JMJ happened in the middle of the synth era, not the beginning of it, and his rise to fame definitely heralded a new acceptance of synthesisers as instruments, its true, but there were dark days in the beginning when synths were not considered cool, one bit, and regarded as not real instruments because they were artificially attempting to recreate other instruments .. in the early days.

(Disclaimer: I've been in the MI business for decades, I've seen some things..)