# Dylan and Stratocasters: completely random thought **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dylan-and-stratocasters-completely-random-thought/742220 "2016-01-05T15:32:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dylan-and-stratocasters-completely-random-thought/742220/21 "2016-01-06T04:35:01Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > For someone like me, who loves music but doesn’t much about the technical side of guitar or recording techniques, how good is Dylan as an electric guitar player? How much of the electric guitar work on his more “rocking” albums his and how much is his sidemen? And although I assume he always does his own acoustic work, is this a good assumption? For me, I don’t think Dylan has ever been a great player, not like say Stephen Stills or Neil Young to name two. Also he is a roots guy and electric guitars and playing with a band came after his success at other things and he had to work at that a lot. He has been proud of “Don’t Think Twice…” for the fingerpicking. I like Hard Rain because of the open strings and full sound with only him and his guitar. His great guitaristic talent was in his arrangements for a solo folksinger with a voice that many found laughable at the time, but that he turned into the voice of the age, and a template for a million others that came after. You have to have created a guitar/voice synthesis at a very rarefied level to do that. I think the movie Don’t Look Back illustrates the best of him as a guitarist. Yes I like the folk singing Dylan best. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dylan-and-stratocasters-completely-random-thought/742220/22 "2016-01-06T05:20:22Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > For someone like me, who loves music but doesn’t much about the technical side of guitar or recording techniques, how good is Dylan as an electric guitar player? How much of the electric guitar work on his more “rocking” albums his and how much is his sidemen? And although I assume he always does his own acoustic work, is this a good assumption? Dylan is playing the rhythm guitar on electric on “Like a Rolling Stone,” but generally speaking, the flashy electric stuff is his sidemen. He’s an expressive guitar player but not a technically advanced one — the arrangements on his nineties “folk cover” albums are often catchy (Google a song called “Broke Down Engine”) while not being all that difficult. Historically, if you hear an acoustic on a Dylan track, it’s him; the one exception that leaps to mind is “Blind Willie McTell,” which is Mark Knopfler (the recording was more or less a demo anyway). Since his arthritis has gotten worse, Dylan doesn’t play much guitar, so I think the guitar on his last few releases are probably the work of his band members. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dylan-and-stratocasters-completely-random-thought/742220.md?page=1)