From This Group, Who Is Your Favorite Guitarist?

Cafe Society
21

Okay, I have been struggling with this, but having had the benefit of a not-so-great weekend and a lousy morning (you know when you find out your garage door was open all night because your kids blocked the door-opener’s crush-alert light thingy? And you have to leave your car running, fix the problem, ensure the door can close, go in and lecture the kids and then head to work? :mad:) well, let’s just say I am not quite ready to check my Inbox.

But - more importantly: I think I got an angle. Ya see, if you hang out on guitar boards for any length of time, you come across this specific thread constantly - in fact, I would say a fair percentage of active threads at any given time on the big guitar-geek boards are about these and a handful of other players, how they rank, their gear, etc. So after a while, you just get numbed to them - your eyes move past them like fast-forwarding past commercials when you DVR something. BigShooter, I know you hang out on The Gear Page - how’m I doing here? And the Les Paul Forum? Oy, even more so. And Harmony Central is pointless to begin with.

The point is - over time, the wisdom gets conventionalized, the acolytes of the various Guitar Gods reveal themselves and the arguments freeze into place.

So - instead of trying to do what **Southern Yankee **asked for, how about this? How about if I (and I am sure other guitar-board frequenting Dopers can help me out here) share the “conventional wisdom” and big classic arguments associated with some of these players? **SY **- you cool with that? I mean, I took your Zep vs. Who thread into a different direction a while ago, but that didn’t end too badly, right? :wink:

I’ll start with one and we can see where it goes from there - sound okay?

Hmmm, how about Stevie Ray Vaughn? He is a bit…second-generation from the other guys, hitting big in the late 70’s early 80’s.

My disclaimer: I love the man; I went through a 5-year SRV immersion years ago and still play with heavier-gauged strings due to him. I consider my ability to correctly play his signature, raking-upstroke Texas Shuffle - featured on Pride & Joy and Cold Shot and which 99.99% of players get completely wrong - to be an ace-in-the-hole bit of coolness I can whip out at a knife fight. So please take any criticism within that context, or merely a reporting of what’s on the boards.

How is he characterized typically?

  • A bit of a savant - folks, especially other famous blues players, use words like “he had a direct channel” or “I’ve never heard someone so endlessly creative and fresh.” I would frame it this way - blues players typically have a bag of licks and tricks and string them together in predictable ways. SRV not only had a freakin’ HUGE back of licks and tricks, but he focused much more on the transitions. I don’t know if I can describe, but it’s like he set himself a challenge “okay, I will do lick number 427b - now how can I make that transition to the trick where I grab my whammy bar and rattle it to get that crushing low end E?” and it’s making those unexpected transitions that give the old-school licks their freshness. But it’s weird - there is a hint of Rain Man in SRV - like on the spectrum from “all mental/head-driven” on one side and “all heart/instinct” on the other side, SRV is redlined all the way to the right - no head at all. Heck, even hippy-dippy Hendrix wrote his songs, innovated on their production, tweaked his guitars to suit his needs, etc. When Cesar Diaz, SRV’s guitar man, is interviewed, he talks about how SRV had a “native intelligence” but no clue. Now, Cesar seems to also want to inflate his own legend a bit, so I would take this with a grain of salt. But if I hear one more story about how SRV never bathed, had no idea how his rig worked but knew what sounded good and “had a direct channel to God” I may actually start believing them…he sounds like freakin’s St. Stevie out in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights trying to divine the message or something.

  • SRV relative to Hendrix: SRV is an acolyte of Hendrix’, pure and simple. It is understood that from SRV’s perspective, Hendrix is the originator and far superior to himself. But most guitarists acknowledge that Hendrix had a sloppier approach - when SRV kicks in the wah-lick intro of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) his bends are more precise and his synchronization of the wah foot-pedal with his fingers playing the lick is more spot on.

  • His tone stands alone - if SRV is revered for anything above all else, it is his tone. His guitar tone is the Michael Jordan of Stratocaster tones - there are other great players just as worthy of respect, but Jordan is fixed in the cross-over public’s mind as the Platonic Ideal of a basketball greatness. So it is with SRV’s Strat tone. Clear and bell-like, it crunches up perfectly - so his walking bass licks in Pride and Joy sound deep and bassy and tight, but the minute he attacks the strings harder, the tone breaks up. I think ultimately what is so amazing about his guitar tone is that you can ***hear him working ***- his tone is so clear and so touch-responsive, with no distracting sonic bits like ice-picky highs or distorted lows - that you feel like you can hear more of what his fingers and hands are doing? I mean - you know how much cooler it is to hear someone sing live where you KNOW they are flying without a net and you can hear the breaths and the decisions to reach for the note - isn’t that better than a radio-scrubbed vocal that almost sounds manufactured? Well, SRV’s tone puts you right there. And omigod, you should read the geekery that goes on when folks try to pick apart his tone. Jeez, the specific circuit changes on his Fender amps; the fact that he used a Dumble (a hand-made amp based on a Fender circuit of which only ~150 were made - due to SRV, they go for tens of thousands of $$ now), the fact that he (in homage to Hendrix) prefers Radio Shack curly guitar cables (they inefficiently cut the highs in a way that Hendrix had to tolerate at the time but SRV prefers). And don’t get me started on the “dummy coil” that Cesar Diaz apparently set up underneath SRV’s legendary #1 Firstwife’s pickguard - it’s like the Loch Ness Monster of modifications…if it was done, it would’ve been to cut out the noise that comes from a Fender’s single-coil pickups…

Okay - I think I actually have to start working. **SY **- we good?

22

I agree with your SRV assessment. He gets rated way above his station by me because of his tone and that “Texas shuffle”…his material doesn’t do that much for me, otherwise.

23

Rock on, Wordman. That was enlightening. As a non-player, the technical aspects amaze me.

24

Ah - see: this thread is drifting slowly to the bottom. I am very open to hearing that this is due to my unique threadkilling skills (I could probably join the X-Men since my powers border on mutant) or it could be that we all love these players in some form or fashion, and trying to argue for one over the other gets to be more rhetorical than anything…

25

Well, personally, I’d like to hear your assessments of the others, but I realize that’s a lot of time to ask of you.

26

I’ve always found SRV rather insufferable to listen to–his style is so distinctive that I become bored because he manages to make every song sound like every other. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I’d have to put Clapton at the top of my listening preferences, but will acknowledge that from a more raw, intuitive musical sense, Hendrix likely has him beat.

27

Man, you’re a tough act to follow in a guitar thread. I’m with Southern Yankee - I’d like to know what you think of Hendrix or Allman. The others I can usually do without.

28

WordMan, if you could pop in and enlighten me on Duane Allman, I, Marley23, and I’m sure others would appreciate it. I’ve been listening pretty carefully to rock guitar since 1963, and I’ve never heard anything that has moved me to put Duane Allman in my top 100 players. What am I missing?

I’ll take on Hendrix to the extent that I’m able. In terms of physical skill, I consider him the best in rock. He was a master of two extremes, and everything in between. One extreme: pure power coming out of a guitar. Listen to Wild Thing, as an example. He took a familiar, even trite, riff and blasted it to an unheard of level with the power of his hands. Sure, the amp was maxed, but he just did amazing things to the chords with his fingers and pick. I’m not as eloquent as WordMan, but I think players will know what I mean. There is a recording, I think it is commercially available, of John Lennon and Jimi in a studio together. Lennon starts Day Tripper, that great riff he wrote, and plays it alone a couple of times through. Then Jimi starts playing it. It’s like Godzilla entered the scene. It’s the Apocalypse! It is the most amazingly muscular guitar playing imaginable. Makes Lennon sound like a sissy.

On the other end of the spectrum, Hendrix could play amazingly delicately. I’m thinking of the intro to Little Wing, and most of The Wind Cries Mary as examples. I’m a fairly precise player, and I feel like my hands have turned into feet when I try to duplicate his playing on those tunes.

Having blabbed on more than is my habit, I will add that Clapton is the player I most like to listen to among those on the list. Mark Knopfler is actually at the top of my personal list for both skill and listening pleasure.

29

I’d just like to clarify that the list I put in the OP is not a list of who I believe are the 5 greatest guitarists; nor of my favorites (or Pete Townshend would be in there.) I chose 5 players I’ve heard others say were their favorites, for whatever reasons. I was just curious to see others’ opinions.

30

I understand that. Thanks for starting the thread.

31

Someone upthread made a point of the guitar gymnastics of playing behind the back. Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan both did it, and they both learned it from Buddy Guy. However, I once saw a show where The Fabulous Thunderbirds, with Jimmie Lee Vaughan, opened for Stevie and Double Trouble. Jimmie came out and played a few numbers with Stevie.

On one song, Stevie sat down, and Jimmie stood behind him, with his Stratocaster slung down over Stevie’s chest. Each picked his own axe, but Stevie fretted Jimmie’s guitar, and vice versa. As guitar gymnastics go, I think that trumps playing behind the back.

I wish Jimi and Stevie were still alive. I think they both would have matured and expanded past their hotshot stages.

Getting back to Southern Yankee’s list,
Jimi Hendrix
Eric Clapton
Jimmy Page
Duane Allman
Stevie Ray Vaughn

Of the 5, Clapton’s my fave. He’s very versatile, and he sings better than the rest. He said his goal is to make you cry with one note, and he wins that bet more often than the other 4.

Pagey probably falls to the bottom of my list, not because of his playing, but because of Robert Plant’s overwrought singing. His work outside of Zep is top notch.

Jimi was a blazing pioneer of his time, and it took me a long time to understand how good he was. I’m surprised that hip-hop performers haven’t hooked up with his spoken/shouted vocal style. He would have fit right in.

Duane Allman? I’m very impressed with what I have heard, but I missed most of his career somehow.

Stevie Ray hit the scene like Walt Arfons hit the drag strip. It’s a delight to hear his music, but sad, too. He had such a short career, plagued by alcohol and drugs. When he finally gained control, he was gone. His death still tempers my listening.

32

Well, fight my ignorance - I hadn’t heard of this. I immediately did a quick check in YouTube and found some Jimi Hendrix Experience covers of Day Tripper, some of which purported to be with the Beatles, but which posters say are from live performances. Anyone got a link to **Crotalus’ **clip??

And nicely done sir - I am marinating about where to go with Jimi; what angle to take. Your write-up captures the light-to-heavy abilities Jimi brings (I would argue that Page excels at that, too, albeit in a different way - hmmm…)

Well, I am not sure you are missing anything - YMMV and all.

But I have been listening to Duane a bit lately and will take a shot. The first thing stuff that comes to mind is how Duane and the ABB is/are different from the other players in the list (I am gonna drop that “is/are” stuff - okay? When referring to Duane, I am also referring to the music of the Allman Brothers Band…).

  • **He doesn’t come from a pop tradition **- Hendrix played rock n’ roll / r n’ b for Little Richard, the Isley Brothers and a bunch of other bands. Page was a session guy who worked on everything from pop/rock records to classical to commercial jingles. Clapton was a Yardbird - he may have quit because they were getting too far from the blues / too commercial, but he was there for a year or two. (I don’t count SRV in this since he came later and absorbed all of these influences). The bottom line is that each of the players I mentioned “had their Hamburg” - i.e., a period similar to the Beatles playing night clubs in Hamburg, where they had to tighten their playing, learn hard-core craft skills, learn a ton of different music styles (the German definition of pop music at the time required that the Beatles learn a lot of non-rock stuff), etc. Duane got some of this type of education as a session man for the Muscle Shoals studio (one of THE bullet-proof house bands if there ever was), and also, frankly playing on Derek and the Dominos with Clapton, which Allman stated required him to raise the level of his game. But I would say his education was different. It didn’t have that R n’ B Chitlin Circuit rigor of Hendrix or that British / Euro Music Hall tradition for Clapton or the rigid structure and discipline of British studio recording (when you read about British studios back in the day, the engineers wore white coats, class-snobbiness was rampant and your basic knowledge of music theory and different genres must be top-notch.)

  • **He wasn’t focused on 3-minute, commercial songs **- Page, Clapton, Hendrix and even SRV all are strongly, solidly rooted in a 3-minute pop song structure. Sure, they each stretched out over time, but there is…something…about starting out with that intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-out structure that fixes into your brain. I would say that Cream was a commercial band that broke open 3-minute songs to have extended jams. Duane and the ABB were a band that played extended songs that had to be tailored to fit into a more album-friendly (for the day), more pop format. The fact that their most famous album is the live album At Fillmore East is what makes clear that they do better with less structure -which at the time, was very experimental. Tom Dowd, their producer (and again, for those of you who read my posts this may be a boring repeat, but please, please, please buy/rent/steal Tom Dowd: The Language of Music on DVD immediately - it is essential viewing of the man who engineered all the great music) - anyway, Dowd heard them and tried to talk them up to the record label considering them (I think it was Capricorn, who they did go with) - the label didn’t think they were ready - they needed to polish their chops, which is a way of saying “tighten it up and focus on commercial songs” but Dowd was the one saying “the Brothers are ready - get 'em in the studio now”.

Bottom line here is that the Allman Brothers are at the intersection of blues/rock and jam bands in a way that none of the other players can claim. And this effects Duane’s playing - he stretches out with a freedom in his lead work that you rarely hear with the other players. The ABB were less fixed on short hooks and riffs - some of their motifs take a few measures to cycle back around - so between the lack of a pop sensibility, the longer-structured songs (and the longer-structured melodic themes within the songs) and the examples being set by 1970 or so of bands getting more indulgent in stretching out improvisational lead sections - all of that set up Duane to approach his lead playing from a very different place.

He played slide - well, that pretty much says it all there, don’t it? Page prominently features slide on some songs, but Hendrix, Clapton and SRV played very limited slide. Slide is a different beast - and Duane’s slide playing was a different beast even more. Here’s the thing - your typical blues slide playing is vertical- by that, I mean you lay the slide across most/all of your 6 strings and strum or pick most or all of the strings. You play in open tunings, so the strings sound a chord when you are doing this - and you play melodies by either picking individual strings while holding the slide still or by moving the slide a fret or two higher or lower and then sliding back to your home position. Listen to Elmore James(YouTube link) the quintessential Big Slide-kinda blues player. Hit all the strings - *hard *- ram the slide up to the octave and then come back down. Primitive, driving - and not the least bit delicate. Damn that’s cool. :smiley:

But - Duane played horizontal. He almost *never *played multiple strings, let alone chords, using his slide. I can’t tell you how weird that was at the time - go back and listen to Elmore. That WAS blues slide guitar - well, that and work like Muddy Waters’ I Can’t Be Satisfied(YouTube link to some solid-playing French guy on a resonator - really good; I couldn’t find a link to the real Muddy). Duane, instead, decided to learn slide after watching Ry Cooder out in LA - Ry did NOT come from an exclusively blues tradition - he included folk and blues, sure, but more importantly Hawaiin slack-key, country, Norteno/Tex-Mex and other traditions that didn’t rely on the same structures and conventions as blues slide.

What does that mean? Well, Duane focused on single-note melodies - he often played them on one string, so he moved his slide like a trombone player moved *his *slide (that’s what 'boners call that moving part, right? Cool coincidence). This meant a few things:

  • He was less limited in keys and chords - Elmore James played GREAT blues…in E. He was the Model T of blues - you could have any color, as long as it was…well you get the idea ;). I am exaggerating, but slide players can be limited because their tricks and licks are grounded on the open tuning they use. Duane didn’t need to worry about that - he wasn’t playing full or partial chords that depended on the open tuning, so he could insert his single lines where he needed to, in any key.

  • He had freakin’ GREAT intonation - Duane’s single-line approach demanded that he nail the notes. When you are flinging the slide up and down the neck playing a melody, nothing sounds more like a wounded cat than a clammed slide note. Most folks avoid slide either because controlling the extraneous noise seems impossible, or the act of hitting a single note, intoned correctly, scares the bejeezus out of you and you feel like the Guitar Fraud Police™ are going to tap you on the shoulder and say “uh, excuse me, sir? Who authorized you to play slide guitar? Your papers aren’t in order - can you come with us?” :smiley: But not only could Duane stick the notes, he could toss in a little vibrato. His work above the fretboard on Layla is a clear example of someone who has totally mastered slide intonation. At this point, purely IMHO, I would cast him as Hendrix and Derek Trucks as SRV - meaning Duane took Cooder’s horizontal approach and put it in a blues-rock setting and opened the door - Trucks based his approach on that and has taken that technique up even to a further notch with his addition of Middle-Eastern attack and phrasing.

I have a bit more, like the fact that Duane could both be the lead guy (Statesboro Blues - all strutty and up front) and a hard-core team player (Elizabeth Reed with double harmonies and real **band **work). But I gotta get to work. Ultimately, Duane took a slide approach not exclusively rooted in the blues, and applied to an emerging form of long-structured, jam-oriented music, also not exclusively rooted in the blues and made something new. And because his technique was amazing and the music is good, it set a blueprint - which pretty much every other Southern Rock band has abused mercilessly (with some wonderfully notable exceptions) ever since…

**Marley23 **- you are the resident ABB-head, how is this scanning?

33

here’s a linkto a thread on slide guitar technique from a week or two ago…

and here’s a linkto the Derek Trucks thread from a couple of weeks ago which also focuses on slide…

So, **Crotalus **- after you digest this (if you want that big of a meal ;)) - any interest in digging in a bit more and listening to Duane/ABB? Surely you get an earful when you listen to his work with Clapton, who you love…

34

Yes, slide. (ex-trombonist here)

Good work, as usual, WM…

35

Very well. I can talk people’s ears off about Duane but not say much about his technique. What you’ve said matches what I do know (other than the Derek Trucks-SRV bit). The bottom line to me is that he always played the right note and the right solo for the right moment. It’s all right there with him. Other players do more complicated things but Duane’s playing never seems forced or directionless. His playing can be gripping, it can be fun, sad, or go anyplace else, and he can express just as much playing with a six-piece band as he could playing solo. He played electric blues, country blues, rock, soul and anything else people offered.

Why isn’t Duane Allman better known? You gave most of the answer. I’d add this:

*The ABB was still building its fame when he died. The Fillmore Album was released only about three months before he was killed, and most of the band’s radio-friendly stuff (even from the early days) doesn’t really show what he could do.
*Some of his best playing was on session work, on Loan Me a Dime with Boz Scaggs (I had the pleasure of seeing the ABB bust that one out on Friday), Hey Jude with Wilson Pickett, Beads of Sweat with Lauro Nyro; and on the Layla album, which a lot of people don’t seem to realize he played on in the first place. Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad? in particular just burns with intensity. It’s well known that Jimmy Page did some great session work, but if he hadn’t become famous later, he’d be an obscure figure.
*He died before turning 25, which is early even by '60s guitar god standards. I know this is apples to oranges, but if Hendrix had died at the same age, Axis: Bold as Love would have been a posthumous release. Electric Ladyland and the Woodstock performance, among other things, would not have happened.

36

I think you hit on something there, Marley. He was so young when he died, yet so good. There was an ungodly amount of unrealized potential there, and I think that figures in somehow, even if only subconsciously. I’m not sure whether or not the same could be said for Hendrix, although I’m not as familiar with his later efforts.

37

To quote John Banner: I know nothing.

Listening preference:
Page
Hendrix
Allman
Clapton
Vaughn

Page exhibited the widest range of styles and was, along with Hendrix, the trickiest. I just don’t care enough about the blues to separate the great from the merely excellent.

Allman I never put on the stereo --except if I play Layla (and other love songs)-- but that soaring Skydog sound is a kick to hear. Beyond the soaring I’m pretty apathetic.

Hendrix bores me much of the time; there’s a ton of licks that are pretty damn pedestrian or else unusual but boring. But when he hits the mark, Red House, Slight Return, Hear My Train, Johnny B. Goode, he’s untouchable.

Clapton has done some very nice stuff, but in Cream he ran on too long and and after Layla he was generally too refined. I do like that Rain song.

SRV I’ve never felt compelled to research. The ten songs I’ve heard are excellent blues playing, but…again just I don’t care that much about the blues.

38

WordMan, Marley – thanks for making me feel like “not a philistine” for putting Duane Allman at the top of my list. :smiley:

39

**twicks **- it’s all good. Listen, I knew I was getting someplace in framing my own preferences about guitar when I realized that I place Johnny Ramone up (almost! ;)) as high as these guys and am totally at peace as to why.

You clearly know what you like and have good, nay, *great *taste in music.

40

Oh, by the way, if you are interested in a quick reference book for ~35 of the top guitarists (mostly rock and blues), I recommend this book:Guitar Legends(Amazon link - out of print, but they have used copies pretty darn cheap). Basically a Guitar Player magazine editor pulled basic data about each player from various articles over the years - their history, guitars, strings, amps, techniques, seminal recordings, etc. - and put them in a standard few-page format, so it is easy to access and use.

It’s a nice reference tool - what; you thought I remembered all this stuff?! :wink: