Paul Geremia. Amazing that one person could get that sound.
I understand this guy built his own guitar once. He’s a pretty good player, even with a busted up arm.
If we’re sticking to rock, I’m also a Mark Knopfler fan. If we’re talking all genre, just flat out amazing guitar playing, Tommy Emmanuel.
I’m not a guitarist - I don’t even play one on TV - and my music “skills” are limited to appreciation only. I have admiration for many, many players, but the two I will name here are John McLaughlin and Roy Buchanan:
Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Dean DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) and Steve Lukather (Toto and a million other records as a sessions musician) are great and often overlooked.
Those guys are great, but I am thinking more about a guitarist you hear or have heard that gives you pause, not so much the guys that are amazing that were never noticed.
Love Richard Thompson.
Here’s the obligatory live performance of “Vincent Black Lightning 1952”
It shouldn’t be possible to that much music from one man and one guitar.
I’ve always been a massive fan of David Gilmour’s playing. But that’s not what you’re asking.
It’s difficult these days. My music tastes have become much more eclectic and I am more likely to appreciate the whole ensemble more and be less focussed on guitar oriented bands.
I like pretty much everything from Congress of Animals, but they are a collection of artists who collaborate to record each other’s music. As such, they don’t have a consistent sound scape and not many of their songs feature the guitar up front. One I like that does have some nice guitar work is Astral Tumbleweed which features Justing Firefly Clarke.
I’m going to go with Richard Thompson and Glen Campbell.
While we’re here…a friend has insisted to me that Keith Richards and B.B. King are overrated, mediocre players. Thoughts?
mmm
Yeah…thirds on Thompson. He’s slowed down a bit, but can still amaze the listener. One reviewer described his solos as “compact and unpredictable,” which is exactly how I feel about them.
Gilmour also for me. I like some frenetic playing as much as the next person (as long as it isn’t just for the sake of it) but I’m not sure there is a better 30 second solo in rock music than in “mother” - (from 2:52). Not technically difficult but just beautifully judged. It lifts the whole song, it is the emotional heart of the piece. You spend the first half waiting for it and the second half coming down from it.
A fourth for Richard Thompson. I’ve seen him live many times, and the sounds he can get out of a guitar, particularly when he is playing solo, are just astonishing. One sort of hybrid picking thing he can do that I tried to mimic, with zero success, is plucking out a bass line with the pick while doing the melody with his other fingers. You have to watch it live to really get the absurd genius of it.
I have also seen Richard Thompson live many times, both solo acoustic and with a band. One show I was about three or four rows back from the stage and basically just sat there watching his hands all night long. Just amazing.
I once joked to my wife that if I ever got to the point where I could play 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, that’s when I would consider myself a guitar player.
Another vote for Richard Thompson. Sadly, I’ve only ever seen him in concert once, and it was a solo acoustic show which was amazing, but I’d really love to see him with a full band ripping up tracks like “Cooksferry Queen” and “Tear Stained Letter.”
Also a huge Zappa fan. It doesn’t get any better than “Watermelon in Easter Hay” for me.
And as they haven’t been mentioned yet, X had three absolutely stellar guitarists in their lineup over the years: Billy Zoom, Dave Alvin and Tony Gilkyson. Zoom in particular could slide effortlessly from punk to rockabilly to Chuck Berry soloing and he made it look absolutely effortless. Here they are on Letterman back in the day…he chats with them for a while and the song starts at about the 2:30 mark:
When Chet Atkins was asked what he thought about Malmsteen he (being the Southern gentleman that he was) said “Uh, well. He… uh… sure plays a lot of notes”. My taste in guitar does not extend to those who seem to regard the winner as the person who plays the most notes in the least time, as if it were some sort of speed sport.
There are a number of guitarists listed here (I won’t create controversy by saying which) who play things that I like but who I don’t rate amongst the greats because they just have a certain very specific style, from which they never depart. They play that style well but that’s it, at least as far as I know.
There are a number of other guitarists listed here who are often highly rated by people who aren’t familiar with the style that those guitarists play - and who consequently think the guitarist in question are some sort of genius, not knowing that by the standards of people who play in that style, the particular guitarist in question isn’t actually outstanding. Again I won’t pick on anyone here but as an example I have seen this with people who see some mediocre guitarist strumming in flamenco style and think they must be a total virtuoso, but they are just playing ordinary flamenco.
It’s hard to be objective but to me Tommy Emmanuel is hard to go past. I first saw him playing with his brother in about 1985 or so. One of the things you may not appreciate if you only see him doing his big numbers is that he is not all showy fingerstyle (though it’s hard to deny his skill at that). He can as far as I can tell play anything. I’ve heard him play flamenco. Classical. Rock. Country. Jazz. He and his brother would imitate many of the guitarists described here, just for laffs. They would play Malmsteen type things, but faster, as a joke because they regarded such playing as crass.
He was a session musican for a good while where his reputation was as The Only Session Guitarist you needed because he could play anything.
If anything, Keef is underrated.
B.B. was always my least favorite King. In order of preference:
Earl
Freddie
Albert
B.B.
X was terrific with Billy Zoom.
Speaking of “Tear-Stained Letter,” Jo-El Sonnier had an up-tempo regional hit with it…here they are doing it on the greatest music show ever, Night Music.
The two other musicians on stage were thinking, as they watched, “man, I’m going to put my guitar away and take up archery or photography or whittlin’”.
mmm
God, I absolutely LOVED Night Music. Especially the great jams at the end: my fave was Bongwater doing their cover of “You Don’t Love Me Yet” with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the Modern Jazz Quartet. That Thompson episode was great: he also did a rendition of “Jerusalem on the Jukebox” in another segment if memory serves.
I believe they are Suzanne Vega and Loudon Wainwright. Not people to be overawed but, yep, they know genius when they see it and at one point Loudon give a little smirk to himself as if to say “That really is just showing off now”