My Favorite Guitarists

A while back, I put together a list of my favorite singers. So now I thought it’d make sense to stick to the list idea to talk about some of my favorite guitar players, as well as adding youtube links to serve as samples of their individual styles. Like the singers, they’re diverse, but not incredibly diverse. Basically, they’ve been ingrained in my mind as the definition of good musicians. All the guitarists are fairly well known and have been at it for years. Most likely, the list will surely disappoint a few musicological snobby nerds out there because there’s no obscure gems here. And while I like plenty of lesser known players, they simply haven’t had the kind of impact on me (yet) that these guys have. One common defining feature of the people on this list is that through time and repetition, they’ve been able to hone their craft and sculpt their styles into that most elusive, most sought after holy grail of the arts – originality.

Richard Thompson

The music and imagery of Richard Thompson’s music embody the sea and lands of times past in a way that is strikingly familiar but distant. After getting his start in the U.K. with Fairport Convention in the late ‘60s, he embarked on a solo career with his wife Linda until the marriage dissolved in 1982. Ultimately this put Thompson in a position to do what he does best – the solitary singer and songwriter. His complex finger-picking and knack for picking just the right sounding chords often through alternate guitar tunings, propel the music as a subtle undercurrent while he sings songs that I would call ‘modern folklore’. He avoids string bending and blues phrases, which through limitation and isolation from his contemporaries has forced him to come up with new ways of making traditional music sound brand new.

1952 Vincent Black Lighting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxKTzwaEa2o&a=GxdCwVVULXdEB6qKUkZRqQgndZRJytiR&list=ML&playnext=1
Persuasion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBKobc6cfzA

Dickey Betts
Unfortunately Dickey Betts has had to live most of his artistic life in the shadow of Duane Allman. It’s hard to compete when your fellow guitarist and bandmate was instantly lionized upon his tragic death at 24. Yet, since 1971 and until 2000, Betts has asserted himself as a unique guitarist and masterful songwriter in the Allman Brothers Band. Growing up in Florida and Georgia, he came to love country, blues, and had a particular affection for the Gypsy Jazz of Django Reinhardt. So much so, that his song ‘Jessica’ is in part tribute to Reinhardt as it’s played with just the index and middle fingers (Reinhardt’s left hand was crippled, and he only had access to these two fingers for his fretwork) and in part to his newborn daughter Jessica in 1973. Betts’ solos and trademark harmonies have a happy sounding quality to them that blended perfectly with Duane Allman’s bluesy slide guitar. To my ears, Betts has surpassed his old friend, and over the years his originality in playing and deft song architecture have always made me smile.

Blue Sky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1jpQu6qR1E

Eddie Van Halen

If there’s one towering figure on this list, it’s EVH. Why? Because nothing’s been the same since Van Halen’s debut in 1978 when he was 22. Such was his impact on music, guitar playing, and guitar building, that the terms ‘pre and post Van Halen’ have sometimes been used to categorize guitarists since. Born in the Netherlands and then quickly transplanted to Southern California, Ed grew up in an open-minded musical environment that fostered his creativity and exploration into music’s uncharted territory. A DIY aesthetic led him to tear apart and refashion guitars and amps in pursuit of the perfect tools that would allow him to achieve his vision of sound. Along the way he adopted two handed tapping and made it his own, he was the first to use a Floyd Rose tremolo system in a radical way, and he fundamentally changed the way guitars are designed and played. Not since Hendrix has a musician so changed the shape of popular music as Eddie has. In my mind, he’s not just a guitarist but a musician and songwriter that’s monumentally raised the bar for creativity.

Live guitar solo spot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUrwa3TMSwE&feature=related

Ry Cooder
To me, Ry Cooder and his music embody the American spirit. It is one of diversity, struggle, ingenuity, and exploration that begins with his guitar. Coming to prominence in the mid ‘60s as in demand session guitarist, Cooder eventually started to make albums of his own in the decades to follow. He became the de-facto keeper and preserver of American music through his renditions of classics and the traditional instruments he played them on. Throughout a long career he has touched and enhanced every form of indigenous music to America and more recently ventured into Indian, Cuban, African, and Tejano music. Regardless of the style he’s playing, Ry Cooder’s pristine timbre and slide work have continually resonated over the years.

Paris Texas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TCRe3tkYe8

Pat Metheny

One of the most diverse and original musicians I can think of; Pat Metheny has been at the vanguard of contemporary music since the mid ‘70s. He was a prodigy from Missouri that had played with Gary Burton, Jaco Pastorious, and taught at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, all while he was still a teenager. Although he’s been known to cross vast lines between genres and adapt well to just about anything, his most lasting legacy will be for his unique approach to jazz. To me, Metheny’s music sounds like a cross between jazz, folk-country, and new age. In words this of course seems like a horrendous amalgamation of unlike territories, but he makes it sound and work very very well. And this sound along with the tone of his guitar have become staples of modern jazz.

Bright Size Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG8IE14hi8M

David Gilmour
As a member of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour has melded some of the most dissimilar styles of music into one. Born and bred in England, Gilmour grew up listening to American blues and pop music. By the time he joined Pink Floyd in 1968, blues influenced rock had become the norm. However, Gilmour’s contribution was to open everything up by employing a very minimal and simple blues technique and mixing it with the psychedelic and later heady approach of Pink Floyd. He pays equal attention to space and silence as much as he does to his meticulously chosen notes; which give his solos an enormous breadth of tonality and auditory expanse. The summation of all this was an original sound that’s become the trademark of one of the most successful bands ever.

Sorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5EDqQtnRrc&feature=related

Zakk Wylde

In my mind there’s never been a finer heavy metal guitarist than Zakk Wylde. In fact everything about him including the way he looks and acts exudes the metal ethos. He grew up in New Jersey and was drafted to be Ozzy Osbourne’s new guitar player in 1987 when he was just 20. Since then he’s mostly stayed with Ozzy in addition to starting up his own projects like Black Label Society along the way. Wylde has always been very disciplined and dedicated to his craft, and has maintained a hard working ‘meat and potatoes’ ethic that’s produced a lot of material over the years. His style is aggressive, meticulous, energetic, and really the best way I can describe his sound is that he just fucking rips!

I Don't Know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5DLyVOH9-8

Bill Frisell
The music and approach of Bill Frisell are a positive anomaly. Hailing from Denver, Frisell was always an ardent student of the guitar, eventually going on to study at a University level. Since the early ‘80s he’s been active in multiple styles but is most often categorized as Americana or Jazz. What sets him apart is his open mindedness and his full embrace of technology. In fact I would call Frisell’s music, ‘Neo-Americana’ with a jazz/folk approach because through the use of effects he builds multi textured layers of sound that are humbling to listen to in the same way a sunset looks on an open plain. He’s played Nashville country, New York hardcore, Appalachian folk, but is most at home and original when he’s on his own with just a guitar and a few processors.

Shenandoah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svzv-YkUzdk

The Edge

As U2’s main musical driving force, The Edge has stubbornly carved his own niche over the past 30 years. Since the Dublin based band of teenagers’ debut in 1980, he’s resisted the trends of all musical fads and pursued his own artistic course. While rock guitar took on a virtuosic and at times ridiculous approach to technique and soloing in the ‘80s, The Edge focused on the textures of his band’s music, and by decade’s end had established a signature rhythmic, chiming guitar sound. Likewise, the ‘90s brought experimentation with effects processors that changed the notion of his role as the guitarist in U2 to more of a chief sound manipulator. One constant that’s remained throughout is that no matter what everyone else is doing, The Edge will be doing something different to equal or greater affect.

On recording With Or Without You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkgvIPpdboA&feature=related

Mark Knopfler
When it comes to Mark Knopfler’s music and guitar playing, less has always been more. This economical approach was intact from the beginning when his old band Dire Straits began playing their brand of quiet rock in the punk infused London club circuit of the late ‘70s. By the ‘80s the band had ascended to a world wide popularity built on simplicity, due in part to Knopfler’s trademark finger picking that, unlike the music, is not simple. Weaved throughout his more recent solo outings and Dire Straits' entire catalog are his soft plucked melodic lead guitar lines that always complement the song with a detailed beauty. The grounding in minimalism has served him well, as he’s established a unique territory on the guitar.

Romeo And Juliet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-G-GHTFoX4&feature=related

Mix of Knopfler riffs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdyC_2Mb4n4&feature=related