here if there was nothing more to our sound than a resemblance to the Stones.

"That perception won't go away because, frankly, a lot of writers only know what other writers said about us five or six years ago. They don't take the time to examine our music and recognize what we did with our influences to create a sound of our own."

On their new record, "By Your Side," the Crowes don't exactly extinguish obvious comparisons to '70s rock bands. The record opens with "Go Faster," a 12-gauge rock tune that would have fit perfectly on Rod Stewart's "Gasoline Alley" or the Faces' "A Nod's as Good as a Wink ..."

But Robinson has a point. Give "Go Tell the Congregation" a few listens and you'll hear what he's talking about. The song is built on a classic-rock guitar riff ("Sunshine of Your Love" with a hard twist) but dressed in a raucous, melodic storm of gospel, funk and rock-blues grooves -- a familiar sound that resembles no one band in particular. It may not be a brand-spanking new sound (what is?), but it is something old and improved -- and different from the Crowes' first record, "Shake Your Money Maker."

"I was 19 when we did that record," Robinson said. "We have grown and evolved since then, which is what a band must do to stick around for 10 years. Look at R.E.M.; look at U2. They are still making good records because they refuse to stand still or stop growing.

"Or, OK, take the Stones, for example. Listen to `Star, Star' and you hear Chuck Berry. Then listen to `Gimme Shelter': You hear the Stones, just the Stones.

"Yes, some of our new songs are `rock' songs, but if you take the time to listen to what we've done with them, you'll see the same kind of progression. The easy thing to write is `They sound like the Stones,' but it's not accurate."

On his latest record, "5," Kravitz has evolved himself. For one, he employed digital technology in the studio for the first time. And he has moved away from the Hendrix and Led Zeppelin themes onto, primarily, lush, melodic '70s funk, soul and R&B. Still the sound is retro: Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, Sly & the Family Stone, Parliament/Funkadelic.

"You know, other bands show strong, heavy influences," he said, "but no one says (anything) about that. And, man, just think of the whole sampling thing -- songs built on old, popular riffs. It's all the same."

And it's happening everywhere, all the time. The neo-swing/rockabilly thing is the most obvious example, but other bands and artists have paid obvious homage to bands and artists from nearly every era of pop music: Chris Isaak (Elvis and Roy Orbison), Dwight Yoakam (Buck Owens), Squeeze (the Beatles), John Wesley Harding (Elvis Costello), Marilyn Manson (first Alice Cooper, now Bowie), Rancid (the Clash), Elastica (Wire) ...

One of Robinson's favorite early bands, R.E.M., got famous by blending the Byrds' electric jangle with the Velvet Underground's vibe. Kurt Cobain once dismissed Nirvana's sound as a rip-off of the Pixies. And, as rock critic Ira Robbins once wrote, "Nine Inch Nails would never have gotten where it is had (Ministry) not gone out on the sonic limb first." And a brand-new band, Buckcherry, has been widely compared to several hard-rock bands, including Guns 'N Roses and -- ahem -- the Black Crowes.

So whatever you call it -- homage, mimicry or just subliminal influence -- rock bands have borrowed, shoplifted, crossbred, embezzled or sampled other forms of music for their own use since Elvis whitewashed the Delta blues.

"We grew up in the South, and my dad listened to folk, the blues, bluegrass and gospel," Robinson said. "And we listened to the Stones and Zeppelin and Funkadelic, Sly & the Family Stone and then Prince. All that stuff influenced us.

"Musicians are musicians because they've been exposed to music that moved them especially hard. If you loved the Clash so much that they made you want to play guitar, when you got your first guitar you wanted to sound like Joe Strummer or Mick Jones or write songs that sounded like the Clash.

"What's important is that a musician should take those influences and grow with them, mix them with other influences, try to create a sound that identifies them. Most record companies don't give bands enough time to do that, to develop. But that's the only way to become a great rock band."