Classical Guitarists

[ledzep59]

There have been infinite polls and threads about who is the best guitarist in whatever genre or time period, but I notice that very rarely do any classical or Spanish guitarists get mentioned. In my opinion, many of these classical guitarists can smoke some of the rock guitarists that we idolize so much. Of course I am referring to technical proficiency and not songwriting ability or tone that is derived electronically. So, who are your favorite classical or Spanish guitarists? For those of you who don't listen to classical guitar much, I highly recommend doing so. Mine are:

 

Andres Segovia

John Williams

Christopher Parkening

Pepe Romero

Paco de Lucia

[mcmurray]

John Williams lives in my city. He's definitely one of the world's best.

 

I quite like this Chinese sheila too;

 

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[retrosurfer1959]

This is the Gibson forum and much of the talk is about the Les Paul Model so not really much of a shock that most people here pick a primarily electric player. Your suggestions are good I especially like John Williams but classic music of any kind including classical guitar is a genre that you have to love to get very excited about it and by that I mean no matter how proficient the player it's not very mainstream.

[ksdaddy]

I'm not much on classical music. My passive-aggressive sarcastic statement about classical music is that I'm too stoopid to understand it.

 

But I do dig classical guitars. It's a whole different world. I can sit there and noodle around on one for a long time.

[TommyK]

Chet Atkins, while Classical music was not his main thing, was a respectable classical guitarist. He had a really cool gut strung model with a intricately carved headstock... uh peg box.

 

Roy Clark too.

 

Then there's Roy Clark. Though I haven't heard him play live in a few years.

 

Mason Williams is worth note.

 

Jose Feliciano is still tearin' up the fretboard. Check his stuff out on YouTube and his website.

 

Falling into the same category of Feliciano is Charo, yes "Cucci, Cucci' Charo. While she did shake her 'Money Maker', she was very good on the guitar, might still be. She studied (albeit not for long) with Segovia.

 

I'm sure there are those who make their bread and butter money playing Classical guitar and I like to listen to it, I just don't pay enough attention to it to remember their names.

 

BTW. I don't idolize many rock guitarists.

[SweetMarie]

Segovia! I saw him play several times when I was a army brat in Europe...no one else even comes close!

 

Of course, this being the Lounge you knew someone was gonna have to bring up Charo...

[TommyK]

Segovia! I saw him play several times when I was a army brat in Europe...no one else even comes close!

 

Of course' date=' this being the Lounge you knew someone was gonna have to bring up Charo...

 

SOME of us can appreciate her musical talent. I'm not saying she is the current greatest, but her music is excellent. The rest is just ... frosting on the red velvet cake of her Flamenco music.

[ShredAstaire]

I like Paco!

[zigzag]

Saw Sharon Isbin around 1987 at Wake Forest University. She was wonderful.

 

If you like Paco, get his CD with Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin.

[DanvillRob]

Segovia! I saw him play several times when I was a army brat in Europe...no one else even comes close!

 

Ii recall seeing Segovia many years ago' date=' (on TV), and was taken by the fact that his hands did not look at all like a great guitarist. I recall how he had short-fat fingers!

[img']http://www.allegrofilms.com/media/main_images_450x253/Segovia_guitar.jpg[/img]

[GibsonAlmighty]

Not very much into classical guitarist, but this 2 guy's got my vote.

This is the closest "classical type music" I can bear to listen to.

Otherwise it's too boring to me IMHO.

And guess what? This 2 guys live in the same planet I'm in. LOL

And look they're both playing Gibson.:-

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[milod]

I think that "the band thing" largely messes up attention on finger style guitar. Knopfler, remember, almost remained unknown because of the lyricism of some of his stuff.

 

I've never seen Segovia in person; I did sit maybe 20-30 feet away from Carlos Montoya in concert.

 

Youtube and stuff has convinced me that there are all kinds of fantastic guitarists out there of all styles. My "schtick" tends toward more of a solo fingerstyle thing and I'll tell yah, I'm in awe of a lot of folks nobody ever heard of.

 

Chet was fantastic because of his absolutely incredible versatility. Segovia? Whatta you say about a guy who always had some 500 pieces in his head ready for solo classical performance?

 

I was very impressed by Christopher Parkening as a musician, concert artist and instructor.

 

But as I say, there's some awfully good stuff by awfully good pickers out today and frankly I think a lot better than when I was just getting into guitar those years ago...

 

m

[TommyK]

Let there no doubt. Charo is a serious guit tar picker:

 

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgpAlKKftG0[/YOUTUBE]

[DanvillRob]

Let there no doubt. Charo is a serious guit tar picker:

 

 

Wow...I'd forgotten how good she was/is. She was discovered by Xavier Cugat, after all!

[GibsonAlmighty]

Let there no doubt. Charo is a serious guit tar picker:

 

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgpAlKKftG0[/YOUTUBE]

 

No offense....I hate that kind of music.

Just trying to be brutally honest.

 

PEACE

[TommyK]

Remember what mamma said?

[DanvillRob]

Remember what mamma said?

 

There'd be days like this?

[TommyK]

Nope.

 

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."