Ever since the electric guitar, there have been guitarists who were considered Gods of the instrument, and largely for their technical ability. Clapton, Hendrix, and Beck came out of the sixties. In the 70s, out came Rhandy Rhoads, Eddie Van Halen. In the 80s, out came Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai. But what about the 90s? The 2000s?
I play a lot of guitar and go to a lot of websites. It seems to me that for the most part, guitarists nowadays are still looking up to the guitar Gods of two decades ago, with the latest-emerging virtuosos to have huge recognition among the community being perhaps Michael Angelo Batio (still having emerged at least 15 years ago).
This could just be something that I’m seeing, but somehow, I doubt it. YouTube is covered with people doing covers of 80s shredders, and those are the people that have set the standard for guitar excellence.
Why haven’t their been guitar gods of the 90s and 2000s?
May I nominate someone to be a guitar god? Derek Trucks is phenomenal. (Hi Marley!)
As to why – the popular music scene is far more fractured than it was 20 years ago, let along 40. In order to have a guitar god, you need a broad base of worshippers, and these days not everyone is listening to the same type of music.
Also – and perhaps more importantly – the more popular genres, like rap and hip-hop, aren’t guitar-based, so the music that “everyone” is listening to doesn’t feature potential guitar deities.
The other problem may be exactly the YouTube phenomonon - there’s much easier, cheaper ways to get your playing listened to than there used to be. Really good guitar players who years ago would never have made it out of their garage are now being passed around via email links. It means a standout has to stand even further out than in the past, when there was less exposure except for an exalted few on record labels.
Maybe Clapton’s second cousin was even better than Clapton. But because he was a CPA and not a rock star, we never found out about him. Nowadays he could be a CPA and tape a video for YouTube at night and we’d get to hear him. (I just made that example up, by the way. I have no idea if Clapton has a second cousin at all.)
Plus, there’s the “been there, heard that” phenomenon. A guitarist might be every bit as technically good as Clapton, but almost by definition can’t be as revolutionary as Clapton, because Clapton’s been there, done that. We want innovation and new and exciting stuff. Well, Clapton et al did a lot of innovative stuff, so everything now sounds derivitive. I think this is why Jack White stands out right now - he’s going even further back and making older sounds sound new again. He’s not trying to be the next Clapton, because Clapton is still Clapton.
In short, the pool of potentials has gotten bigger due to technology, while the appeal of the type of music has gotten smaller, and it’s fans more demanding. Hence, less god-status approved.
Not for lack of talent, but I’d say it’s over. Popular tastes have changed and a lot of musicians have a different mindset, too. Jack White would almost definitely have been a guitar hero if he’d been playing 30 years ago, but his playing isn’t as flashy and he rarely takes a solo (in the traditional sense of ‘guitar solo’). Trucks is my favorite player out there by far [hi twickster ;)), but he doesn’t have a fraction of the ego in his playing that Clapton did. Many of them don’t have the degree of self-indulgence that a guitar god needed. Maybe it will come back in some form, or maybe it’ll just be popular in a few forms of music - there’s plenty of soloing on the jam scene, for instance, but it hasn’t captured the public consciousness. I think that rock itself is dead, so I don’t think it’s a surprise that rock guitar isn’t the same either.
Not sure rock is completely dead, but I agree with everything else you say here.
Listening to John Frusciante in Turn It Again on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Stadium Arcadium,” the term Guitar Hero definitely comes to mind.
Agree with you about the guitar heroes, but thanks to a discovery I made about a month ago, I am happy to report that rock-based pop, at least, will not die as long as there is OK Go.
The Babies on Board, the children of the Baby Boom from the early-to-mid 1908s, are coming of age, having been weaned on their parents 60s and 70s records. Rock is reborn.
I don’t think that guitar gods are going away though I do think that it tends to be cyclical. Metal gave way to grunge and then the rap/hiphop thing got popular. During that time metal came back at various times. Now I am hearing a lot more guitar centered music on the radio (Note, I don’t listen to a whole lot of radio so I could be wrong on this and I never watch MTV/VH1). Lately on radio I’ve heard a bunch of Dragon Force and those guys are no slouches, though it is probably the stupidest band name in history. I am also hearing alot of Avenged Sevenfold and those guys are pretty good as well. I am not a huge fan of either band but the guitarists certainly do some shredding.
I do have a question though. I keep hearing that Jack White is a guitar god but I go and listen to some White Stripes and just don’t hear it. I don’t care for them all that much but there are a lot of guitarist whom I don’t care for but still respect their talent. Can someone point me to a Jack White tune showing off his skills?
I’m only moderately impressed with White Stripes. I’m more impressed with his bluegrassey stuff like his work on Cold Mountain. Obviously, he’s not shredding on Cold Mountain!
Jack White isn’t a guitar hero of technical vituosity, like Yngvie Malmsteen. He won’t impress you with his lightning shredding capabilities. He’s more in the mold of Slash - someone who sounds very unique, is innovative, and has the ability to extract tons of emotion and energy from his instrument.
Getting back to the demise of the guitar god… Part of it is the, “been there, done that” phenomenon. When rock was new, guys like Clapton and Jeff Beck were breaking new ground. No one had heard guitars played quite like that before (well, not the general public, anyway). So they attained legendary status for standing out from the crowd.
But now that we’ve seen the Yngvies, Claptons, BB Kings, etc., it’s hard for a guitarist now to come along and present something truly new, something we’ve never heard and which shows off a high level of skill. Stevie Ray Vaughan did it. Lesser known guitarists like Michael Hedges also did it. But it’s getting harder and harder. There are just too many great guitarists in rock history for any new ones to stand out, unless they bring something unique to the table.
That’s where Jack White comes in again. He sounds very unique. He’s stamped his own sound on the guitar, which makes him stand out from the pack and be noticed.
Music is constantly changing, so the definition of a guitar hero moves around like a bottleneck on an E string. There are still new versions of the old school hero, such as Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks. There are also acoustic guitar heroes such as Keb’ Mo’ and Tom Shinness. There’s David Lindley, playing blues licks on an oud* in between slide guitar numbers. Robert Randolph mixes Hendrix and gospel on a pedal steel guitar. If he ever loses his habit of driving a lovely lick into the ground, he’ll be a big star.
*I think oud is not spelled that way. It rhymes with “food.” Lindley says it’s the perfect blues ax, because it has no frets.
I’m not saying the form is going away, or that they’ve run out of interesting rock bands. None of them interest me personally, but that’s different. When I say that, it’s more about the things that made rock “rock.” The danger is completely gone, so is the youth and inventiveness, and in large part so is the fun.
One “new” guy out there who is in the same league with the guitar gods of yesteryear is Jimmy Herring. He hasn’t had a ton of exposure yet but has been playing with The Dead, The Allman Brothers, and a bunch of others and has all the chops and musicality of many of the greats. If you haven’t seen him play, I highly recommend it.
Herring is now a full-time member of Widespread Panic, starting with their upcoming fall tour.
It was grunge that killed the guitar god. The hair bands that were big up to that point practically required a shredder, or at least someone acting like one. In the grunge days, virtuosity stank of effort, while songwriting and a band’s overall sound became far more important. It’s been that way ever since.
Last year we had a 20-year-old friend over to watch This is Spinal Tap. That whole aesthetic–hypersexual, big hair, leather pants, shredding guitar–was something she just wasn’t that familiar with, since bands had been mostly staring at the floor for as long as she had been paying attention to music.