So, some kid asked me who is the greatest guitar player in the whole wide world?

[dem00n]

It was a short Canadian man, wearing funky clothing, with a small little mustache. He was a bit shy at first but once you got to know him, its obvious what was genius at that point, the extracted meaning of genius is this man. To me he is not the worlds greatest guitar player, but he alone represents something that many others just don't have. Drug abuse, constant dropping of labels, in and out of rehabs and then his own life taken by his wife?

 

You know what makes a great guitarist? When you hear the first 10 notes, you know its him, no matter what song it is. This remains true for Wes, Page, Johnson, Django, Pass, Farlow, Atkins, Dimebag and so many others. To have that signature sound is so hard to achieve, its at that point when i realized that me or anyone else trying to sound like an other guitarist is a complete waste of time and i do not advise anyone to do so.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6obx4BpSi0

[rocketman]

Great stuff! Check out The Genius of Lenny Breau. Here's Part 1:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLD-BVVYDV4

[jaxson50]

Lenny was just great.

[RaysEpiphone]

When some one starts talking about the best or the greatest musician I always say... "There is no best or greatest, there are some that I refer to being the better player's" or, "thats one of the better band's around."

I've seen a lot of band in and around my local scene and while I do admit that no on is perfect and we all have good and bad night's only about 20%-30% of the local groups are in that "better" category.

[kaleb]

There is no best. It's all a matter of personal opinion.

 

Here's what I have to say....

 

He's not very technically proficient, and his vocabulary is limited, but when you hear Ace Frehley, you know it's him. He inspired a plethora of people to pick up the guitar and play. His licks were the starting point for a lot of players (Dimebag, Mike McCready, Slash, etc). Not many guitar players of his era can say that. As much as I love Jake E. Lee, he can't say that.

 

I was watching an SRV concert last night and heard the best version of "Texas Flood" I've ever experienced. The gut wrenching emotion just hit me like a **** ton of bricks. I also listened to The Aristocats (Guthrie Govan's band with Brian Beller and Marco Minnemann), and Wayne Krantz, who is an awesome jazz-fusion player. Not really in the realm of what I do, but I love it.

 

But listening to Ace's first solo album in the car this morning wasn't affected by my night of blues and fusion the night before.

 

The more great players, the better. It shouldn't be a competition.

[dem00n]

There is no best. It's all a matter of personal opinion.

 

Here's what I have to say....

 

He's not very technically proficient, and his vocabulary is limited, but when you hear Ace Frehley, you know it's him. He inspired a plethora of people to pick up the guitar and play. His licks were the starting point for a lot of players (Dimebag, Mike McCready, Slash, etc). Not many guitar players of his era can say that. As much as I love Jake E. Lee, he can't say that.

 

I was watching an SRV concert last night and heard the best version of "Texas Flood" I've ever experienced. The gut wrenching emotion just hit me like a **** ton of bricks. I also listened to The Aristocats (Guthrie Govan's band with Brian Beller and Marco Minnemann), and Wayne Krantz, who is an awesome jazz-fusion player. Not really in the realm of what I do, but I love it.

 

But listening to Ace's first solo album in the car this morning wasn't affected by my night of blues and fusion the night before.

 

The more great players, the better. It shouldn't be a competition.

 

And this is what happens when you take everything to a literal sense.

[Big Bill]

I'm starting to think this place is turning into "6 Degrees of Ace Frehley".

[kidblast]

this made me think... about 12 years ago, a friend of mine had four tickets to see Juliann Bream in concert.

 

I heard of him before, featured in Guitar Player a few times, but I never really followed classical music all that much (back then).

 

But we didn't pass up the event, (these are very good friends, and we always have fun together, so what the heck..)

 

Turns out, this was to be Juliann's final US Tour, (he was retiring from the travel end of this business).

 

He played for a few hours, would stop a few times and talk about various pieces he was about to play. It was jaw dropping how good he was.

 

There was a fed-ex overnight envelope on the stage floor, as the show was concluding he opened it and explained that it was a guitar fugue that a composer he was good friend with from Japan had written.

This person never played guitar in his life, but with his close ties to Juliann, often thought of writing one, and the intent was he could perform it. This was the last composition this man had done. He passed a few weeks after finishing.

 

Julian went on to say that they had an agreement - when ever, where ever he was, he would play this piece as part of his final tour. The deceased composers wife sent Julian the score, and it arrived the day of the concert in Worcester.

 

He ripped open the unopened package, and pulled out the music, and laid in on the floor in front of him. Said he needed a moment, and looked it over for about 1 minute,,,

 

then he played it... sight unseen, start to finish.. the piece went for close to 9 minutes. It was one of the most awe inspiring performances I think I will ever see, in my life.

 

When he came out for his third encore, I head tears in my eyes, I knew that I was standing about 10 rows dead center from the best guitarist I've ever seen, and probably ever will see in person.

 

He was simply amazing. There's never been anyone else has ever moved me like this guy did. It was a whole new level of "holy s**t, that guy can play"

[milod]

I think a lot of "classical" guitar players don't get the credit deserved for their abilities.

 

I had a somewhat similar experience, btw, back in '65 watching Carlos Montoya from the front row.

 

A buddy's girlfriend also wanted to go, so I took her along. I think she ended up embarrassed by me because I was so totally focused on what the guy was doing. Incredible skills whether you're into flamenco or not. Yup, I was in awe. I can't remember the technique, but I do remember the awe and some mental pictures of the scene of his playing.

 

I'll add that some of the old life radio era pickers were incredible musicians who often had no formal training whatsoever but could end up playing about anything in any key and simply playing along with a relaxed picking style I could only envy.

 

That's nothing at all against any younger pickers, or others of the older era - but reflect a young picker's awe at some of the real pros I've been privileged to watch at close range or to meet.

 

m

[zigzag]

Just goes to show that there are a LOT of extremely talented people that we never hear about or experience first hand.

[rocketman]

Milo brings a point that got me thinking. I was trained as a classical pianist who turned to jazz. When I started playing guitar I was heavily influenced by Alex Lifeson and then SRV. Now I listen to all kinds of music, but I never did get into classical guitar much. It's probably due to the fact that I'll never come close to playing as good as most of them!

[kidblast]

I think a lot of "classical" guitar players don't get the credit deserved for their abilities.

 

I had a somewhat similar experience, btw, back in '65 watching Carlos Montoya from the front row.

 

A buddy's girlfriend also wanted to go, so I took her along. I think she ended up embarrassed by me because I was so totally focused on what the guy was doing. Incredible skills whether you're into flamenco or not. Yup, I was in awe. I can't remember the technique, but I do remember the awe and some mental pictures of the scene of his playing.

 

I'll add that some of the old life radio era pickers were incredible musicians who often had no formal training whatsoever but could end up playing about anything in any key and simply playing along with a relaxed picking style I could only envy.

 

That's nothing at all against any younger pickers, or others of the older era - but reflect a young picker's awe at some of the real pros I've been privileged to watch at close range or to meet.

 

m

 

it was quite an eye opener for me too Milo, This polite little British fellow in a blue pin stripped suite, sits himself down in front of 1,500 people with no amplification, no microphones, just his hands and a classical guitar, captivates the place for almost 3 hours. The acoustics in the room were surprising. (Mechanics Hall in Worcester in Mass, Designed and built many years ago just for these kind of things.)

 

I commented to my wife, "imagine that, no amps, no mics...", because of the crowd noise before the performance started she understandably asked, "how is everyone going to hear him" -- "they're going to shut up and listen.." and they did.. in quite moments, you could hear him breathing, and the fabrics of his suit rubbing together when he'd move his arms to make the chord and positional changes.

 

He'd also grab a tuning key (or two or three) and change the tuning on a few strings while he was plucking drone notes on open strings. and just as quickly, he'd put them back to standard tuning.

He knew exactly how many turns to go in any direction on any string. it was sick, in an insanely good sort of way.

 

Giving all of our hero's their due credits, this guy dwells is a whole different level.

[zigzag]

I was acquainted with Hiram Bullock back in the late '70s. Most people remember him as the barefoot guitarist on Letterman's show. He commented to me that he was amazed by the number of gifted guitar players in New York at that time.

[Twang Gang]

As many have mentioned we cannot judge one best player. But my favorite was a guy named Doug Yankus from Appleton Wi. He played in a three man power group and usually used a LP Custom through a pair of Twin Reverbs chained together and some extra bottoms. It seemed he could emulate so many other popular players from the time - he'd be playing a few riffs and you'd say to yourself "sounds just like Jeff Beck" then a few bars later he pull off a few riffs and you'd say "aha Santana, or Alvin Lee, or Page". Then when he got to just his own original stuff he could take you places you'd never been. When you consider that just about every note has already been played in almost every combination with every other note it is unique to hear something truly original. It was like there weren't enough frets on the board for this guy - he used them all and could have used more.

 

His band cut two albums - the first didn't get a label and they sold it themselves at live shows. The second did get a label, but the producer and execs made them water it down quite a bit from what they really wanted to do. Unfortunately none of their recorded material really showcased what they could do at a live show. More unfortunately he died at a young age, but I will always be grateful for having heard them several times live in the early 70s.

[milod]

Rocketman...

 

I dunno... I think you probably could do better at classical guitar than most of us if for no other reason than you almost certainly have more natural talent and you know how to work at developing skills.

 

The major difference with classical guitar, IMHO, is that one has to approach it far differently from rock guitar or even "single string jazz." I've always believed that if Joe Pass, for example, wanted to play classical instead of jazz, he'd have also been a natural at it.

 

For example, I'm a lousy singlestring lead player, but I think I do fingerpicking about as well as most. That goes back to 50 years of playing that way. My short encounters with a real classical picker, Christopher Parkening, really told the tale as he put it to me, "Your right hand is fine, but your left hand shows you've been doing too much bluegrass."

 

It's that left hand "concept" in your head that's more similar perhaps to playing piano.

 

Remember how I've always said I'm kinda a keyboard player who doesn't know the keys so I have to use my guitar? I think in "chords" rather than notes, and of melodies flying around chords, passing chords, etc., - but it's harder to think of single notes without underlying structure regardless how potentially complex. Hence... I'm a fingerpicker.

 

Most "pop/jazz/folk" fingerpickin' can be seen, in ways, as a variation on stride. That's true whether it's Leo Kottke or Joe Pass or Chet.

 

Classical playing is different in that it's not just an alternating bass or basso ostinato, in use. OTOH, it's not entirely different from folkie/country pickin' in that you can hear Chet doing plenty of "classical" material and arranging pop material into a "classical guitar" style. And even ditto such as Kottke who also did an interesting take on Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring that I always thought normally was done in C, on guitar at least.

 

It's still more a thought structure as "chords" on the fingerboard, IMHO, as opposed to batches of notes. At least that's how my head has treated it when I've done some classical stuff or when I arrange "pop" material into a more jazz-type schtick.

 

Bottom line is pretty much to me that if one can play "Freight Train" fingerpickin', or even solo guitar of the old PP&M version of A'Soalin', it's just a matter of reading - which is my personal weakness since I'm not a lousy sight reader, but a horridly poor sight reader.

 

Still, with your talent... Start thinking stride, and it should oughta come naturally to you, I'll bet.

 

m

[bonzoboy]

I'm not going to get into the never-ending-never-to-be-resolved debaucle about who is the best guitarist who ever lived but I will say that Lenny Breau was a guitarist of a calibre that few if any could ever hope to reach.I have a few of his recordings and it's hard to get your head around the fact that all of these songs were the result of just one take with no overdubs.Lenny's dexterity and technique was so amazing that you could swear that there was another person-or two-accompanying him.It's not known by many that Lenny took a very young Randy Bachman-of Bachman Turner Overdrive-under his wing and took him on as his protegé.The Lenny Breau influence is all over Bachman's playing,especially in his jazz phrased songs such as "Blue Collar".Lenny Breau was a giant among guitarists and one of the greatest jazz innovators of all time,it's tragic that he,like so many other brilliant and unique talents,had too many personal demons to contend with and consequently turned to hard drugs to cope with his torment,which in the end led to his demise.

[kaleb]

I admire players who have insane chops and technique but are also soulful and play for the song.

[zigzag]

My vote goes to Witchita.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfIpy-FEfgI