While my guitar gently weeps, a top ten list
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| Clapton and Cream |
I have taken the time out of my extremely busy day to assemble a list of the top ten guitar players in my humblest opinion.
I have left many out, who people will find fault with, Why did you pick so and so at number 5 instead of such and such, I know I know, I can hear already.
Where's Neil Young, where's Brian May, where's Mark Knopfler. They could have made the list if extended to 20, but this is a top 10.
At number 10, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. As a producer and songwriter, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour is drawn to floating, dreamy textures, but when he picks up his black Stratocaster to play a solo, an entirely different sensibility takes over: "I wanted a bright, powerful lead guitar tone that would basically rip your face off," he says. His pioneering use of echo and other effects – initially inspired by original Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett – culminated with his precision use of delay on "Run Like Hell," which directly anticipates the Edge's signature sound.
Coming in at number 9, Stevie Ray Vaughn.
In the early eighties, MTV was on the rise, and blues guitar was miles away from music's mainstream. But Texas'Stevie Ray Vaughn demanded your attention. He had absorbed the styles of just about every great blues guitarist – plus Jimi Hendrix and a lot of jazz and rockabilly – and his monster tone, casual virtuosity and impeccable sense of swing could make a blues shuffle like "Pride and Joy" hit as hard as metal.
At numero 8..George Harrison of the Beatles, I had to pick at least one Beatle for my top ten list.. He just had a way of getting right to the business, of finding the right thing to play. That was part of that Beatles magic – they all seemed to find the right thing to play. George knew every obscur Elvis solo; his initial influences were rockabilly –Carl Perkins,Eddie Cochran, Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore – but he always added something to it. Even going way back, I used to just swoon over that solo in "I Saw Her Standing There."
Coming in at number 7 is Peter Townsend of the Who, who routinely smashed guitars all over the stage. Pete Townsend doesn't play many solos, which might be why so many people don’t realize just how good he really is. But he's so important to rock – he’s a visionary musician who really lit the whole thing up. His rhythm-guitar playing is extremely exciting and aggressive – he's a savage player, in a way. He has a wonderful, fluid physicality with the guitar that you don't see often, and his playing is very much a reflection of who he is as a person – a very intense guy.
At number 6 ...Chuck Berry...Chuck was playing a slightly heated-up version of Chicago blues, that guitar boogie – which all the cats were playing – but he took it up to another level. He was slightly younger than the older blues guys, and his songs were more commercial without just being pop, which is a hard thing to do. Chuck had the swing. There’s rock, but it’s the roll that counts. And Chuck had an incredible band on those early records: Willie Dixon on bass, Johnnie Johnson on piano, Ebby Hardy or Freddy Below on drums. They understood what he was about and just swung with it. It don’t get any better than that.
Coming in at number 5, Jeff Beck, Beck has the combination of brilliant technique with personality. It’s like he’s saying, “I’m Jeff Beck. I’m right here. And you can’t ignore me.” Even in theYardbirds, he had a tone that was melodic but in-your-face – bright, urgent and edgy, but sweet at the same time. You could tell he was a serious player, and he was going for it. He was not holding back.
Residing at the number 4 position is Keith Richards, once he was kicked out of Canada for pot possesion. I remember being in junior high school, hearing "Satisfaction" and being freaked out by what it did to me. It's a combination of the riff and the chords moving underneath it. Keith, wrote two-and three-note themes that were more powerful than any great solo. He played the vibrato rhythm and the lead guitar in "Gimme Shelter." He had some cool tuning, a beautiful chord so well-tuned that it sings. That is the core of every great guitar part on a Rolling Stones record.
At the number 3 spot...Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin..Mr Stairway to Heaven himself. The solo on "Heartbreaker" has such incredible immediacy; he's teetering on the edge of his technique, and it's still a showstopper. But you can't look at just his guitar playing on its own. You have to look at what he did with it in the studio and how he used it in the songs he wrote and produced. Jimmy built this incredible catalog of experience on the Yardbirds and doing session work, so when he did the first Led Zeppelin record, he knew exactly what kind of sounds he wanted to get.
At the runner up position # 2, Eric Clapton.
What I really liked was Cream’s live recordings, because you could hear the three guys playing. If you listen to “I’m So Glad,” on Goodbye, you really hear the three guys go – and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were a couple of jazz guys, pushing Clapton forward. I once read that Clapton said, “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.” He was just trying to keep up with the other two guys!
And the number one guitar player ever, no surprise is Jimi Hendrix.
His playing was effortless. There's not one minute of his recorded career that feels like he's working hard at it – it feels like it's all flowing through him. The most beautiful song of the Jimi Hendrix canon is "Little Wing."
It's just this gorgeous song that, as a guitar player, you can study your whole life and not get down, never get inside it the way that he does. He seamlessly weaves chords and single-note runs together and uses chord voicings that don't appear in any music book. His riffs were a pre-metal funk bulldozer, and his lead lines were an electric LSD trip down to the crossroads, where he pimp-slapped the devil. Well said.
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