…And then I get this email from a stoner friend of mine. One note solos. Carlos Santana was pretty good at it,but now I’m off to youtube Neil and “Cinnamon Girl”. Yep.
I offer Bozzio Levin Stevens and Giacomo Castellano’s Cutting Bridges.
Unsung Heroes by The Dregs/Dixie Dregs. Steve Morse & friends.
Encyclopedia of Sound Volumes 1 and 2 by Los Straitjackets.
some of the best guitar-based bluesin’, rockin’ & jazzin’ instrumentals can be found on Harvey Mandel’s LP’s. Try “Christo Redentor”, “Shangrenade”, “Baby Batter” or “The Snake”.
N.B. For music geeks, bassist Victor Conte (on several albums) eventually ended up as the Balco Labs steroid guy associated w/ Barry Bonds and other ball players. Shoulda stuck with bass - as Miles would say, ‘cat can play’.
Way too much boring old widdly-woo guitar in this thread. There are whole other schools of rock guitar playing, you know.
I make no claims about “best” but one of my favourite instrumental guitar-based albums is The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Not one second of “lead” guitar on it. Really more like a symphony than an album of rock guitar.
“Widdly-woo”?
Blow by Blow.
Sure it was fusion, but fusion includes rock.
Plus the album cover was the perfect texture, it was the best non-double album cover ever for cleaning weed.
Have you never heard of Onomatopoeia? I didn’t coin “widdly-woo”, in fact I’m pretty sure I picked it up from guitar magazines.
Anyway, I am guitarist myself, and I can play some fairly fast lead breaks myself if I’m in the mood. I can assure you I’m not the kind of wanker that sneers at things because he can’t do them. I just don’t find the widdly-woo stuff very interesting.
Speaking of Hendrix, a new album of material has been released, called “People, Hell and Angels”. It’s pretty much straight-ahead blues. At the NPR linked site, you can listen to all of the full-length cuts.