Favorite guitar players

I read that Malcolm was the brains and braun. As much as little Australian dudes can be.

The early AC/DC blues-influenced stuff is great.

 

A big key to early AC/DC was the production of George Vanda, and the older Young brother, George. They really did concoct a cool kind of hard rock wall of sound. And they'd mix in an unlikely element -- often maracas -- which gave a perfect accent to that rhythm guitar wall of sound, not unlike a bitter ingredient complementing a sweet ingredient in a food recipe.

If you listen real closely to a song like, say, It's A Long Way To The Top If You Want To Rock 'n Roll, it's almost as if they mixed two rhythm takes on top of one another because the rhythm riffs phase in and out, but sound like one coherent whole.

Of course putting the bagpipe mix on maximum might be messing with my perception of that particular song ... but in a good way.

 

Vanda and Young also pretty much invented the AC/DC guitar sound on their last single with The Easybeats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKMGSj_j4lc

 

We had a lengthy discussion of the best/greatest guitar players ever like two months ago, in the Eric Clapton thread. I think discussions of favorites are more interesting, as long as people are actually willing to discuss.

My favorite guitarist ever is Slash. His solos work as part of the song better than most. I don't think he's as good as, say, Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen or Jeff Beck. But he's my favorite because he plays with a lot of power behind his licks. Those long Guns N' Roses ballads, particularly "Estranged," sit with me as much because of Slash's guitar as Axl Rose's voice.

After that, I'd go with Hendrix and Jimmy Page. I love both of those guys because their playing is so sloppy and inventive and all over the place but beautiful.

Then I'd go to the complete other end of the spectrum and say Brian May. The thing I love about May's playing is he was so restrained. He could come in, tear it up for 20 seconds and back off entirely. But then there are songs like "Tear Your Mother Down," where he shows how talented and tight his playing was. His solo work also has a lot of impressive work.

Rounding out my top five is Eddie Hazel. I remember the first time I heard Maggot Brain. That transfixed me and threw me into a span of several months where all I listened was funk.

 

Thanks for the Maggot Brain mention, just listened to it on Youtube and quite enjoyed it.

I have always enjoyed Robert Cray's guitar work quite a bit. A very good blues axe man. My favorite song of his is "These Things," but after all these years the album version is still not on Youtube, which is too bad as it had a nice solo. I need to enlist a young'n to upload it for me as a public service. I saw him in concert and he was workmanlike in terms of showmanship, but had a positive attitude with a great sound quality. Of course, he failed to play my favorite song. Which reminds me of the time I saw Parliament (and Michael Wilson from the Gap Band) and the man next to me brought a flashlight, and Parliament never played "Flashlight." My favorite Parliament song is "The Placebo Syndrome," although I know it really isn't characteristic of their sound.

Totally unrelated, but once I made the mistake of showing up on time for a show at the Fillmore and ended up having to kill at least two hours before Los Lobos came on. I was literally the first person there. I ended up sitting and talking to one of their sound guys for half an hour, going over all the studio albums and what it was like making the records. My favorite Los Lobos album is "Kiko" and he told me it was a completely different vibe in the studio than any other album they'd ever done. Unfortunately, I haven't found much value in anything Los Lobos have done in at least 10 years. Too bad, as "Kiko" remains one of my all-time favorite albums all these years later. I guess that will forever be their high point.

 

If you like Maggot Brain, listen to Mad Season's "Wake Up."

 

Mad Season is my favorite superband, at least in concept. Layne Staley was my favorite 1990s vocalist, Mike McCready one of my favorite 1990s guitarists.

That song is excellent.

 

Nice song, good guitar (McCready?). The song makes me miss Layne Staley. He had a gift.

 

Does a bass guitar qualify as a guitar? If so, I want to revise my list and put Cliff Burton first or second.

 

Hank Garland:

 

John Hammond.

 

A very young Zakk Wylde gives a lesson on chicken pickin':

A good example of what I was saying.
Wylde is a very talented player. He's not one of my favorites because I don't care for his style of music.