Guitarists who have changed the way we play

Ian

Hi all,
I was listening to Van Halen today, and got to thinking that EVH, in partnership with Floyd rose, had changed the way we played. Here are my thoughts on the most influential names since the electric guitar appeared. What do you think...I'm not talking about axe heroes and shredders necessarily, but pioneers of technology and technique. OK, here they are, I'm sure you can add many more:

Charlie Christian
Leo Fender
Les Paul
J.J. Cale
T Bone Walker
Jimi Hendrix
Jeff beck
Eddie Van Halen
Brian May

Ian

ednrg

You're forgetting Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page.

Not to be disrespectful, but what changes did Brian May make?

iliace

Definitely +1 on Blackmore. Randy Rhoads is another one that changed my whole guitar concept.

groovy

Brian May

Was he the one who popularised the Treble Booster into Vox sound ?


Scholz needs to be remembered for \"Technology and Technique\"

Manitou

Manitou's Order Of Influence

Mel Bay........:)
Chet Atkins
Andre Segovia
Jimi Hendrix
B.B. King
Carlos Santana
Frank Zappa
Eric Clapton
Jeff Beck
Tony Iommi
Duane Allman
John McLaughlin
SRV
Angus Young
David Gilmour
George Lynch
Joe Satriani

Rolland Harrison....

Tal Rules

Aw Shucks Manitou...
I just get lucky and hit a few right notes evey now and then..

You know what they say...
\"I'd rather be lucky than good\"...

I guess these guys in my younger days....

Al Dimeola..
Johnny Winters
Jimmy Hendrix
Jimmy Page
Andres Segovia..

And these guys since I picked it up again..

Tal Farlow...(Of Course). ..
Johnny Smith
Jimmy Bruno
Wes Montgomery..
Joe Pass
Howard Roberts
Herb Ellis....

Guys that I'm really studying their music, but not necesarrily guitarists..

Miles Davis..
John Coltrane..
Charlie Parker...

BTW...
Yesterday was the real Tal's birthday....
1921...
8)
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thehootman

Yngwie Malmsteen
Joe Satriani

just though i'd add a couple 8)

Ian

Wow, loads to think about there, including some names I'm only familiar with by reputation. Blackmore certainly influenced many players. I remember a blues purist friend of mine in the seventies being dismayed when B.B. King praised Blackmore in the press. I wouldn't discount Yngwe as an influence on guitarists, but the style was, surely you'll agree, somewhat cribbed from Blackmore.
I'm not a Queen fan, but I thought all the overdubbed harmonies and strict guitar arrangements on the Queen albums had a big impact. I'll also go to Tony Iommi. His influence is still to be heard.
I notice no-one has mentioned Steve Vai. He's probably my favourite guitarist, but I wouldn't say he changed the way we play, he went down the road EVH had paved.
God forgive me for missing out Zappa, I don't see that he changed the way we played, his style was unique. We could all probably play the stuff he played in his solos, but we would miss the goal by a mile.
I know that many, many people loved SRV, a great guitarist, but hardly original.
On second thoughts, perhaps Vai, by being instrumental,(pun intended) in the commercial release of the 7-string, was a changing influence. That led to the whole bottom end thing pioneered, I think, by Korn.
By the way, thanks for not saying;\"you ****, how can you say that so and so changed the way we play, he's just and old **** and so are you, you ***************\"! I was pleasantly surprised.
Isn't playing the guitar great!
Ian

shredd

I also feel fortunate to hit a decent note and run a good scale now and then...and if any of these guys had really influenced me, I'd have learned to play better by now. :oops:
That said...there's quite a few players that I've listened to that I thought were very gifted and I loved the way they played, and dreamed of being so skilled.
Naturally, Alex Lifeson comes to mind. (he's self-taught, didja know?). I love Steve Howe and Trevor Rabin both. Gilmour makes me wanna play better. EVH, for sheer speed skill. Tom Scholz, for his ability to combine mastery of technology with pretty decent playing. JJ Cale. SRV was one of a kind, got me interested in the blues again. JT, for his chordal and songwriting abilities. Same with Fogelberg (can I sue himn for turning me into a pu$$y in the 70's???). Steve Hackett. Steve Rothery.
Must I go on??? Isn't enough that I suck so bad the groupies flock to the roadies?!?

Manitou

\Ian\ wrote:

By the way, thanks for not saying;\"you ****, how can you say that so and so changed the way we play, he's just and old **** and so are you, you ***************\"! I was pleasantly surprised.
Isn't playing the guitar great!
Ian

Yer too kind!

We merely figured you'd say it for us ....sooner or later. :?

steven lee

If you really think about who got guitarist playing the way we do now a days (ie single note sole and all) you have to really got back to SAX players alot of early guitarist played mostly chord solos and stuff then they started trying to play sax and horn runs on the guitar which brought around the single note solo's...

Any way here's a couple names to add...
Kenny Bessel
Django Reinhardt
Wes Montgomery
Chuck Berry (Had a Huge influence on alot of guitarists when he came out)
Robert Johnson
Leadbelly

And then of course there's all the ones mentioned already...

chuck

LLoyd 'Tiny' Grimes
T-Bone Walker
Barney Kessel
Hubert Sumlin
Earl Hooker
Hollywood Fats
Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown
Freddie King
Duke Robillard

Ian

And then there's The Edge. I'm not a great U2 fan but he showed everyone how to write a song on a single string, and you couldn't move for echoed guitar lines on records for a couple of years.
You're spot on with the sax player reference, that is where single note playing came from.
I always thought Chuck berry ripped off T-Bone Walker, am I wrong? Or was it Michael J. Fox?''

Ian

Ian

I've got to get the hang of these Emoticon fellas. And thankfully for you lot, I haven't been able to upload a photo of myself.

shredd

\Ian\ wrote:

I've got to get the hang of these Emoticon fellas. And thankfully for you lot, I haven't been able to upload a photo of myself.

It ain't just us. Get an avatar like Manitou's. 8)

steven lee

Ian you're right Berry was a big T-Bone impersonater but he added to it...When he came out he was doing the whole T-Bone thing but with his own flare alot of older guitarist from the 60's and those times will say influences were Berry,waters some other guys ,some more guys then at the end they'll finally throw in T-Bone...T-Bone was a big inspiration also but he wasn't as widely known as Berry...

Ian

And the 'Roll Over Beethoven' intro was a direct crib from Louis Jordan's 'Aint That Just Like A Woman'. But that's my point, Berry had a vast influence, and neither Jordan nor T-Bone Walker were as widely known, but wasn't it ultimately they, and not those who followed and popularised, whochanged the way we play,? remember the way it was in the eighties when every pop record had a semi-shred solo on it, complete with divebombs and tapping?
It's all good stuff though, isn't it?
Ian

Cobaltblooz

Johnny Ramone

Manitou

\"Quick Draw McGraw\"...aka \"El Kabong\"....

was a huge influence, especially on Live performance finale.
Also...I think inspired John Belushi in \"Animal House.\"

shredd

\Ian\ wrote:

And then there's The Edge. I'm not a great U2 fan but he showed everyone how to write a song on a single string, and you couldn't move for echoed guitar lines on records for a couple of years.
You're spot on with the sax player reference, that is where single note playing came from.Ian

I alwys kinda thought Gilmour was the master of the one-note solo... 8)

Ian

Gilmour has the three things we all wish for in our own playing I think; touch, taste and tone, but did he have an influence in the same way as many of the other guitarists, (and other musicians) that we've mentioned so far? To reiterate my original thought, when EVH hit the scene, everyone was getting their strats retro-fitted with Floyd Rose units, and tapping away like a worried accountant, did Gilmour have the same impact?
How did we forget Quick Draw McGraw?
Ian

groovy

\Manitou\ wrote:

Manitou's Order Of Influence

Mel Bay........:)
Chet Atkins
Andre Segovia
Jimi Hendrix
B.B. King
Carlos Santana
Frank Zappa
Eric Clapton
Jeff Beck
Tony Iommi
Duane Allman
John McLaughlin
SRV
Angus Young
David Gilmour
George Lynch
Joe Satriani

Rolland Harrison....

WARNING : PERSONAL BIASED VIEWPOINT FOLLOWS :

Personally, I think Carlos Santana is just great, but I cant understand why he is only rated about 15th best guitarist at Rolling Stone.

Duane Allman is fantastic, but mostly if you dig southern rock.

BB King and Eric Clapton are gods personified !!! and when they play together, you are in heaven !!!

I read somewhere that when one grows older, one starts to prefer more blues than Rock. Seems like working with me and I appreciate the blues masters more and more as time progresses. Deep Purple and Floyd are loosing the high mindshare they had with me when I was younger.


Jimi is overrated. He has two things going for him : He died early, and that always boosts sales. And he is non-white so some part of the equal affirmative action crowd boosts his ratings to show that we are all non-racists

Angus is magic but sort of repetitive. I can play a new ACDC CD that my kids have not heard before but they guess right away that its ACDC !!

I normally dont dig bass too much, but the guy who played bass at the Everly brothers reunion concert did a mightly fine job.

Any other Bass players you admire ?

shredd

\groovy\ wrote:

Any other Bass players you admire ?

Geddy Lee. It starts and ends there... 8)

Ian

John Entwistle
Sting,(no,really)
That guy from The Beatles
Jaco Pastorius, not least for Refuge of the Roads from Joni Mitchell's 'Hejira'

Hmmm...do I betray a penchant for the melodic?

I understand the 20/20 hindsight version of the Hendrix phenomena. A guy commented that 'he couldn't even keep his guitar in tune' in a letter to Guitar Player in the 80's, but Hendrix really did fundamentally change the way the electric guitar was aspired to. He wasn't above cribbing from other people, but those three albums he released during his lifetime were massively influential on the way we viewed guitar playing.

I could express this a little better, but I'm tired. This does lead me to my next thought though....time for a new post.
Ian

Manitou

Bass

earliest fav..........Paul McCartney :oops:
envied the most...Gene Simmons (hehehe) :shock:
like the most........Stu Hamm 8)


....STUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
as Joe would say...
they Stuuuuu him...'cuz they love him. 8)

shredd

Sting's pretty good...great songwriter...
McCartney's pretty good...STELLAR songwriter...
But John Entwhistle really jammed. Not like Geddy, but still...

agelessrocker

John Lee Hooker?

ednrg

\shredd\ wrote:

\groovy\ wrote:

Any other Bass players you admire ?

Geddy Lee. It starts and ends there... 8)

I'm not a bass player, but I am shocked that nobody mentioned Billy Sheehan. He played lines in Mr Big that I thought were guitar parts. Just listen to their first album. He's all over it.

shredd

\ednrg\ wrote:

\shredd\ wrote:

\groovy\ wrote:

Any other Bass players you admire ?

Geddy Lee. It starts and ends there... 8)

I'm not a bass player, but I am shocked that nobody mentioned Billy Sheehan. He played lines in Mr Big that I thought were guitar parts. Just listen to their first album. He's all over it.

Good call! I lived in Buffalo, NY, when he started out with the band Talas. Saw him live at least fifity times. He rocks the house. I'm not sure he's world-class, like Geddy or Entwhistle, but he can work that thing... 8)

WOGS858

Robin trower had a certain flavour that changed the way I played

I just listen to bridge of sighs a couple days ago.

cfsguitar

For Me in no paticular order

Guitarist:
Dave Mustaine
James Hetfield
Joe Satriani
Steve Vai
John Petrucci
Angus Young
Paul Gilbert
Chris Degarmo
Alex Lifeson
Marty Friedman

Basses:
Geddy Lee 8)
Cliff Burton
John Myung
Victor Wooten