Favourite Guitar Players: NOT a "who's the best" thread.

1) Eddie Hazel
2) Neil Hagerty

Okay, I'll be serious for one minute, then.

Seriously, I am actually a versatile guitarist and have wowed the pants off my share of morons, but there is something about these guitarists that I can NOT seem to mimic properly (regardless of "talent" level):
- All the blues guitarists
- that guy from Black Flag
- most of the metal guitarists
- Thurston Moore and his little weird buddy
- Ry Cooder
- Sonic Boom
- Anyone else who has released an album

ROFLZ

- that guy from Black Flag = Gregg Ginn. I have never been able to crack his playing either, and I don't know if that's because he approached guitar from a completely unique place where the normal scales/modes do not apply or what. I've never been able to find any chord transcriptions or tunings for any of his stuff.

- Thurston Moore and his little weird buddy = you gotta know the tunings for this stuff. THankfully you can find a lot of SY tunings online, which clarifies things greatly. Even so, I still can't figure out how to play the riff from Teenage Riot.

- Sonic Boom = its all about the effects, specifically tremeloes and analog delays. Him and J. Spaceman have probably the most creative approach to pedals ever, they really integrate them into their playing in a strange and unique way.

Robbie Robertson - set the world on fire in his early days, then evolved into economic "song over solo" guitarist. I said "no particular order", but he may be my favourite.

Peter Green - Just getting into him now. Fantastic blues player, good voice and wrote some interesting songs too.

Mike Bloomfield - Another fan-fucking-tastic blues player.

Duane Allman - Slide player extraordinaire, but certainly not limited to that. Way too young to go.

Ry Cooder - Well I opened up the slide guitar floodgates with Duane :) Cooder's way more than just a great guitar player too.

Derek Trucks - Another great slide player and more.

Eric Clapton - Yes, I like Clapton. Sorry.

Ben Harper - Lap-slide with that hollow-neck Weissenborn!

David Lindley - another lap-slide great. Got into him because he was one of Ben Harper's influences (along with Ry Cooder and Brownie McGee). Someone else here on ILM recommended him to me as well.

George Thorogood - kinda forgot about him for awhile. Always lots of fun, especially live.

Muddy Waters - Didn't he invent electricity? Major influence on almost everyone.

Bo Diddley - "If you think Elvis started Rock 'n' Roll you don't know Diddley"

Hubert Sumlin - perfect mix with Howlin Wolf's voice.

Elmore James - King of the Slide Guitar.

Angus Young - ya gotta be impressed by a guy that can play like that but is only 5' 2" tall. At only 5'3" myself, I can definitely attest to the disadvantage of being a guitar player with small hands. :)

There are so many more...

Others that might be my #1 at any given moment: Django, Wes Montgomery, Neil Young, Richard Thompson, Leo Nocentelli*, Jimmy whatsisface from James Brown's early 70s band, Bill Frisell, John McLaughlin, J Mascis, blahblahblah.

* Seriously, people dickriding Page and Bonham's interaction need to check the Meters. Leo and Zig kill them. KIL UM DED.

I think I need to listen to "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothin' Open Up the Door I'll Get it Myself" right NOW.

xpost

yeah art-spazz funky for Quine and Boon and dude from Gang of Four...Andy Gill, that's him.

xx-post

(pauses, scans records)

I forgot Richard Bishop, the guitar team on Angry Samoans' "Back From Samoa (Gregg Turner and P.J. Galligan), and Andy from the Dog Faced Hermans. I think that covers an off-the-cuff top ten pretty well.

speaking of which, i'm a huge jeff cotton fan.

Elsewhere, Fripp and Ribot are reliably exciting when they play on other people's records.

I Always enjoy hearing the likes of good straight-ahead rockers such as Cub Coda & Joe Perry too.

But if I could play like anyone else, it would be Mark Knopfler. I'm not very adept at describing technical abilities, but his sense of touch, if you will, is what I'm trying to get at here. I just don't quite hear that sound anywhere else.

People who I'm sure are quite good but don't understand why or how: Marr, Coxon.

And sometimes you just want to hear people with their own very specific voice, like Knopfler and Gilmour.

Beyond that: Richard Thompson, Nile Rodgers, Bill Frisell, Wm. Berger (Uncle Wiggly), Mary Timony, Richard Thompson some more, Robt. Quine/Ivan Julian team, Tom Verlaine/Richard Lloyd team, Catfish Collins, Johnny Marr, Erin Smith, Pete Fucking Townshend.

Kim Thayil got great range of textures going in Soundgarden, editing out the predictable moves in metal, bringing it back to the riff. He's the anti-van halen, if you will.

Cheetah Chrome is the definative early punk guitarist for me. Glam, but mean instead of slinky.

Thomas Diethelm is a wonderful Swiss 'nylon' player - try his "Valleys In My Head" CD (with Santino Famulari).

Glen Phillips ("Lost At Sea" etc.) is also very hot.

Not mentioned but all much more than mere self-accompanists :-

Elliott Smith. Kristin Hersh. Dylan. Joni.

That's the truth about Joni Mitchell.

Dylan f'real.

Been mentioned a few times already but Phil Manzanera - he just plays such memorable lines

Not too familiar with his work with Mellencamp but I saw David Grissom as part of Joe Ely's band and man, was he brill.

Tony Rice
Bryan Sutton
David Grier
Duane Allman
Jimi Hendrix
Mississippi John Hurt
Keef
Mabon “Teeny” Hodges
Curtis Mayfield
Eric Clapton (Bluesbreakers/Cream/Layla era)

Some folks whom I've recently been digging (even) more than usual:

Tony (T.S.) Mcphee
Bill Nelson
Leo Kottke
Joseph Spence
Steve Tibbetts
Ernie Isley
and Davie motherfucking Allen!

Billy Dolan

Two not mentioned that are absolutely great: Pete Cosey (with Miles, mostly) and Franco.

I forgot to mention two other of my favorites: Jim McCarty (Detroit Wheels, Cactus) and Leslie West.

Cosey's great. Electric Mud mutherfucker

I don't really know shit about guitar on any technical level, but I like finger picking types lately, like Seu Jorge and James Blackshaw. I also like standard rock types like Eddie Van Halen, Billy Gibbons, Leslie West, Frank Zappa, and Kirk Hammet. Oh and <3 Robert Fripp too.

People who I'm sure are quite good but don't understand why or how: Marr, Coxon.

try playing a few of Marr's songs, his fingers are seriously ALL OVER the place, i don't know how he gets the fingerings on some of those chords. plus he uses his pinky finger very, very well.

John Lennon was a bad-ass rhythm player. The way he locked in with Paul and Ringo made songs like "I Feel Fine" really "howl and move."

I've always loved the funky twang of Clarence White. Any excuse to post old Byrds clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m37-2eB-wj8

Really? Last time I spoke to Mr Rowe, he seemed to be under the exact opposite impression, i.e. he influenced Townshend, viz. came to AMM gigs, then ripped them off adopted some of their strategies for the Who.

So...Pete Townshend ripped off AMM before they existed? He was working with drones and feedback in 1963-1964; AMM didn't start until 1965.

Always, mighty Brit bloozman Robin Trower. George Harrison. Ted Nugent. Buck Dharma. Billy Gibbons. Johnny Winter. Michael Schenker, UFO catalog. Mike Campbell.

And Kim Simmonds, at least once a week for the last fifteen years.

Piggy from Voivod.

Although I finally saw Candlemass last night after all these years and would definitely rate their Swedish lefty lead player Lars Johanssonn very high on my list.

I can't fault a lot of the standard greats just to answer back on a few faves (before my ride comes):

Peter Green - unless you'll never forgive him for birthing Carlos Santana

Pete Cosey - there's some ridiculous stuff on those Miles boot videos

Hubert Sumlin - completely unmistakable

John Fahey - an encyclopedia of vintage moves who played with exquisite soul

Tommy Bolin - a mutant

Karl Precoda - ha! I loved him at the time (1982?). he had matching Silvertones w/one pickup removed running through some shitty graphic EQ w/all the sliders all the way up as a distortion box.

Judah Bauer - was remarkably talented w/JS and that Honeymoon Killers tour.
glad to know he's still at it.

A few others:

Paul from Toiling Midgets, Gary Lee Conner from Screaming Trees, McLaughlin (more so on the Miles than Mahavishnu tho' I was a BIG Mahavishnu fan and saw them a few times and though he was the BEST at the time), Adrian Bellew (another mutant). OK gotta run

Geir's "he's not that good lol racist" mention

didn't come across that way to me...

Mine are incredibly predicatable and all old and from spent (like me, I guess) labels like SST. I need some new guitar heroes

Greg Sage
Bob Mould (of old)
Greg Ginn (so brutally messy)
Robin Guthrie
Westerberg
That guy from MBV
Dr Know - but he was jazz trained right?
Ted Falconi - absolutely unique
Nick Drake
Townsend
Curt Kirkwood
D Boon
Jay Adams (from El Paso's Rhythm Pigs - loved his distortion/chorus approach. It was kind of unique to 'Hardcore' in those days)
Brian Egeness from Die Kreuzen
Ira Kaplan, when he lets rip

I'm sure I've missed some of my favourite more modern pop pickers. Although more likely, I'm old and have been treading water for the last 15 years

Not the 'best' but my recent favourite has really been Mark Kozelek.

lindsey buckingham and david sylvian (check some of the solos on tin drum)

oh someone who i doubt has been mentioned but is also amazing and under-rated: alan rankine from the associates

didn't come across that way to me...

yeah what Geir actually said was "I prefer the way Steve Hackett plays"

David Sylvian playing a lead guitar, really?

pretty crazy that eddie van halen hasn't received one mention on this thread. he's pretty awesome, dudes!

He is. Maybe he'd be "the best" guitarist. I'm only really familiar with Van Halen's singles and well-known tracks, but my favorite of his guitar work -- again, maybe not "the best" of his work, but my favorite -- is his almost funky-ish playing on Finish What You Started. Maybe some his other work has that kind of "swing" to it (Jump kind of does, too, I guess, but in a very different way), but that's the Van Halen song I immediately think of as having groove/swing.

Bob Mould (of old)
Robin Guthrie
Westerberg
That guy from MBV
Ira Kaplan, when he lets rip

seconded all ^^

Also, Ronnie Montrose

I was thinking of posting Bo Diddley here just yesterday...(I know he's been mentioned before)...

also: David Gedge, James Honeyman-Scott and Richard Hawley (who I just heard explaining the great man on BBC).

here's an article on my friend and bandmate Ava Mendoza: http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/ava-mendoza

she's awesome

Ash Bowie and Dave Brylawski!!

lately: Nels Cline, Jenn Wasner (of Wye Oak), Lewis Pesacov (of Fool's Gold and Foreign Born)

Not the 'best' but my recent favourite has really been Mark Kozelek.

worrrrrrrrrrrd

kozelek can do cool classical guitar/complex acoustic fingerpicking stuff really well but also has, imo, a really unique way of playing electric guitar. maybe it's as much about the guitar tone as any actual technique, but the guitars on the more sprawling RHP/SKM songs (Make Like Paper, Between Days, Salvador Sanchez, Lily & Parrots, The Light, Tonight the Sky) is pure fucking heaven. sounds like little else out there aside from Neil Young/Crazy Horse

Steven R. Smith, Roy Montgomery, Carl Hultgren, Dylan Carlson, Dave Pierce (or is it Pearce?), Fripp as played for Eno, etc.

though if there's some band that has the same satisfying guitar crunch as "Make Like Paper" and i don't know about them please let me know

my all-time fave guitar playing might be Bill Frisell on the first disc of "East/West". his backing is also phenomenal, but I could listen to him set the heavens ablaze on "Shenandoah" with no backing for all eternity

lately Peter Lang

Folks should go check out some Ava Mendoza, she really is a phenomenal player (I hadn't heard much to be honest, but checked out a bunch of stuff recently and was really into it).

Second Ash and Dave of Polvo, love them to death.

Another recent discovery for me is Chris Forsyth, whose album "Paranoid Cat" kinda blew me away.

Not mentioned yet: Tom Carter. His playing on the recent Charalambides record "Exile" is stunning.

(love lots of the other stuff everyone else in this thread has mentioned of course)

Guys I like listening to who never pop up on those stupid lists: Mick Ralphs, Mark Farner, Uli Roth, Jerry Garcia, Deniz Tek, Catfish Collins, Robertson/Gorham, Tommy Bolin, Buck Dharma

― Bill Magill, Friday, May 30, 2008 10:21 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM

Roy Montgomery seconded. I've gotten into that dude lately in a major way.

Adrian Belew's broken-fax solos on that live Talking Heads in Rome film.

Eric Clapton Unplugged taught me about phrasing and touch when I was 15 and learning to play on a borrowed classical guitar.

Alex Lifeson's evil fuzz tone on early Rush, though I find most of his solos plotless.

David Sylvian playing a lead guitar, really?
― iago g., Sunday, 1 June 2008 02:40 (3 years ago)

i think david sylvian played some nice stuff on Propaganda's A secret wish

Earnest Beauvine from Jon Wayne
bernerm-bernerm-bernerm-bernerm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWsIXsMjfu0&feature=related

Victor Jara.

Colin Newman + Bruce Gilbert.

Johnny Marr. No one else comes close.

right now Buck Dharma (and he may BE the best too)

Johnny Marr. No one else comes close.

Marr had aspirations to be a professional football player, and was approached by Nottingham Forest and had trials with Manchester City (which he supports). In an interview with FourFourTwo magazine, Marr said "I was good enough for City, but they didn't follow up because I was probably the only player out there wearing eyeliner."[citation needed]

was listening to this show yesterday and um YES www.wolfgangsvault.com/link-wray/concerts/record-plant-september-25-1974.html