You know who was climbing the ranks until he turned into a pu**y? Jeff Martin from Tea Party. People were commenting that he may be the best of this generation, then he turned into a ballad queen.
Oh yes. Freddie Wong or whatever. Love how he incorporates overhand playing and tapping and behind the head playing onto the guitar hero controller. All he's missing is some tongue playing.
Jeff Healy for me. This guy taught himself to play in a wholly unique style that has led to some of the most intriguing music I've ever heard. Just love it!
David Gilmour is a guy who I would consistantly overlook in this debate until recently. But man, what blows me away about him is just how clean he is -- the guy never misses a single note or a makes a single mistake. A lot of other players play sloppily and that works for them (wonders for some)... A lot of Jimmy Page's solos (especially his live ones) are outrageously sloppy, but he perfected that sound and it meshed well with the aggression of Zeppelin.
Whereas, on the other hand, Gilmour's playing is seamlessly linked to the overall operation of the Pink Floyd machine... Slick, extremely complicated and technical music guitar work and compositions as a whole.
It's not necessarily better, but it's a quintessentially Gilmour trait, at least to me.
EDIT: I should also add that while I think Jimi Hendrix is the best ever, and I obviously have an affinity for Gilmour, Mark Knopfler is my favorite ever. I really like the jazz and classical influence in his playing.. That, along with his crazy finger picking technique, consistantly blow me away.
Last edited by liamenator; 06-08-2007 at 02:23 PM.
gilmour here too. i can't believe how many of you guys/gals are saying gilmour he is always overlooked. i was only 9 in 94 when they played edmonton so ive never seen gilmour play.
then page.
then townshend from the who. sat 2 row for them in october at the dome.
jack white from the white stripes can play with the best of them. he gets compared to page a lot. seeing them in 2 weeks.
old slowhand (one of the top three concerts ive ever seen BTW) and jimi are pretty good too.
For all these Gilmour fans, if any of you are gear heads and are obsessed about the effects/amp/guitars that David plays you can PM and I'll send you a link to a great David Gilmour Gear Forum
__________________ 2018 OHL CHAMPIONS
2022 OHL CHAMPIONS
Jimmy Page- Him and Hendrix are my personal favs. Just all around amazing.
Hendrix-Like Page, all around phenomenal, the most naturally skilled.
Rhoads- Overlooked too often, for what he did in his short time of fame was amazing. It would have been nice to here more from him.
Knopfler- So clean and so skilled.
Clapton- Obvious that he was fantastic
Beck- Page has taken a lot of credit where Beck may have deserved more. Great at experimenting.
Gilmour- Reasons listed above, he had that feel for the guitar.
Van Halen- Extremely skilled, fun to listen to.
Morello- Not the fastest or anything, but fun to listen to and great at experimenting with sounds. I compare him to a modern day Hendrix in his experimenting (not with skill).
Iommi- Great riff rocker, fun to listen to.
I find it incredibly difficult to whittle a question such as this down to one guy, or even a handful of guys. Guitar is such a subjective thing, and not only that, different players can have different musical impacts in different ways.
What I mean is that, as most people agree and have noted, Hendrix was probably the best at pure experimentation... He is usually cited as the "greatest guitarist of all time" for this reason.. he pushed the instrument into new dimensions and areas of sound that were previously unimaginable. However in terms of song composition and overall quality of the song as a whole, I often find myself wanting more from Hendrix. For me at least, he never really was able to truly harness his immense skill and outrageous guitar sound into streamlined, accessible compositions that created a sense of a song or an album being more than the sum of all it's parts. I guess I just hear a Hendrix song and hear it as (most of the time) simply a showcase for his unreal playing ability, and to me a large part of a guitarist's reputation is earned through his ability to work his talent into something bigger, to create a song with other band members.
This is another area that I find Gilmour to be tremendously skilled, especially in a lot of the early Floyd stuff, the fact that he was able to seamlessly integrate all the different machinations of sounds created on his guitar into the overall contexts of the song to enhance the entire composition. Floyd songs are never just showcases for Gilmour's playing, or Waters' writing, Mason's drumming etc, they are songs that can only exist as a sum of each member's contribution... And in that way I find Gilmour's guitar work to be all the more interesting, as he is able to work in experimentation as well as more traditional styles while never really sacrificing anything in terms of songwriting quality. He'll move from crazy experimental segments into more concise rock playing, with a quick stopover into funk or jazz and back again, and as the listener you are never quite sure how he got from place to place, but all you know is that is works.
I don't know if that really makes sense... It's a thought that's rather difficult to write down now that I am attempting to do so.
I was also going to add some other "best" guitarists of mine:
- Tommy Iommi of BS and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple are/were the best riff guitarists... I think between those 2 they have written about 80% of all rock and roll (especially metal) riffs.
- Page was the best at integrating the dichotomy oft/light vs. heavy/dark into rock songs... He really was amazing at that, creating such a paradigm that has been used so consistantly ever since.
- Clapton is the greatest at slipping in and out of genres, so I guess perhaps I would slot him in as the best overall... I tend to find he gets a little overrated but that is probably more a product of personal preference, specifically a lack thereof regarding his recent adult contemporary stuff. But when the man wants to rock, he has always rocked with the best of them.
- Jack White I think is the best contemporary guitarist around right now. He is a madman, and half the time I wonder if he even knows what the hell he is playing... He is the definition of sloppy, missing notes, hitting wrong notes, just generally going ape-shat on the neck... but there must be method to his madness, because his uncontrolled aggression in contrast to the simplicity of Meg's drumming works wonders. Can't wait to see him live.
I'll throw a couple more names into the mix here...not as best ever candidates, but as guys who have...over the last 15 years...developed into damn fine guitarists.
Mike McCready
Jerry Cantrell
Cantrell's playing is responsible for the sound of a dozen or more bands that I loath (interesting dynamic there huh!) that have done everything in their power to copy his sound.
McCready, as I've spent the last two years digesting what Pearl Jam has offered the world after Ten, has began to blow me away. He's extremely talented and never mentioned in these sorts of conversations.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
