As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was laying in bed listening to rock songs, and was amusing myself that I could pick up Eddie Van Halen as he is so distinct, and I started thinking over the weeks in who was the best lead guitar player, and as I type this, I think the real question is, "Which lead rock guitarists sound the best to me".
Because it is what a musician pours of their soul into an instrument which makes it cry or sing. All are very talented, but when it comes to writing, you can predict the patterns in how some people play.
Joe Walsh who is very talented, always goes simplistic or predictable in his movements, after creating some masterful openings. I must admit that I hate most of the Eagles music as it is over done, and like Fleetwood Mac, it is simple with Lindsey Buckingham and does not hold up as great music.
Ted Nugent does allot of Joe Walsh type soundings too even if I like a most of his work.
You may notice that I do not have Eric Clapton or George Harrison on this list, and defintely not Paul McCartney as I like the first twos music, but the last was good at four note riffs, but there was never anything that approached what I considered fantastic.
Some like Three Dog Night's guritarist Michael Allsup, in One, was groundbreaking which set the stage for the heavy metal evolution.
In examining my tastes, I like Greg Kihn and John Geils, but the body of work is not expansive enough, and Blue Oyster Cult's Buck Dharma was supberb in Don't Fear the Reaper.
There is nothing liek Saul Hudson in Sweet Child of Mine in pure blues wonder, nor the body of work of Jeff Lynn at ELO where he proved in Ma Ma Bele he could kick a guitar into high gear.
So for me, Eddie Van Halen was marvelous, but too complicated. I loved the Dick Dale sound of the Turtles guistarist Al Nichol, who could play guitar like a balerina and then slug it out like a linebacker, is one of my all time favorites. Nancy Wilson of Heart, can make a guitar light and heavy too.
The one person though who epitomizes everything though is Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin. Granted what Page does with Blues is transcendental, but when he set about to create Stairway to Heaven in that epic, Page did something no one else had envisioned and has never been equaled.
There is nothing out of place like Walsh or Nugent. It is what Giles and Kihn did in part. It is everything without being rough or fragile.
Jimmy Page created something timeless, as most of these artists have. His is without equal.
After all of that I believe my favorite is Al Nichol. as his work was the first I was exposed to as a child in long ago recorded albums my sister had. I judge all guitar work by Al Nichols and all rock bands by the surf rock blue sounds of the Turtles.
The one blues guitarist who expanded Nichols type of pretty and the beast was Tom Scholz of Boston and his equal in Mick Jones of Foreigner.
It is these three guitarists who produced the volumes of work which I appreciate, once I litter in Jeff Lynne and Jimmy Page, and of course, Rich Williams of Kansas.
Then again, Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions in his pure body of German blues rock frenzy can not be something which at times has me listening to them and thinking, yes this is my favorite too.
Oddly when Rolling Stone Magazine put out their top 100 fraud list, numbers of these guitarists were not included, but they included John Lennon and numbers of obscure Black and White players who no one has heard of.
Saul Hudson (born 23 July 1965), better known as Slash, is an English-American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Nancy Lamoureaux Wilson (born March 16, 1954) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, producer, and film composer. She rose to fame alongside her older sister, singer Ann Wilson, as a guitarist and backing vocalist in the rock band Heart. Raised near Seattle, Washington in the suburb of Bellevue, Wilson began playing music as a teenager.
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For other people with the same name, see Richard Williams. Richard John Williams (born February 1, 1950) is the guitarist for the American rock band Kansas and has been with them since their 1974 self-titled debut album.
Donald Brian Roeser (born November 12, 1947), more commonly known by his stage name Buck Dharma, is an American guitarist and songwriter, best known for being the sole constant member of Blue Öyster Cult since the group's formation in 1967.
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Joseph Anthony Pereira (born September 10, 1950), professionally known as Joe Perry, is an American musician and songwriter who is best known as the founding member, lead guitarist, backing and occasional lead vocalist of the American rock band Aerosmith.(December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Michael Rand Allsup (born March 8, 1947) is an American guitarist, best known as a member of the rock and roll group Three Dog Night. Allsup's parents were originally from Oklahoma, but relocated to the small town of Empire, California.Eddie Van Halen used a mini-Les Paul guitar for "Little Guitars" . This is the only Van Halen recording that the guitar was used for. The mini-Les Paul was made by Nashville luthier David Petschulat, and was pitched and sold to him during a tour stop in Nashville, Tennessee.John Warren Geils Jr. (/ ɡaɪlz /) (February 20, 1946 - April 11, 2017), known professionally as J. Geils or Jay Geils, was an American guitarist. He was known as the leader of The J. Geils Band. Growing up in New York City, Geils became interested in jazz and blues.William Frederick Gibbons (born December 16, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor, best known as the guitarist and primary lead vocalist of American rock band ZZ Top.Jeffrey Lynne OBE (born 30 December 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist who co-founded the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). The group formed in 1970 as an offshoot of the Move, of which Lynne was also a member.Following the departure of Roy Wood in 1972, Lynne assumed sole leadership of the band and wrote, arranged and produced virtually ...
Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943), often referred to during the 1960s and 1970s as Keith Richard, is an English musician, singer, and songwriter.He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine called Richards the creator of "rock's greatest single body of riffs" on guitar and ranked him fourth on ...Justin David Hayward (born 14 October 1946, in Swindon, Wiltshire) is an English musician best known as songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the rock band The Moody Blues.Theodore Anthony Nugent (/ ˈnuːdʒɪnt /; born December 13, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and political activist. Nugent initially gained fame as the lead guitarist of The Amboy Dukes, a band formed in 1963 that played psychedelic rock and hard rock. After dissolving The Amboy Dukes, he embarked on a solo career.Joseph Fidler Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.Walsh was also part of the New Zealand band Herbs.In the 1990s, he was a member of the short-lived supergroup The Best.Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (/ ˈ n ɒ p f l ər / NOP-flər; born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer.He became known as the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits.He pursued a solo career after leaving the band in 1987.The Greg Kihn Band continues to play with a lineup comprising Kihn's son Ry Kihn on lead guitar, Dave Danza (from Eddie Money) on drums, Dave Medd (from the Tubes) on keyboards, and Robert Berry (from Hush) on bass. Kihn was inducted into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame in 2007.In January 2017, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band went into the studio with producer Marshall Altman to record a new album of all newly written songs titled Lay It On Down and released the album on August 4 (July 21 in Europe on Mascot Label Group). Lay It On Down is the eighth record by the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart.James Patrick Page OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin.
Nuff Said
agtG
