Best Guitar Solos ever

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Vease-

Gary Moore has some great solos. Empty Rooms and Still Got the Blues come to mind. Great phrasing and passion.

On the Jean-Luc Ponty album Enigmatic Ocean, Alan Holdsworth and Daryl Stuermer have some very good solos. It came out in 1977 I believe, and is one of the best fusion albums of that period. Every Holdsworth fan should own that CD. Daryl Stuermers' solo CD's have excellent guitar work on them. He's one of those guys that has never gotten any media coverage, yet has played on albums with combined sales of over 100 million copies.
 
Wide Awake, I admit that the only Allan Holdsworth stuff I know is a song called Three Sheets to the Wind and some tunes from Atavachron, but I couldn't get into it at all. I recognise that there is some astonishing musicianship on display, but IMO it's the kind of stuff that guitarists play for other guitarists - and I HATE SYNTHS!

Before you 'send the boys round', let me defuse the situation by admitting that Allan Holdsworth is unlikely to consider giving up because of my worthless opinion, and I admire his dedication and tenacity in ploughing such a non-commercial furrow - peace?
 
Wide Awake,

Thanks for reminding me about Enigmatic Ocean. I always thought Darryl Stuermer was a workmanlike player, he could walk the walk but his tone and improv always seemd a little too stiff to me. So I never bought any of his solo stuff. Heard him play with Genesis some years later, too. Holdsworth, on the other hand, just sings. I'm sorry, Vease, to disagree, at least partially -- Holdsworth is not just an astonishing player playing stuff that's virtually impossible that only guitar players can appreciate. He has that "thing," like Jeff Beck has, that sense of personality and language and singing, a "voice," for want of a better word. Sometimes the sheer speed of his ideas makes it seem like he's a technique monster, and people automatically dismiss him.

Did you ever hear his stuff on the first Tempest album? Or from the Soft Machine album Bundles? Or those Gong albums from around the same era? And of course UK and Bill Bruford's group...

-AlChuck
 
Sorry Alchuck, but names like Gong,Soft Machineand Bruford conjur up horrible images of bearded, kaftan- swathed acolytes, joss-sticks in hand, studiously noting amp settings , nodding and murmuring 'great karma' as another twenty minute opus (seven minutes of which is an obligatory drum solo) grinds on,and on, and....



Rather than Nirvana being pilloried for killing rock, as I have seen posted here, I suggest they be regarded as heroes for saving us from the likes of Camel,Tangerine Dream,Gentle Giant,Colisseum,Renaissanceand all other 'progressive' rock music.
 
Clapton on Derek and the Dominoes.... "Why does love got to be so sad?"

Larry Calrton's work with Steely Dan... good call on "Kid Charlemagne".......... also LC's tune "Mulberry street". Every time I hear that solo I'm amazed.

Jimmy Page "Stairway......" one of rock's most overplayed tunes, but a great solo.

Great thread, so many come to mind........
 
geesh,

Vease you're starting to use some pretty broad strokes.

Bruford, just the greatest rock drummer, who can also play real jazz that's alive today.

Gentle Giant, another band that has influenced a lot of players. You just don't hear about all the time.
 
SRV-Texas Flood ( the whole damn song)
SRV-Couldn't Stand the Weather (one of my 1st)
SRV-Rivera Paradise (ya,the whole damn song)
D.Gilmore-Comf. Numb (my 1st)
Eric Johnson-Cliffs of Dover (still pulling my hair out)
 
As I was strolling to Ralph's for cookie mix last night, it occured to me how much I like the Ventures/Surfaris/DDALE sound. Do you guys looooove that '65 Super Reverb boink/trem thang or what? I'll pick my fav surf tune:

Walk Don't Run

And have you youngsters ever heard that song Hocus Pocus by Focus (posted earlier in this thread)? Who said VH invented everything? And the sucker even YODELS!!!!!

Shoot, now I think I need more cookies.
 
Chris N, I guess I just never understood what the prog rock guys were trying to do, but what really got my goat was the fact that all those weird time signatures,off-beat accentsand 'interesting'progressions was seen as a sign of intellectual superiority, and if you didn't like it you must be a philistine.

Also, they got an inordinate amount of media exposure in England, compared to their actual commercial success,Captain Beefheart and bloody Camel for example, would do a live set on every series of the only rock programme on British TV, while the likes of Robin Trower or Wishbone Ash(who were pretty big at the time)or Black Sabbath NEVER appeared, I think this is what soured my attitude towards them more than anything.
 
I hate referring to "solos" - prefer guitar "performances" - it's not as cut and dried as solos vs rhythm.

That said, there are many performances which are brilliant. My favourites include:

Page - Achilles Last Stand, Tea for One, Stairway (all are very dramatic, especially Achilles) and many others

Beck - everything (have you checked out his playing on the Hendrix tribute album with Seal - Manic Depression?)

Carlton - Kid Charlemagne (great dynamics)

Hendrix - Watchtower, and notably the entire Band of Gypsies album

Now I regret doing this because there are so many!
 
Vease,

I don't think they were trying to be superior to the Philistines. Well, maybe some had that attitude... I think they were just trying to find something new and interesting, more challenging that bashing three different roots-and-fifths all day long -- plenty of people were already doing that and doing it very well and they were looking for something other than that -- blazing a trail, exploring new landscapes, however you want to say it. Like all such efforts in any of the arts, they are usually doomed to commercial drought.

Of course some fusion bands went for the virtuosi show-off-fests and that's kind of where fusion got its bad name. A group like Return to Forever just seemed to take the innovations of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and pummel them into the ground with overkill...

Anyway, always an interesting discussion...

-AlChuck
 
Al Chuck

Of course that's a fair point. There's no reason that musicians should be confined into a narrow area that doesn't let them express themselves in whichever way they want. I react to music in an emotional way, it either feels good or it doesn't,and I always found the fusion/progressive movement too cold and aloof, like the attitude was 'here we are, we know we're great players and we don't give a shit if anybody comes to see us or buys our records, or even gets the point of what we're trying to do'

Having said that, I did like ELP, and Focus is one of my favourite bands, even though they perpetrated a monstrosity on Focus 3 called 'Answers,Questions, Questions,Answers' (I forgive them 'cos they were Dutch) which took up the whole of side 3 and had a 2 or 3 minute bass solo which thankfully faded out - but then the damn thing faded back in again on side 4 and the 'song' went on for another 5 minutes.
I suppose you have to see the funny side.
 
To put in my thoughts:

Comfortably Numb is awesome of course, along with all other Pink Floyd.

I am extremely partial to John Petrucci. That guy just blows me away. For the best example of this I'd be stuck between "A Change of Seasons" (every solo in thee, and there are quite a few, blow me away, plus the fact that i can isten over and over again to a 23 minute long song is pretty amazing), and "Under a Glass Moon".

Anything by SRV, anything by Eric Johnson, and anything by Van Halen, although one of my favorites is one of his least complicated in "Ain't Talkin Bout Love".

Jake
 
I remember that Focus record... in fact, it's floating around somewhere in my almost-inaccesible LP collection in the back closet...

Yeah, the bottom line is, does the music speak? Does it move you? It's a rare gift in any genre of music. Like Sturgeon's Law says, 90% of anything is crap.
 
Vease,
If artists like Trower and Wishbone Ash where being ignored due to so called "Progressive Rock", I would also have a problem with that. Being a lover of guitar based rock. I was a fan of both Trower and Wishbone Ash and also the more traditional Progressive Rock.
 
My Final Word (hooray)

Chris N

The music press/media in england have always had a very pretensious ,pseudo-intellectual attitude towards rock, and were always trying to outdo each other in hyping the most avant-garde or 'politically aware' music. If 'the masses' enjoyed something then it was beneath their dignity to review it or even acknowledge it's existence
They also seem to have an incredibly low atttention span, which is why england is the nation of the 'fad', from Punk to New Romantic,Mod to New Wave Of British Heavy Metal,Britpop,Shoegazing and Baggy. Novelty is everything, if it's new it's good, even when it's crap.

Unfortunately these people controlled all the outlets through which people were introduced to new music, so there was a disproportionate amount of coverage given to anything that wasn't mainstream.

This attitude still prevails, at the moment Status Quo are in a legal dispute with the BBC over their refusal to play any of their last few singles on national radio. The guy who decides the playlists said in an interview that 'I doubt whether Status Quo have anything to say to the youth of today that is relevant to their lives'

To which my answer would be SO F***ING WHAT?
 
Personal favorite....
Steve Vai - For the Love of God
 
The 'Munsters' theme song. Also dig Grandpa's hotrod
 
I agree with all the stuff on David Gilmore. I love that sound.

How bout the guitar duel on Crossroads. Couldn't they have gotten anyone beside Ralf Machio.

Randy Rhodes Flyin High Again.

Any solo by Tom Morello.
 
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