This, exactly. Richard Thompson holds the worlds record for his talent:recognition ratio.
mmm
In Guitar circles, players like Thompson, Setzer, May and others are Hall of Fame Gods. Many articles written, many YouTubes about how to sound and play like. So I tend to not consider them. Or Mick Taylor, who was THE secret sauce for the Stones’ best era, but is so respected in guitar land that I wouldn’t think to mention him here.
**Prince **definitely gets his props and can seriously be considered for placement in the Top Five but **Bruno Mars **can evidently bring it as well.
His tribute to Prince doing Let’s Go Crazy at the Grammy’s surprised a lot of people.
Here’s the rehearsal footage link. You can skip to the 3:00 minute mark if you want to watch him throw it down.
Also if we are considering acoustic/rhythm guitarists, Paul Simon is one of the best.
Didn’t we do this all about fifteen years ago? The last post in that thread names Steve Hillage, and I’m inclined to agree. One of my favourite songs of his is a 23-minute live recording where he duets with himself using an echo pedal with a delay of several seconds.
What, you think no great guitarist have come along in the last 15 years?
Judging from the other names mentioned in this thread so far, the consensus seems to be “no”.
Mike Campbell
Bill Nelson
Another vote for Elliot Easton. Eight smokin’ bars of great guitar in the middle of the song and I’m Aww, is Elliot done already?
Derek Trucks
Julian Lage
Jack White
John Mayer
John 5
Kaki King
Gabriela …
Came in to make sure Barre got a mention: “Teacher”, “We Used to Know”
Not mentioned often because of distance in time is Scotty Moore. He’s the session guy on most of Elvis Presley’s records. He did a hell of a lot in establishing the ‘rock and roll’ sound in the 1950s.
Mark Knopfler on Scotty Moore
Keith Richards on Scotty Moore
Yes! That’s what I popped in to say. He’s not a shredder so he’s rarely mentioned in best of lists but there is nobody who puts together a better melodic musical solo than Martin. Songs you’ve heard a thousand times tend to blend into the background but if you really listen to Aqualung it has one of the most perfectly formed solos ever.
Another underrated player is Steve Rothery of Marillion.
That’s the problem with threads like this. Buckingham (for example) shows up on lots of lists of Underrated Guitarists; but how much such recognition can you get and still be underappreciated?
Speaking for myself, I mentioned Zappa as I feel he is more known as an overall musician, composer, and arranger than for his guitar shredding…in fact, the first time I saw him (late '70’s), I was surprised by how much conducting he did while the band was cranking…then he’d go over, pick up his guitar, play the hell out of that thing, put it back down and pick up the baton…
wtf?
I was wondering about that, too. I play keyboards, and I had no idea Frank Zappa played keyboards. That said, I don’t know much about Zappa, but my mental image of him has a guitar in his hands. (And just doing a sanity check on Google images, it seems my mental image is correct. I don’t see a single photo of him at a keyboard from the first hundred or so images.)
I would have thought the fact that Zappa released albums called Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar Some More and Return of the Son of Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, which featured a cover photo of Zappa holding his Les Pau, would have been a tip off, but perhaps Lucas has never encountered those recordings. Or watched any Zappa footage. Or read any liner notes.
Frank was and is only underappreciated in the sense that people tend not to know his work unless they sought it out; it’s never been floating through the ether just waiting to be heard on a radio or anything. And for people who DO play music, they all know of and respect his work and talent. Hard to believe he’s been gone almost 25 years now. RIP.
ETA: For clarity, the picks I listed in my previous post all under a different category of “under appreciated” than most folks are using here. Most folks are talking about bands that hit it big but the guitarist isn’t well-known despite being part of that; my picks are mostly people who are fantastic musicians with an engaging, fun, interesting body of work who failed to gain much recognition despite having a ton of talent, a good body of work and a lifetime spent toiling away at what they loved.
Alvin Lee is routinely overlooked and underappreciated as great rock guitarists go.
Ditto Dave Edmunds.
And Greg Ginn.
And Harvey Mandel.
And Vernon Reid and Eddie Hazel.
I would list Johnny Winter and Roy Buchanan as well, but they are not comfortably categorized as “rock” guitarists.
When I lived in Budapest in the late 90s/early 00s, there was an entire music store devoted only to Frank Zappa. I never really got into him, but he certainly inspired awe and love wherever he went.
I second this. What’s also interesting is his style… his leads are sort of “rockabilly.”
I nominate Akira Takasaki and Tommy Emmanuel.