In other guitar blogging news, a few months ago Mr. Trend had an interesting post in which he took issue with this list of "Greatest Guitar Solos." I'd started working on a response but never finished, as I am such an extraordinary procrastinor that I procrastinate about things which I was using to procrastinate about other things. Occasionally, I make my way back around to the first thing I was procrastinating about, and use it to procrastinate about something else, thus creating a Perfect Circle of Procrastination.
Anyway, quoth the Trend:
It's time to put all this bullshit to rest, once and for all.
The greatest guitar solo of all time is Eddie Hazel on Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain." Period. End of story.
And for all you future publications and people interested in lists, the presumption that great guitar solos can only be from white-man-rock both refuses the great guitar tradition present in the blues (don't go giving me this "Stevie Ray Vaughan was a great blues guitarist!!!" bullshit; and if you bring up Clapton, I'll rip your throat out), funk, jazz, and in countries that are neither the U.S. or England. It reflects both your ignorance to explore music beyond famous white guys, as well as demonstrating your complete unfamiliarity with anything outside of the traditional "rock canon" (which is probably racist and definitely archaic).
And make damn sure Eddie Hazel is number one. It's the Truth.
Trend is right, the Planet Rock list is crap, and his point about the preponderance of white acts on the list, and the exclusion of non-white acts from the rock canon in general, is an important one. That said, as a self-appointed custodian of the pantheon, I feel I have to defend Clapton and Vaughan. At the risk of having my throat ripped out, I offer that Clapton's playing from the Yardbirds on through Derek and the Dominoes is very solid. His performance on Steppin' Out from Live Cream Volume II is as powerful a statement of musical identity as anything in the rock guitar canon. That Clapton has devolved into just another aging Sixties pop star doing a Rock Skool version of himself onstage shouldn't take away from his truly excellent work, or from the huge role he played in popularizing the blues and helping to get work for a lot of the blues legends who he now unjustly overshadows in the minds of most rock fans. As for Stevie Ray, I have yet to meet a guitarist, of any race, who doesn't recognize that the man was an astonishingly skilled player, and a virtual encyclopedia of blues styles. I don't think he and Clapton should be blamed just because frat boys dig them, or because classic rock radio listeners don't care enough to look up the guitarists who influenced them.
Moving on, Trend's nomination of Maggot Brain as the greatest guitar solo ever is a good one, a very defensible choice. I've loved the tune ever since I first bugged out to it in the crappy little college apartment my buddy and I shared. (As it happens, I've been listening to that record a lot lately. I can still smell the bong water, dirty laundry and cheap vino...) For me, however, there is one clear winner in this category, the touchstone of all electric guitar: Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), the last tune on Electric Ladyland. I just cannot get over this track. I love its simplicity, I love its brevity, I love that it fades out just as Jimi's really starting to play. I love that Jimi's playing the amp as much as he's playing the guitar. I love that it contains within it almost the entire scope of rock guitar vocabulary, from straight blues to whammy bar tricks to the modal playing that makes me weep for the record Jimi never cut with Miles Davis. As far as I'm concerned, this tune is the reason electricity was invented.
Your nominations are, of course, welcome.
don't really know what the best solo is but I know that I like them slow. yes, the slower and more deliberate, the better. so that makes me think of
ReplyDeleteMark Knopfler
Billy Gibbons
Dickey Betts
Lynrd Skynrd fellows
Chuck Berry
You're right, mostly, except that SRV was more than the guitarists that influenced him. And we cannot classify him by who listens to him. He is one of the most influential guitar players of all time...
ReplyDeleteVoodoo Chile is awesome Hendrix style. I just wish that SRV never played it because then I wouldn't have to write that SRV's is better by far. Why? Jimi is the John the Baptist of electric guitar, but- as the good book says - there is one who's sandles Jimi is not fit to tie. Jimi could command that sucker like nobody else. But, for me-and I know I'm in the minority, SRV didn't have to command the guitar. When he played it's like he wasn't playing at all. It was as if the Gods of Rock were speaking through that strat.
But, like I say, that's a blasphemous thing to say so...
I would like to nominate the solo from Pearl Jam's "Alive" by Mike McCreedy.
Cheers
Interesting--I do disagree with Trend on Stevie Ray Vaughn. Although I loathe his lame ass imitators, the guy was a unique voice in the history of music and deserves a lot of credit. Now, I don't like Clapton but that's because he's so damn overrated. However, up to the Derek and the Dominoes album, I agree you have to give him his due. I wish he had never recorded another album after that though.
ReplyDeleteErik,
ReplyDeleteYeah, the whole Clapton Is God thing is silly, but that goes to Clapton's significance being as much cultural as musical. When he blew up the UK scene in the sixties, the kids had just never heard playing like that, and they worshipped him without recognizing that he was lifting riffs wholesale from the Kings (Albert, Freddie, and B.B.) and others.
dl,
I think SRV is among the best all-around blues players ever, but his playing, amazing as it was, represented only a small section of Hendrix's huge vocabulary.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. But I know this guy who has a huge vocabulary I mean, he knows all the big words, the really good ones...the GRE words. He's some kind of Dean at National American University (I know, but still, that's nothing to sneeze at). I also know this dude from Espanola, a small town in Northern New Mexico, not usually braged about as far as intelect goes. Now, every time this guy with the big vocabulary opens his mouth (much like anonymous) he sounds like a jack ass. But this guy from Espanola, when he talks, when he uses double negatives and "gangbanger-guy" slang, it doesn't mater, because he does it with such soul that you feel like you've just recived a pep talk from capt pickard.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that Jimi is a jack ass, just that it's too bad that Jimi and SRV never jammed together.
On more thing...
ReplyDeleteWhy do conservative pricks like mark knopfler?
I see your point on Clapton - problem is, you're the first one I've ever heard who referred to clapton's abilities BEFORE Derek and the Dominoes. I can't tell you how tiresome it was in college to hear why "Cocaine" was the best thing ever. I appreciate the effect on music at the time - I'm just tired of hearing him talked about like he invented the guitar.
ReplyDeleteAs for SRV, I can't explain my hatred - the music has just always irritated me.
And DL, I'm totally with you - McCreedy's work on that is incredibly underrated.
As for Hendrix, to me, he's still the greatest guitarist of all time. I don't remember who, but somebody said to the post at the time that "without Hendrix, there is no Hazel". Absolutely true. But to me, Hazel always hit that one solo Hendrix never quite did (in his short time), that solo "like his momma died".
I understand all the points here. I just still stick to my Hazel decision.
"Cocaine" is great. That is, the J.J. Cale version.
ReplyDeleteAlso, and he rarely solos so he doesn't per se belong in this discussion, but I've never heard a guitarist better than Bill Frisell.
Yeah, there are others that can go on a list of "greatest all-time guitarists." It's just the list that pissed me off was on solos only.
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ReplyDeleteHe's not the best, but I'd just like to reiterate dl's mention of Mike McCready. He's amazingly underrated considering how many times he's taken a good rock song and made it something, as William in Almost Famous would say, incendiary (did I even spell that right?). He can go slow (Yellow Ledbetter live) or fast (um, hundreds to choose from here), and he make Pearl Jam something more than just a strong rock band.
ReplyDeleteAlso...
-- I respect SRV's talent, but I've never gone out of my way to listen to his music.
-- I'm not conservative, so I guess that does explain why I've never been a huge fan of Mark Knopfler. He's talented and all, but...yeah...
Agreed on Knopfler. He's good, but whatever. Not so interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf I do have to pick a best guitar solo ever, I might have to go with Frank Zappa's Watermelon in Easter Hay at the end of Joe's Garage.
Good pick, Erik. I think I've mentioned before that I have a late 70's bootleg of Zappa playing "Watermelon..." that contains the best playing of his that I've ever heard. I consider it a religious text. Hopefully I can get you a copy some time.
ReplyDeleteI submit the greatest playing ever was by Buddy Merrill, long-time player for the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. Always appropriate playing, usually when playing obbligato behind the country stylings of Ava Barber or Lynn Anderson, or the more pop-oriented approaches of Mary Lou Metzger or Gail Farrell. Comfortable soloing on a Carpenter's song, or a big band tune like "Woodchopper's Ball," Buddy could play it all. He has way to many all-time great solos--many of which you all no doubt hear when you watch the Welk reruns on PBS on Saturdays--to ever choose one.
ReplyDeleteAs for individual solos by the non-Merrill universe (and of course we have to consider the excellent playing of Neil Levang, the other Welk guitarist of note), the three greatest are Phil Spector on the Drifter's "On Broadway," Scotty Moore on "Heartbreak Hotel" by the King, and "All Tore Up" by "Poison" Ivy Rohrschach of the Cramps, one of the most smokin' redheads ever. Well, on the occasions when her hair is red, anyway.
Welk? I bet anonymous is a member of the John Bearch Society too.
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