I would like to add:
Wishbone Ash - Phoenix (1973)
Love Sculpture - Sabre Dance (1968)
SRC - Hall of the Mountain King (1969?)
Deep Purple (Ritchie Blackmoore) - Child in Time(1971)
ETA: Almost forgot Eddie Hazel - Maggot Brain (1971)
The solo from Baby’s On Fire is pretty awesome.
What It Is, from Mark Knopfler’s solo album Sailing to Philadelphia, is probably the one I could “loop and never get sick of”. In fact, I have done just that at times.
The main riff in Mr. Brownstone. Amazing, groovy hard rock riff that’s great to listen to and great fun to play.
The Doors’ “Spanish Caravan”, among others. Robby Krieger is a very underrated guitarist.
Jorma Kaukonen, “Embryonic Journey”
Living Colour, “Information Overload”, again among others. Vernon Reid is an amazing guitarist.
Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner playing the intro and that awesome segue to Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane.
mmm
Always has been, and (apparently) always will be.
.
More Hendrix: the opening to “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”
Hold on a minute…that song is 23 years old?!?
God, I’m old.
Whole Lotta Love from the Song Remains the Same right after the theramin solo.
Since You’ve Been Gone from Rainbow. The very beginning is so classic.
1969 by the Stooges. Distortion never sounded so sweet.
The Who - Greyhound Girl and Tea and Theater. My heart breaks every time, but in a good way.
The Church have these great double-guitar effects on a lot of their work: from Starfish I like “Reptile” & “Hotel Womb.” But I’m not a guitar nerd, so I await your sneers at my ignorance.
_
Well, classical finger-picking is still pretty much the coolest guitar, if you’re talking solo. There are some rockers who have a little of that going on I guess.
The beginning of Dire Strait’s "Money For Nothing (and the Chicks are Free.)
The start of Marquee Moon by Television. So simple, but the way the two guitars compliment each other is fantastic.
Oh - that! Heck, I play that as a picking exercise! I always thought of that as “Gilmour’s A minor riffy bit” - forgot it even had a name…:smack:
labdad- it was Shapes of Things off Beck’s Truth for you? For me it was the next track, Let Me Love You…I have an old thread where I geeked out about it…ah, here it is. And here’s a thread on guitarists- at post #33, I link to a bunch of guitar write-ups I have posted on the Dope if anyone is looking to geek out.
Nope - it was the 1966 single “Shapes of Things” by the Yardbirds I’m talking about. Released a couple of months before “Over Under Sideways Down.” Truth came out a couple of years later.
Mind you, the reworking of “Shapes of Things” on Truth is remarkable, but listen to that cut by the Yardbirds! Beck’s solo is amazing! I was in the 9th grade at the time, mostly listening to the Ventures. The Ventures never played anything like THAT!!
From Wikipedia’s discussion of the song:
Ahem…“Tales from Topographic Oceans” You sir, get a music geek demerit. 
Speaking of Steve Howe, I love the soaring solos of the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe song “Brother of Mine.” This album gets left out of a lot of Yes discussions, but Howe’s electric lead guitars are really among his best here. Perhaps he was a little jealous of Trevor Rabin at the time and wanted to show him up at his own game.
Give me Trey Anastasio playing “Divided Sky” any day. Every part of that song is just keeps getting cooler. These days, mature sober Trey really takes the lead of this song to great places.
It’s probably not considered rock music by most and it’s very brief, but there is a riff in Soul by Matchbox 20 that gives me shivers.
Also the song Mr Breeze.
Yeah, Beck was clearly demonstrating his chops on the Yardbirds version…amazing stuff. I love the fact that on Heart Full of Soul, they brought these sitar players in to play the main hook since sitar players were all the rage. But the players they brought in couldn’t work with the rock idiom and find the groove - so Beck just faked it on his Esquire. Hank Marvin of The Shadows couldn’t fake a sitar, man - this was new weird stuff!
Two more…
The beginning to Yes’s Roundabout
Styx’s Prelude 12 (instrumental that comes right before Suite Madame Blue on Equinox)
Exactly - seems hard to grasp today if you weren’t around in those days, but rock music and especially rock guitar was evolving at warp speed in those days! When you think how much happened just between 1965 and 1967 - and we hadn’t heard Hendrix yet!