Evidently the boys wanted to do a souped up version of a classical piece and somebody in the group, probably Anderson, suggested this one. Reason? He had lived in a flat where a classical musican neighbor practiced this piece endlessly.
Eddie Van Halen’s **Spanish Fly **demonstrates why his mug should be part of the Rock Guitarist’s Mount Rushmore. Link
Other favorites:
“Catherine Howard” by Rick Wakeman
“Repent Walpurgus” by Procol Harum
“Soul Sacrifice” by Santana
“Slightly All the Time” by Soft Machine
“Underture” by the Who
“Glad” by Traffic
“Peaches en Regalia” by Frank Zappa
“Bombay Calling” by It’s a Beautiful Day
“Atom Heart Mother” by Pink Floyd
I have always enjoyed the instrumental parts of ‘Magnum Opus’ by Kansas.
The live version is on my permanent playlist.
Please note that the you tube version in the link is not the one I have, and the recording quality is a bit below my standards.
A lot of my favorites have already been mentioned, but here are a few more. Includes a bunch that are almost rock, or by rock artists on rock albums but are more jazz or other genres, or whatever but they’re still good:
Savatage’s “Christman Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” (based on “Good King Wenceslas” and “Carol of the Bells”) is also worthy of this thread. Some of the members of Savatage later went on to form the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which famously performs this song and other Christmas classics all over the world.
“Wipeout” was done by the Surfaris. The Ventures covered it, but the Ventures covered everything.
“Walk, Don’t Run” was a Ventures original, I believe.
I haven’t seen “Albatross” by the original Peter Green incarnation of Fleetwood Mac mentioned. You’ll never hear tastier guitar.
And if you want to go all the way back to 1960, I love“Apache” by the Shadows!