Strings Attached
I started playing guitar 27 years ago last month.
In that time, I've heard a lot of guitar players. A few have influenced me, even moved me, greatly.
I've been bouncing back and forth for a while; "do I do a self-absorbed, navel-gazing post about guitar players that have influenced me the most, or do I do an arrogant, navel-gazing post on the guitarists that I think are the absolute best?"
But when I thought about it, I realized that if we assume "perception is reality", then truly the lists are one and the same.
So - I submit for your approval the following arrogant and self-absorbed work of abject navel-gazing: The Ten Best Guitarists Ever.
10. Jimmy Claptonbeck. Yeah, I know - Page, Beck and Clapton should each be on everyone's list, yadda yadda. Yes, they're all great, and I learned a lot of guitar copying their stuff, note by note. But yaaaaagh, blues-based guitar is starting to bore me stiff.
9. Hendrix. Duh.
8. Bob Stinson. The late Stinson - original lead guitarist of the Replacements - was a manic genius. His frenetic, disjointed style suggested a game of chicken - speeding to the edge of doom and then pulling out at the last second. Amazing, and very underrated. He gains a point for having met me twice. But he loses it right back because both times, bombed out of his mind, he tried to buy bolivian marching powder from me. (no, I've never tried it, much less sold it - although that was at a time in my life when a lot of people wouldn't have guessed that...)
7. Pete Townsend. Pete Townsend made the tone do the talking; anger, joy, what have you. Without Townsend, there would have been no...
6. Dave "The Edge" Evans. The Edge was the first guitarist to harness - and initially, depend on - technology as a key part of his style. Before the Edge, people who plugged in racks of effects to sound better than they were were laughed at. After that, it became the dominant style in pop-rock for a decade.
5. Mike Campbell. Tom Petty's long-time guitar player is quite simply the best rock and roll guitarist alive. Not blues, not esoteric, not multi-ethnic mishmash, not a style-spanning virtuoso - rock and roll. If Chuck Berry were dead, Campbell would be his reincarnation - but since Berry is alive, I have no explanation.
4.David Gilmore. Pink Floyd bores me stiff. Seriously - other than The Wall, they have not one album I'd care to waste an hour of my life listening to. I've tried - oh, lord, I've tried - and all Pink Floyd arouses in me is boredom (can boredom be aroused?). But if someone were to listen to me play, they'd probably say I sound more like Gilmore than anyone - and I'd take it as a compliment. Gilmore is a slow player, and so am I. He wrenches endless nuance out of a long, feedback-drenched note where lesser guitar players would riff away like monkeys on meth to no commensurate effect. His genius is all the more notable when you realize that his guitar work is the only thing keeping you from drifting off into a coma listening to the rest Pink Floyd's wretched oeuvre.
3. Mark Knopfler. If you have to ask...
2. Nils Lofgren. Yes, I was a Lofgren fan before he joined the E Street Band (an event that rates up there with having Kate Beckinsale show up at your PowerBall award ceremony wearing a camisole...er, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah - guitar players). Lofgren's finger-style picking is pure, bottled soul - like Knopfler's style, but much more interesting over time.
1. Richard Thompson. I've seen Thompson in concert three times. Each time, he's been a revelation. As in, reading the Book of Revelation and realizing you had to get your life right. Every time I see Thompson, I vow to start over from scratch and learn to play guitar right. I don't know what amazes me more about Thompson; his effortless virtuosity (which crosses between electric and acoustic guitar, which is actually pretty rare) or the fact that is virtuosity is so effortless (he routinely switches between bizarre open tunings by ear, as he patters with the audience). I spent five years of my life learning "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", and that leaves about 200 more to go. Essential.
That is all.
Posted by Mitch at
May 6, 2004 02:02 PM
I don't play, but love good guitar. Probably not top ten material, but in the top twenty, Alex Lifeson from Rush. Another fav of mine and I think top 10 contender is Brian May from Queen.
Posted by: Scott B at May 6, 2004 03:11 PMMan, I started playing guitar 5 years ago and I'm starting to grow chops where I never had any, getting tired of my old chops (boring! amateurish! dumb!) and wishing I had a direction to move in. I'm playing a recital with two choirs at my church on Sunday the 16th, switching between piano and guitar. I'm the only instrumentalist playing! These are good times, I know, but I have to get better - somehow. Never took a guitar lesson. I'm not averse to it, I just don't know when I would do it.
What kind of guitar you got? Here's mine:
http://www.music123.com/Takamine-EF261SAN-i44986.music
One of the happiest times of my guitar playing career was when I realized I really was getting better than the cheap-o mail-order Johnson I started out on. Been essentially plateaued ever since. Getting a piano didn't help - I'm much better on that than on guitar and so more likely to sit down and plink on that.
Don't get me wrong, I suck at both.
Oh, and
(inside joke)
::But when I thought about it, I realized that if we assume "perception is reality", then truly the lists are one and the same.
Why don't you just get down on your knees and kiss Slash's butt?
(/inside joke)
Posted by: Brian Jones at May 6, 2004 03:21 PMMitch:
"Hendrix: Duh." How do you keep doing it? Great list, great reasons (from another guitar-playin' guitar head).
One thing baffled me, though--kept expecting to see Bill Frisell. I'd love to know why he didn't make your list...
BTW agree with you 100% about Bob Stinson, even if he never tried to score from me.
Posted by: Pete (Alois) at May 6, 2004 03:21 PMIf I had a top twenty, I'd include:
* Dave Davies - he invented hard rock guitar.
* Cesar Rosas - Just gorgeous.
* Brian May - I hate hate hate Queen as a general rule, but I want to get a stomp box that samples the tone May gets.
* Van Halen - if I need to say it...
* Steve Cropper - The best player of american music in the rock and roll era.
* James Honeyman-Scott
* Stuart Adamson - everything the Edge has done, plus amazing chops to boot.
* Stevie Ray Vaughan - I'm sick to death of his 100,000 imitators that turn up at every single blues bar in existence - but he WAS amazing. Had my daughter (born just after Vaughan's death) been a boy, the name would have been Steven Raymond Berg.
* James Burton
* Prince. Yes, Prince. Amazing guitar player. I copped a lot of his licks in the eighties, and I'm proud to admit it.
Brian: Slash'd be proud, wouldn't he? I'm absolutely amazed that he, of all people, isn't blogging.
Pete: Thanks! Re: Frisell - oy, there are SO many that I could add. Frisell, Roy Ahern, Kieran Kane, eveyrone that's ever played in Emmylou Harris' Hot Band or the Nash Ramblers - they all qualify.
Posted by: mitch at May 6, 2004 03:58 PMMy five.
Pat Metheny-
Possibly the greatest world ambassador this country has ever had.
Compositional skills that rival Mozart.
Jaw dropping guitar playing.
Knows how to end a solo (a highly underrated skill)
Doesn't follow trends, get political, or care what others think of what he does.
If it's Grammy season, and Pat has an album out, forget it. He will win.
Still wears those striped shirts from the eighties (where does he get them?).
Hiram Bullock-
More fun than a barrel of monkeys.
Strat looks like it was dragged behind a truck for twenty years. No, it looks worse than that.
Letterman's first guitarist.
Wireless transmitter (he could disappear from stage during a solo and wind up standing next to you at the bar, laughing and playing his ass off. Pretty common stunt these days, but he did it first).
David Sanborn / Marcus Miller / Hiram Bullock / Ricky Peterson / Steve Jordan. That's my band, whose yours? BRING IT!!!
Scott Henderson-
Sick, truly sick.
You must listen to Scott Henderson
Larry Carlton-
Played most of the solos on Steely Dan's Royal Scam and Aja. 'Nuff said.
Exept that his solo albums are really good, too.
Robben Ford-
It's Robben Fucking Ford.
Posted by: Rob Taft at May 6, 2004 06:11 PMAnd you call yourself a guitar player.
27 years! Right freakin' on!
I started 36 years ago. Self taught and playing rock until college then got a BM in guitar performance studying classical and jazz.
That's a tall job naming the "ten best guitarists ever." I agree with many but I'm a little surprised you left off some of the old cats: Charlie Christian (who got the whole electric guitar solo thing started), Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Joe Pass, but oh, well, it's your list not mine.
I got to agree w/Rob Taft, though. No list, and I mean no list, is complete w/o Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, and Robben "Fuckin" Ford, and of course, SRV.
Knofler is a monster, no doubt, but I have to let on a little anecdote that you may or may not know about. Knofler, while w/ Dire Straits, found a guitarist/singer he was so blown away by that he asked the dude to join DS. The guy demurred but you might be interested to know who he was: Vince Gill.
But that's the trouble w/lists like this. How do you leave off the classical players like Segovia, John Williams, etc., or the jazzers I mentioned or guys like Billy Gibbons, Skunk Baxter, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Al DiMeola?
But, hey, you did say it was an arrogant and self-absorbed list. ;)
Posted by: kelly at May 6, 2004 07:27 PMThere is a guy in Canada Who is an amazing artist. His name is Gaye DeLorme
Posted by: TK at May 6, 2004 08:05 PMIsn't Richard Thompson just spectacular?
I'd put Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eddie Van Halen (sorry) on my list, too, probably.
Great list, by the way. Great comments.
Posted by: red at May 7, 2004 10:28 AMI have to do a full post on Thompson.
The first time I saw him was, at the First Avenue in 1986, along with Springsteen and Los Lobos, the best concert I've ever been at. He had his classic eighties band - Christine Collister on background vocals, Clive Gregson, Dave Mattacks and Simon Pegg, James Kirkpatrick on the concertina.
They did a *very* rare thing - an eight-minute version of "Calvary Cross" that may have been the most stunning live performance of a single song that I've ever seen, in any genre.
Ooh, my weekend blogging is cut out for me!
Posted by: mitch at May 7, 2004 10:40 AMBrian,
I play a Ventura acoustic that I bought with paper route money when I was 14, and a Fender Jazzmaster electric that has been hot-rodded with a Gibson "Soap-bar" pickup between the two original ones, wired out of phase with the bridge pickup. Wrecks the collector value, but when you select the two lower pickups it sounds more like Mark Knopfler's Strat that MK's Strat does.
To un-plateau yourself, the best thing to do is find something you've never tried and just dive into it. For me, the big ones were learning jazz in high school and college (and learning it very badly, but it was still a big plus for me) and deconstructing Richard Thompson and Nils Lofgren stuff.
Rob and Kelly - no argument at all. And I know Gill is amazing, I've seen him too (met him, once).
You're right - there is no way to do a meanignful top ten; I doubt I could do a meaningful top 100. that's why the firmly-tongue-in-cheek disclaimer.
Sheila - I *always* get great comments!
Posted by: mitch at May 7, 2004 10:48 AMBob Stinson - yesyesyes! The band was never the same without him.
I 'd throw Dave Alvin's name out there too.
Posted by: Dan at May 7, 2004 10:57 AMI recall all of us sitting in my parents garage like we had a thousand times before. The stereo was always blasting every rock and roll record around; past to present. Then, one day, we heard a drum beat that was followed by something we had never heard before. We all sat there, wide-eyed with our jaws grazing the floor.
We had just been introduced to Eddie Van Halen.
And where is Randy Rhodes?
These two could easily replace Stinson and Gilmore.
Come on now!
Posted by: Meat at May 7, 2004 12:02 PM1) M Knopfler
Posted by: Rob at May 7, 2004 12:11 PM2) R Blackmore
3) Clapton/Beck/Page
4) M Schenker
5) U Roth
6) A Powell
7) J Satriani
8) D Gilmour
9) P Green
10) A Lee
Meat,
Yes, they could. For an awful lot of guitar players. They were both amazing.
But for *me*, Stinson and Gilmore were bigger. I could *be*, or at least play like, either of them (except, hopefully, for the whole dying of an overdose thing like Bob did).
Non-inclusion on my list shouldn't imply that a guitarist isn't amazing. Merely that they weren't in the top ten most amazing *to me*.
I will admit to spending hours trying to learn "Crazy Train", and eventually settling for "No Bone Movies".
Posted by: mitch at May 7, 2004 12:14 PMI'm gonna go do a full list on my own blog sometime this weekend, but let me submit a few other names to consider:
James "Blood" Ulmer
Vernon Reid
Neil Young
Ritchie Blackmore (can't help myself)
I'm a bass player by non-trade, but I've played guitar about as long (1977 for bass, 1978 for guitar). I once had a '69 Gold Top with a P-90 in the bridge position, and, well, I really don't wanna talk about it....
Posted by: Ken Hall at May 7, 2004 03:29 PMI agree with Rob Taft about Scott Henderson--he can make one sorry to have ever taken up the guitar.
I would add:
Roy Buchanan-mostly unknown, but a giant.
Posted by: DBW at May 7, 2004 06:03 PMJohn McLaughlin-so talented, it is scary.
Buddy Guy-on a bad night, he is good. On a good night, watch out.
Steve Khan-a personal choice. Love the solo on Steely Dan's Glamour Profession.
Steve Morse--makes it look easy, and can sound like a prayer.
Tony Rice-in his area of music, as good as it gets.
Lowell George, Steve Howe, Jeff Beck, Bireli Lagrene, Ralph Towner,...I know I am forgetting others.
And how about Django Rheinhart? That cat only had two fingers on his left hand!
This has been great, Mitch. I haven't reminisced about all my early influences and all the guitars I've owned over the years in such a long time. Thanks for the prompt.
I'd kill to have my '66 Gibson 335 back...
I also got to thinking about a list that would be fun: the most under-rated guitarists of all time.
Posted by: kelly at May 7, 2004 07:14 PMTop of my list would be Don Felder. His solo on "One of These Nights" is still a classic. I guess he was kind of a prick, though.