Great Guitarists

[HlSheppard]

Once again - Scotto subtly reveals how we're somehow related without ever meeting face to face...

Here are pics of my latest guitar... Allan Holdsworth "Fatboy" from Carvin. Designed and played by the man himself. If only I could do it justice!

(I'm a quilted maple fanatic!)

Another great guitarist that I didn't see mentioned...

Frank Gambale

oh, and also:

Sonny Landreth

 

[Scotto]

I love you guys! I didn't think many people had heard of Mahavishnu Orchestra - John McLaughlin is fantastic.

I have been waiting in the wings to see if anyone brought up my favorite band - King Crimson. Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew are two of the best out there. And don't even get me started on the rhythm section with my man Tony Levin.

Mama, this is my favorite collection by Segovia. There are many others, but I just love baroque music.

 

[webguru24]

Scotto, if you like Tony Levin, you should check out The Liquid Tension Experiment. It's John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, Mike Portnoy and Tony Levin just getting together and jamming. As for the Mahavishnu, well, my dad raised my right I guess

 

[rtaylor61]

OK, the last two replies finally started to make sense. I'm just gonna compliment the list mentioning:

Ronnie Earl,
Doyle Bramhall II,
Albert Collins,
Freddie King,
Muddy Waters,
"Gatemouth" Brown

oh, and of course, Mr. Robert Johnson...

Nenad,
strummin' on Strat Squier '84 and Fender Vibrolux Reverb '72...

Good catch!

Randy

 

[Justso]

I've been a guitar player for 15+ years and I am a tough critic of guitar players...my tastes fall into a few categories..By in large, I'm a blues fan, but I also love metal & classic rock...

By far, the best talent, most creative guitar player I've ever seen live is Yngwie Malmsteen. That guy never fails to amaze me at his technical perfection live. Blistering acoustic sets and firey melodic and deep neo-classical rock is just insane live. He plays his heart out & his ticket prices are so reasonable. I've seen him about 5 times and it's just a surreal experience. and freakin' loud..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFaGyv_AtsY


Best blues guitar player? Probably SRV. I am also a big Duane Allman & Derek Trucks fan. I love Jimmy Page's slow blues too, like "Since I've been Loving You" and "Tea for One"...great stuff. There's another up & coming blues band that I saw open for Buddy Guy called "Indigenous". Their lead guitarist is a guy named Mato Nanji and he's absolutely spectacular. He's a SRV clone to the T. His SRV style is perfect. His voice even sounds like SRV. His licks are rich, fat, ballsy, crunchy & loud. Just great stuff. www.indigenousrocks.com

Best up & coming band I've ever seen? Wolfmother. I saw them at the House of Blues in Orlando two nights ago and they were off the hook awesome. Just pure awesome. Very Zeppelin-y.

 

[Ken]

Let's not forget some early jazz greats: Eddie Lang, Johnny St. Cyr, Lonnie Johnson, Allan Reuss, and Charlie Christian. Lang teamed up with Joe Venuti, a violin and guitar duo before Grapelli and Reinhardt. St. Cyr and Johnson played with Louis Armstrong. Reuss and Christian both played for Benny Goodman, but seek out Christian's recordings at Minton's, where he played with Gillespie and Monk as they contributed to the early development of bebop.

Ken

 

[jduffy]

Reeves Gabrels was one of David Bowie's guitarists and an interesting guy. Fun guitarist.

 

[moses]

To me, it is really hard to surpass David Gilmour and Duane Allman. Duane Allman to me is the antethisis of the "soulless *** rock" referred to above, but still in a rock setting. He said that his greatest musical influence was Coltrane, and you can definitely hear it.

Sure, Eddie Van Halen was good in his way, but it's just kinda fun, he wasn't capable of the emotional power of some of these other guys. Duane good say more in 3 notes than he could say in 50.

Oh yeah, I like Andres too.

 

[Dennis]

Scotto -

Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue

Dennis

 

[msandoval858]

Carlos Santana
Ottmar Liebert

Many others, those are two of my favs. They did a great recording of Samba Pa Ti together several years ago.

 

[jbasl]

Scotto,

check out liquid tension experiment. Levin on bass, portnoy drums, petrucci guitar, and rudess on keys. Awesome band.

 

[jnich67]

Agree with many of those already mentioned. I also think Keith Richards has/had a pretty unmistakable sound.

Jordan

 

[jbasl]

Justso,

While I'll agree malmsteen has technique, I have to say he isn't as good or as fast as petrucci or vai and his music is all stolen from paganini.

 

[Justso]

John,

That's a common Malmsteen comment from people who think he's not all-that. Everyone rips off something from someone and Malmsteen makes no bones as to his influences being Paginini, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, etc...He's very baroque saturated in his style/tastes. However, just like SRV, it's hard to argue with someone who created their own genre of music, SRV's being the "texas blues" and Malmsteen's being the "Neo-Classical metal". The deal with Malmsteen is just how technically flawless he really is. I never used to realize it until I got to see his acoustic sets live, and that in my opinion is where the rubber meets the road with great guitar players..If they can play their music on an acoustic and make it sound better than they can amplified, they've got it. There's no room for slop on an acoustic, it's just you, the guitar and those watching. But his technique is truly damn near flawless.

I've seen Vai in concert, in fact, I saw the G3 tour back in 2003 with Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen. I can tell you that Vai got loud boos. Which I think is unfair, however, since Malmsteen opened and seared off the face of the audience, the next set by Vai just seemed sub-par. Vai is a great guitarist, but that's about where my personal interest with his music stops. It's too new-agey, too floaty, too plastic for my personal tastes. That's not discounting his accomplishments, but his music just isn't for me.

However, John Petrucci is bad *** all the way around. I enjoy his style quite a bit.

 

[webguru24]

Jbasl,

Actually, I think in terms of raw "shred" power Malmsteen has everyone beat, although I do agree that he steals all of his work from Paganini. But IMHO, Satriani has him beat on musiciality, I've seen him in concert three times and I am still blown away by his muscianship.

In the interest of full disclosure and potential bragging rights, I did see the G3 tour with Vai, Satriani, and Petrucci about 4 years ago, and the best part...Neal Schon came out to jam with all three at the end. I will never forget all four of them jamming on Voodoo Child.

 

[jbasl]

I've been to the last four or so G3's (Pet., vai, satch was the best). I didn't think Malmsteen played that well. Vai sounded off(he tends to set the volume for the whole set too high) but I think there was no question during the jam that he outplayed While it is true that Vai doesn't play the shred type music like Malmsteen, I think he is easily capable of matching him. No way to really test I suppose but Malmsteen it seems to me has just gotten really fast at a certain set of scales. Also his technique with respect to sweep picking is not ideal (I think Petrucci is a much better sweep picker, technique wise).

In any case, no need to really fight about it since there is no way to settle it.

 

[Tito]

Hands Down Nigel Tufnel!!!

Proof positive

Other notables:
Tony Rice (Sam Bush, Bela Fleck)
Doc Watson
Chet Atkins

 

[LX_Emergency]

I certainly don't know anything about guitarists, but what about someone like Dave Matthews? I know I really dig his music.

I'm a big DMB fan and play a lot of their music on my own guitar. I think he's a very innovative and creative man with guitar chords and unusual combinations.

Another one of my favorites is Matthew Bellamy who's the frontman for Muse. I've seen him play live twice so far (he's coming over here in another 2 months and I'm going again on that date) and am very impressed. For those who'd like to hear some not so standard modern rock guitar listen to their

"Origin of symmetry" album. Very nice.

Some of the speed players are impressive but I don't like their music much.

Another original player is: Daron Malakian who plays for System of a Down. His sweet melodies with an middle-eastern sound are combined with heavy metal riffs creating a fascinating (to me) mixture of several styles.

Lastly a guitarist that I think is flat out impressive is "John 5" Who used to play for Marilynn manson but brought out a Grassroots album with a dark heavy undertone as a solo starter. His album Vertigo was flat out impressive and very fun to listen to.

 

[modern man]

This is a good thread to dig up


Toni Iomi

1969-1980

Do not forget.

SRV
Jimi
Clapton

 

[JimmyHAD]

John Fahey !!!