Six of the Best & Three of the Rest......Rock Guitarists
- Thread starter mawnansmiff
- Start date
SmokingPipes.com Updates
Watch for Updates Twice a Week
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Best:
George Harrison
Robbie Robertson
Jerry Garcia
Jimi Hendrix
Mark Knopfler
Eric Clapton
Rest:
Joe Walsh
Eddie Hazel
Steve Winwood
George Harrison
Robbie Robertson
Jerry Garcia
Jimi Hendrix
Mark Knopfler
Eric Clapton
Rest:
Joe Walsh
Eddie Hazel
Steve Winwood
I swear some of you are just voting on the guitar players in songs that you like. lol
Yeah............ Kind of like voting for the best pipe tobacco........ or...........Pipes........
Jimmy Page is the greatest rock guitarist ever by an order of magnitude. Way more versatile than Hendrix or Clapton. He played on many records as a studio musician which requires not only technique but a grasp of different styles. Not to mention his use of alternate tunings, his experimentation with microphone placement and guitar tech.
Keith Richards / Ron Wood and I list them together because they are a hive mind. They have to be.
Billy Corgan. He is a god, c'mon admit it.
Bob Stinson. I have never heard guitar playing sound more urgent and unplanned. It's like they always used his first take.
Rivers Cuomo. I always have to 'air' guitar his solos, so he must be good.
Eddie Van Halen. Only because he is so f'ing fast.
Keith Richards / Ron Wood and I list them together because they are a hive mind. They have to be.
Billy Corgan. He is a god, c'mon admit it.
Bob Stinson. I have never heard guitar playing sound more urgent and unplanned. It's like they always used his first take.
Rivers Cuomo. I always have to 'air' guitar his solos, so he must be good.
Eddie Van Halen. Only because he is so f'ing fast.
Not really. Guitar playing isn't like tobacco or food reviews. There is impartial criteria to guage who is better than another.Yeah............ Kind of like voting for the best pipe tobacco........ or...........Pipes........
Here's one. Could guitar player X play guitar player Y's part?
Clapton would be 95% yes he could play anything as well if not better
Robbie Robertson would be about 5%.
I love Carlos Santana, but he would be a 25%
Page, Beck, Fripp, Balou all at top of the top.
Last edited:
Even Clapton knew he was bested when he had to play after SRV. I believe his words were "At least I knew nobody expected me to be that good."
After working in a guitar store for three years, I am thankful for every day I don't hear SRV. He could play, but man...it's just guitar for guitar's sake and recycled over and over. Musically uninteresting to me.
My favorite players are the ones who may not be as technically skilled as others, but make great music. I'd rather hear John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell or RL Burnside thump the shit out of one chord for 5 minutes, make people dance and sing from the heart than hear Clapton not miss a note and sing some lame, recycled "blues" number while he falls asleep. It's like hospital food, his music. Flavorless oatmeal. Fight me.
I'm very opinionated on this matter.
Mark Knopfler is, in my mind, the best electric guitar player alive. He knows how to rock a stadium with the minimum of effective notes and has his own voice. David Gilmore a close second. They serve the music first, always.
Malcom Young could get an entire stadium jumping with three chords. Angus was just frosting on the cake.
But honestly, give me early 90s Neil Young, with Crazy Horse. His guitar sounds like fucking planets colliding and it rocks like nothing else. I'll take two notes of THAT over a soulless Clapton solo. If Clapton's music is a Ferrari, Neil Young is the dump truck that runs over it and crushes it to dust.
And none of these electric players can do what Leo Kottke can do.
Like I said, I'm opinionated on this. Fight me.
My favorite players are the ones who may not be as technically skilled as others, but make great music. I'd rather hear John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell or RL Burnside thump the shit out of one chord for 5 minutes, make people dance and sing from the heart than hear Clapton not miss a note and sing some lame, recycled "blues" number while he falls asleep. It's like hospital food, his music. Flavorless oatmeal. Fight me.
I'm very opinionated on this matter.
Mark Knopfler is, in my mind, the best electric guitar player alive. He knows how to rock a stadium with the minimum of effective notes and has his own voice. David Gilmore a close second. They serve the music first, always.
Malcom Young could get an entire stadium jumping with three chords. Angus was just frosting on the cake.
But honestly, give me early 90s Neil Young, with Crazy Horse. His guitar sounds like fucking planets colliding and it rocks like nothing else. I'll take two notes of THAT over a soulless Clapton solo. If Clapton's music is a Ferrari, Neil Young is the dump truck that runs over it and crushes it to dust.
And none of these electric players can do what Leo Kottke can do.
Like I said, I'm opinionated on this. Fight me.
Last edited:
I'm surprised Pete Townshend was only mentioned once.
Really?
Really?
And here I thought you were named after 'the Rock'
That no one has mentioned Frank Zappa says a lot about you people lol. Not many freaks in here.
From a compositional standpoint, perhaps only Jeff Beck comes close.
Granted there's two schools of thought with guitar and music in general. You've got the technical aspects on one hand - chops as it were. On the other hand you have feel and soul, and what the player can stir inside of you.
Not sure any singular human really measures up to Allan Holdsworth when it comes to theory and technical mastery of the instrument.
From a compositional standpoint, perhaps only Jeff Beck comes close.
Granted there's two schools of thought with guitar and music in general. You've got the technical aspects on one hand - chops as it were. On the other hand you have feel and soul, and what the player can stir inside of you.
Not sure any singular human really measures up to Allan Holdsworth when it comes to theory and technical mastery of the instrument.
?Different spelling and he's only a year and a half older than me.?