Might I toss in a mention of a little group called the Hellecasters, with the late great Danny Gatton? If you like guitar, he is SO worth your time. Their version of “Orange Blossom Special,” from Return of the Hellecasters, will seriously part your hair.
My husband (a fine blues guitar player) also highly recommends the Hellecasters cover of Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams,” from the same album. It’s dedicated to Roy Buchanan, because their version is a variation of Roy’s cover version, which is on his first album, titled Roy Buchanan.
Aaaahhh…Persephone…your husband is clearly a genius, which tells me you’re a woman of extraordinary taste…thank you for mentioning the Hellecasters. Only THE greatest guitar band ever to exist. Instrumentals?..whoa, baby!!!
Unfortunately for the Teeming Millions they have only three albums available, but Jorgenson, Ray, and Donahue are the epitome of instrumental guitar music! I’ve had the good fortune to see them in concert twice, and they’re even more astounding live than on their CD’s. Again, thanks.
“A woman of extraordinary taste”? Hmmmm…no. After all, I married a musician.
Truth is, though, while I’ve always loved great guitar music, I’d never heard of Danny Gatton or the Hellecasters until after I met him, and by then Danny Gatton was already dead. If I had ever heard Gatton or the Hellecasters when I was younger, I’m sure I would have been inspired to learn to play. Same with Roy Buchanan and Rory Gallagher, a couple more not-well-known-enough-but-unfortunately-also-dead guitar players.
[sub]You saw the Hellecasters in concert? Twice?? And your post is touching my post! Sigh. I’ll never wash this post again…[/sub]
It’s become obligatory to bow to Zenster’s list if you’re going to post in this thread, and that would ordinarily argue against doing so for me, but it was a fabulous list.
However, it does depress me that a mere 20 years later the Raybeats could go unmentioned for so long in a thread like this. Gather round chilluns, and I’ll tell you about the days when the only way to get cool music was on vinyl, and when the coolest of all came in the form of 7 inch slabs with a little hole in the middle instead of a big one, and the absolute coolest came with picture sleeves designed by Neville Brody. Thus did the British import singles of “Guitar Beat”, “International Operator”, “Calhoun Surf”, etc., with b-sides like “Holiday Inn Spain”. Yeah, I know the Raybeats were American and Guitar Beat was released here as well, but the import singles were the only way to go with this band. Never that well known at the time, and apparently utterly forgotten now. Sigh.
I could almost live with that, but no one’s mentioned Link Wray either. The common mass of humanity may think of “Walk Don’t Run” or “Rebel Rouser” when someone says “guitar instrumental”, but we think of “Rumble”, “Rawhide”, and “Jack the Ripper”. You wanna argue who’s the most influential rock guitarist of all time? I’ll see your Clapton/Beck/Page/Hendrix/etc and raise you one wild-ass from North Carolina who taught 'em all the best part of everything they ever did.
Can’t believe I forgot “Scratchy” by Travis Wammack. Reading about Link Wray reminded me. Incredibly, “Scratchy” was the B side of the 45. “Firefly” was the “A” side - a pretty good tune, but no “Scratchy!”
A whole buncha Santana, in particular the live version of Europa from Moonflower.
From my earlier, ummm, drug induced days, Brian Eno is a shoo-in, particularly side one of Before and After Science. He also did a bunch of things with Robert Fripp and David Byrne that were a combination of bizarre, unique and utterly hypnotizing.
