Who is / was the best guitarist in the world , and why? Give examples of tracks

I love threads like this :smile: Cue arguments



Genius by any ones standards, not forgotten here.

 

Srv

 

Haha greyman, had my answer before I saw you reply
saw him live in London twice, totally blew me away and could not believe I was listening to one guitar

 

Bit of a cliche, but Hendrix was amazing. Lots of people claim Jeff Beck, but I have to be honest Im not overley familiar with his work. Now Jimmy Page on the other hand, magic

 

Eddie van Halen, Steve Vai, Herman Li and Sam Totman of Dragonforce are up there for me.

 

ive been a professional guitarist/teacher blah blah for 20 years. on that basis alone i refuse to get involved in this thread as it will undoubtedly infuriate me. one of my guitar mates came second in the 'best british guitarist of all time' poll conducted in Guitar Techniques....to Noel Gallagher..enough said.

 

Loads, far too many to name all, but I've seen Joe Satriani play live and he was amazing.

 

I'd like to add Newton Faulkner too, really like his stuff

 

I have too many favourite guitarists to start listing them all, from stadium rockers to old bluesmen, country pickers to Irish folkies, West Coast hippies to CBGB's, miserable Mancunians to angst-ridden grungees. I love it all.


I've just been watching Tony Rice, Church Street Blues on Youtube though, he's quite good.

Larry Carlton, Peter Green, BB King, Eric, Jimi, Buddy Guy, David Gilmour, the list is endless for me.

 

I dont know about who is or was the best as it so subjective and not like running 100 metres and seeing who crosses the line first and do you include writing ability or just playing? There are 2 I have seen who stick in my mind as being able to play a variety of styles and master all of them with ease, Randy California and Ritchie Blackmore. Anyone else here seen Randy California? I have seen a few of the others listed above and none had the effortless grace of those two.

 

It's a minefield (which I presume is why the thread was started - no end of amusement).

As for answering the question, how do you define "best"? Is it the guy who can play a million notes a second, the bloke with flawless technique, or the guitarist whose choice of notes and their execution makes you want to weep?

It appears that the solos on PF's Comfortably Numb are amongst the people's very favourite, so does that make Gilmour the best guitarist?

In the initial list, Neil Young appears. I doubt he'd be up there from any real technical perspective, but I love what he plays. But maybe that is down to songwriting and feeling rather than anything else. On the other hand, people like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani bore me to tears with their endless noodling that goes precisely nowhere. I saw John McLaughlin a couple of years ago. His mastery of the instrument was quite phenomenal, but would I have wanted to have anything he played on CD for repeated listening? Nope.

I have some favourite guitarists, people I'd love to emulate, but as for them being the best, I have no idea (nor do I care). I like Gilmour, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), John Frusciante amongst others. These are the people who inspire me the most.

 

All I know is it's not me !

 

Albert Lee, saw him live recently. Brilliant.
How about Wilco Johnson or Johnny Marr?

 

ooh BB King. Good choice

 

I'm not a fan of BB King really. I don't like what he plays much. I have a nasty suspicion that he isn't much using the minor pentatonic, but something else entirely. I'm probably wrong. I hope Funky can tell me (if he's still reading the thread). His music often just sounds too major, too optimistic. I like my blues gloomy.

 

Hendrix was the best in my opinion.......

...forget the fact he taught himself to play on a guitar strung the wrong way round.....

....forget the fact all he used was a single effects pedal (was a wah or a fuzz?) and a Leslie type rotating speaker unit.....

....forget the fact he said he couldn't sing......which actually, he bl**dy well could and a bl**dy sight better than many other so-called singers these days.....

.....and many cases I just wish the singer would shut up and let me hear the instruments, but with Hendrix I liked to hear his voice.....

.....what you had with Hendrix was a musician who could play many forms of music, blues, jazz, rock, even traditional; using almost simple riffs; who wasn't afraid to experiment; made it look easy whatever he did; had impeccable timing and knew exactly when to introduce a note or whatever......and was apparently an all round nice guy, who ultimately has influenced many players who came after him.....(unfortunately whether or not some of them can actually play a guitar well)

If anyone doubts what I think.......just go and listen to the Electric Ladyland versions of House Burning Down and Voodoo Chile, and hear the precision in how he delivers his stuff.

AL

 

just saw that you'd descending into this thread.

To answer your question, BB usually uses the major pentatonic scale. Take minor pent scale, play it from its 3rd and you have the major pent (ie Am shape 1 @5th fret = Cmaj @8th fret). Another easy way to do this is to simply move the minor scale pattern youre playing up a m3rd (3 frets).
King also plays a little mixolydian (bluesy major), built from mode 5 over the dominant 7th chord. Editing the scale implies dominant pentatonic.
If you dont play guitar this sounds mad, but is actually very simple standard stuff.
Im not really a big blues fan, its too narrow, but i prefer players who move from major to minor during their solos, or follow the entire chord progression. Trouble is it then starts to gravitate towards jazz which is a huge monster and is the pinnacle of music theory and improvisation. Anything at the cutting edge of music is happening in jazz RIGHT NOW. but it wont be accepted by the masses for years, as has always been the case.
Jimi Hendrix shook the world when he blatantly used a flat 5th at the start of purple haze or his classic 'Hendrix chord'...the 7sharp9, used in jazz for the previous 40 years or so, and still rarely heard in the stifling narrow world of chart music.

 

'Hey Joe' was what made me sit up and form my music direction....heard it / saw it for the very first time on TOTP.....

AL


PS....stuff the frets......four stroke feint and flam here............:biggrin:

 

Duane Allman sadly killed on a motor bike actually played the guitar on layla by Clapton who said he was the greatest guitraist ever check out some of his stuff on you tube a god!