Great Music

At last! Rolling Stone Corrects its Guitar List

2011-11-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

David Fricke's 2003 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time was not only controversial--it was wrong. I mean, there is room for subjective differences of opinion, but to put Pete Townshend at #50 (!), Eddie Van Halen at #70 (!!) , and to insult the memory of Albert King by leaving him off the list entirely (!!!) ---that was unacceptable. That's why I went to all the trouble of making my own list, which, though subjected to several valid criticisms,was a huge improvement over Rolling Stone's Fricke-list.

The authors of Rolling Stone's second list in its December 8, 2011 issue were much more knowledgeable about guitar and more focused on contemporary rock: "The panel of experts recruited to vote for their favourite guitar players included musicians such as Lenny Kravitz, Eddie Van Halen (who was voted No. 8), Brian May and Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys, along with a selection of Rolling Stone's senior writers and editors." Here were the top 20 results: (I put Fricke's ranking in brackets).

1. Jimi Hendrix (1)

2. Eric Clapton (4)

3. Jimmy Page (9)

4. Keith Richards (8)

5. Jeff Beck (14)

6. B.B. King (3)

7. Chuck Berry (6)

8. Eddie Van Halen (70)

9. Duane Allman (2)

10. Pete Townshend (50)

11.George Harrison (21)

12. Stevie Ray Vaughn (7)

13. Albert King (---)

14. David Gilmour (14)

15. Freddy King (25)

16. Derek Trucks (81)

17. Neil Young (37)

18. Les Paul (46)

19. James Burton (20)

20. Carlos Santana (15)

This is a fair representation of the most influential and innovative guitarists in rock: closer to mine that to Rolling Stone's 2003 list. I agree that Pete Townshend and Van Halen both deserved much higher rankings than Fricke gave to them, but I would still place Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn ahead of both them and Keith Richards. Why? Their distinctive stylings were both more innovative and arguably more influential among guitarists in the blues-rock tradition, even though they were not as popular as the Stones or the Who. I also place a slightly higher emphasis upon range and technical virtuosity than does Rolling Stone; hence the likes of Jeff beck, Albert King, John McLaughlin rank relatively higher, while Johnny Ramone, Neil Young and John Lennon rank slightly lower. Nevertheless, I was completely validated by Rolling Stone's new decision to include both Albert King and Freddie in the top 15. I was right!

Nevertheless, there is always room for reasonable people to disagree, and for all intents and purposes this new Rolling Stone stab at music appreciation is as good as mine. Here is my list, written in 2007:

1. Jimi Hendrix (1)
2. Eric Clapton (4)
3. Jeff Beck (14)
4. Jimmy Page (9)
5. Duane Allman (2)
6. Chuck Berry (6)
7. B.B. King (3)
8. Albert King (---)
9. Stevie Ray Vaughn (7)
10. Keith Richards (8)

11. Buddy Guy (30)
12. George Harrison(21)
13. Eddie Van Halen (70)
14. Pete Townshend (50)
15. Freddie King (25)
16. Peter Green (38)
17. Carlos Santana (15)
18. Mike Bloomfield (22)
19. Mark Knopfler (27)
20. Les Paul (46)

So it's nice to have my own judgement validated by such an august group of musicians and experts. On the other hand, as David Fricke has said in his defence: "In the end, I looked at it this way: Jimi Hendrix was Number One in every way; the other 99 were all Number Two." On that point, I am tempted to agree. But only if sonic pioneers pioneers like Albert King, Link Wray, and Curtis Mayfield, who greatly influenced Hendrix and others, and Robin Trower, who was bravely the first out of the blocks in the post-Hendrix era, are admitted to that charmed circle.

Jeff Beck LIVE at the Winspear Centre, Tuesday October 25, 2011

2011-07-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

How many guitarists and musicians who were cutting edge and restlessly evolving in the mid-1960s are still continually breaking new ground today? I can think of only one, and the demonstration of his versatility and capacity for reinvention Tuesday night exceeded my already high expectations.

I had seen two previous live performances by Jeff Beck--the first at the Skydome in Toronto in 1990 (part of a memorable guitar concert that opened with Jeff Healey and finished with Stevie Ray Vaughn); the second on a DVD and CD that I purchased in 2008 called "Live at Ronnie Scott's". The Edmonton concert venue is one of Canada's finest concert auditoriums and, as such, is acoustically superior to the vast majority of places that Beck's band plays. He responded to this opportunity enthusiastically, as did the audience.

What I didn't expect was that Beck would bring a completely new band and a vastly expanded repertoire that ranged from Puccini to Lady Gaga, Jimi Hendrix, Judy Garland, Muddy Waters, Sly Stone and even a Les Paul tribute, "Where There's Music"). This on top of an already diverse selection of numbers from his standard set--'Led Boots", "Rice Pudding", "People Get Ready", "Cause We've Ended as Lovers", and "A Day in the Life". All told, probably the most eclectic program I've ever seen.

I won't deny being a little disappointed at not seeing longtime drummer Terry Bozzio and 21-year old bass prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld again; but before long I warmed to a band that featured Haligonian bassist Rhonda Smith (where does he keep finding brilliant and gorgeous young bassists?) drummer Narada Michael Walden (who as something of a prodigy himself back in 1976 had handled percussion on Wired --in my view Beck's finest album); and keyboardist Jason Rebello. They handled the varied programme with little difficulty and ably shared vocal duties as well as solos. A new experience for me was Smith's upright electric bass, an instrument that has generally been missing from jazz/rock.

This was a venue and a band and a playlist that was well worth the money and the wait. As for Jeff Beck himself, his elegance and lyricism is rare even (perhaps especially) among rock virtuosi.

Adrian Belew Power Trio--The Starlite Room, Edmonton Oct.9, 2009

2009-10-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

"I never liked playing in stadiums because it's not much of a musical event. The sound is usually horrible, the audience can't really see you or feel what you're doing or respond to you. I love playing smaller places because of those very reasons."
----Adrian Belew

Friday night's concert here in Edmonton had all three ingredients for a satisfying concert--skilled musicians, a small venue, and an appreciative audience--in spades. First, if you don't know who Adrian Belew is, good. That means that guys like me can get a table right in front of the stage for $30 and see some really wonderful instrumental music. If you have heard his name before, that is because he was discovered by Frank Zappa, then recruited by David Bowie, David Byrne of the Talking Heads and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Now there is a serious movement afoot to get this guy inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

But there was another element --that of pleasant surprise. It turns out that the other two thirds of the Power Trio are a brother sister team of Julie and Eric Slick, both still in their early 20s, whom Belew found at the Paul Green School Of Rock. They thrive from having to match the virtuosity of Belw on guitar, as Belew does from having these talented kids to play with. Just looking at the three of them I couldn't help but share the fun they were having. I even got to buy their live CD ("Four") from their mom, Robin Slick, in the lobby.

TO be sure this isn't exactly the more blues-based R&B and jazz that I am most fond of. On the trio's current tour you'll see him play over loops, plug his graphite Parker Fly guitar into keyboards and do all kinds of things to get fresh sounds out of the instrument, but only a couple of tunes--"Ampersand" and "Big Electric Cat" --really stick in my mind as having been all that catchy. He verges on gimmickry and virtuosity for its own sake (which are themselves tired criticisms, I know, that used to be levelled at Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in the 60s), but he is saved by his own, and his band's, artistry. Belew's punchy and precise playing is abetted by his beautiful space-age Parker guitars, while Julie plays a huge-sounding Lakland bass ("I use a Lakland Bob Glaub into a Keeley C-4 Compressor, with the occasional effect: either a West Siberian distortion pedal (i bought with Tony Levin in Moscow) or a Korg AX3000B. This all goes into an Ampeg SVT (8×10 fridge of a cab)...In my opinion you can’t get a “growlier” chain.")

Situated somewhere between prog rock, experimental post-metal and jazz, what sets this music apart from so much of the new stuff is that it is about the playing. I would go to see them again in a heartbeat.

2009 Edmonton Jazz Festival Highlights: John Abercrombie, Branford Marsalis, Jimmy Cobb

2009-07-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I took in two concerts at the Edmonton Jazz Festival this year, and both were EXCELLENT. On June 28, there was a double bill featuring the John Abercrombie organ trio and the Brandford Marsalis quartet. Missing from Abercrombie's usual lineup was organist/composer Dan Wall; his absence explains why Abercrombie stuck to a more mainstream playlist for this concert. Nevertheless, the organist's spot was capably filled by Gary Versace. (Adam Nussbaum was his usual stalwart self on drums; so much so that he was invited to sit in on drums with the Marsalis group at the end of the evening.)

If circumstances caused Abercrombie to be slightly less adventurous than usual, the opposite was true for the headliner. Marsalis even remarked that the acoustics at the Winspear Centre (quite similar to Vancouver's Chan Centre) were so good that they could perform music that they either had flubbed in Calgary, or wouldn't normally attempt in most venues. Pianist Joey Calderazzo's beautiful "The Blossom of Parting" was a case in point. Prediction: 5 years from now Calderazzo will be recognized as one of the leading artists in jazz.

This August also marks the 50th anniversary of the recording of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. On Saturday July 4, 2009 the festival was closed out by Jimmy Cobb's So What Band in the intimate confines of the 600-seat Maclab Theatre in Edmonton's Citadel complex. I was in the second row, about 10 feet from the stage. On drums was the sole surviving member of the Kind of Blue sessions; on trumpet was Miles's protege Wallace Roney. Watching that music being performed it was easier to visualize how Miles wrote music for his musicians and led that band: the trading of solos on "Freddie the Freeloader" and "So What", and the careful adaptation of Spanish themes on "Flamenco Sketches" are the epitome of what good improvisational jazz is all about.

James Hunter's Commitment to Soul and R&B

2009-03-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Van Morrison calls him "the best-kept secret in British R&B": James Hunter is working-class London's answer to the Commitments. He unapologetically embraces music from what is often assumed to be a simpler time, the 1950s and early 1960s; but (here is the point, perhaps?) it was actually a much more difficult time for most people in race-divided America and class-divided Britain. Which is probably why they naturally assumed that one of the main purposes of music was to make them feel better.

Sam Cooke, Al Green, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Booker T., Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Lowman Pauling, the Memphis Horns. They played their hearts out, marrying the blues to gospel and making it swing. Hunter's singing voice is uncannily worthy of this tradition--and it's a bit shocking when you hear him speak in a cockney accent. He and his band not only faithfully reproduces the sound of this era, but if anything distills it into an even purer form: the sax and organ solos are choice, and Hunter's guitar playing and showmanship contain a few surprises of their own. His performance is no joke or parody, but it verges on tongue in cheek at times--this is about having fun.

It was a pleasure to see this band in the intimate confines of the Polish Hall in Edmonton on Friday March 13, 2009. It was relatively easy for everyone who wanted to dance or get close to the stage to do so. If Hunter's star keeps rising, that may become a rare privilege indeed.

Santana! Edmonton, Rexall Place, Tuesday September 9, 2008

2008-09-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Yes! Santana was great! Mind you, he has never been a guitarist whose technical skill had me shaking my head , saying "Wow he was amazing--how did he do that?" But then, what is music, m' love? Puff Puff.... When one thinks of his duets with John McLaughlin in the early 70s, McLaughlin may have "blown him of the record" as one critic put it, but it was his parts that were more pleasant to listen to. I would still put him on the top twenty list of electric guitarists....

At least four things make him great. First, Carlos Santana is the one who brought Latin music into mainstream rock. Second, he has his own, distinctive guitar voice, which is heavy on sustain but always infused with latin blues. Third, he has also forged a unique band sound that is rich in percussion and keyboards as well as horns and guitar sounds...currently noteworthy in this regard are second guitarist and vocalist Tommy Anthony and redoubtable jazz drummer Dennis Chambers, who opened the concert with a solo that set the tone perfectly....Fourth, Santana has been a tasteful interpreter and unflagging ambassador for the music of his heroes.

After his early commercial success and his religiously -infused middle period, ("Caravanserai" is my favourite Santana album) followed by a return to commercial success with "Supernatural", he has found a balance with a little something for everyone. Most of the hits were there, but my favourite part was near the end when we were treated to a medley paying tribute to some of his favourite musicians--starting with a delicate guitar solo of John Coltrane's "Peace on Earth", segueing into Dylan's "Hard Rain Gonna Fall", then "Stairway to Heaven", and ultimately climaxing with Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun"--except that unlike most musical references to the latter, he actually went into the solo part where the space visitors (deciding they don't like earth people and their surf music) decide to blow up the world. We were on the other end of the arena and I could feel my seat shaking .........

Caught: The Third Annual Guitar Women Concert Edmonton Oct. 5, 2007

2007-10-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

If your favourite word is "beautiful" or "talented" or"redhairedwoman" then maybe you should have seen this. Then again, maybe not. Problem is, those are "icing" words. My favourite word is a "cake" word--- "dedication". Sue Foley is all about being the cake and not just the icing, and it was Sue Foley's dedication that shone through everything on Friday evening, as Edmonton's blues community gathered at the Myer Horowitz Theatre to take in her "Guitar Women" tour. Her dedication to the great women blues guitarists and singers who came before her, like her idol Memphis Minnie. And her dedication to the great young Canadian talents showcased on this tour--Quebec's Roxanne Potvin, Manitoba's Romi Mayes and BC's Rachelle Van Zanten.

As expected, the concert featured Sue Foley's choice blues guitar solos and the stellar slide playing of Calgary-based Ellen McIlwaine and (especially)Van Zanten. But this wasn't an electric "we can rock with the best of the boys" rave-up. It was an all-acoustic set that also contained a number of pleasant surprises.

One was the amount of original material. "Roots" was an important part of what was going on here, as it is in almost any acoustic blues concert, but at least three-quarters of the material that these women were playing were their own original compositions. It is clear that for these women the blues is not, as it is so often perceived, an artefact of 1930s and 1940s Mississippi or 1950s Chicago. The blues is dynamic and flexible, and still likely to be the most essential ingredient in almost any hybrid contemporary music. As a Jimi Hendrix devotee (for Hendrix, the blues was a multicultural and space-age medium), I was pleased to read that McIlwaine had been friends with Hendrix in his 1966 Greenwich Village days, in the year before he exploded onto the London scene. Her cover of "May This Be Love" (one of the ballads from Are You Experienced?) was true to his spirit as well as to her own. She spent most of her childhood in Japan, where she attended the Canadian Academy in Kobe. Part of her distinctive sound comes from the influence of Japanese classical and folk music. She actually tunes her guitar to get the classical Japanese sound for her takes on Hendrix, Albert King, and Al Green. Wild! Her latest CD, Mystic Bridge, is all about her revisiting her eastern roots, and it features a Fijian-born Canadian tabla palyer named Cassius Khan, who was trained in Indian classical music, and a sax player named Linsey Wellman, whom McIlwaine describes as "playing like John Coltrane goes to Egypt".

Sue Foley was no less adventurous. She has been studying Spanish flamenco music, and her new tune "Blue Farukka" explores some of the common elements of blues and flamenco music while showing off her newfound guitar technique. I wasn't expecting that!

Another aspect of this concert was its strong sense of purpose. The Guitar Women Silent Auction sold a guitar and art pieces and numerous photos and paintings to raise money for Rachelle van Zanten's project the Rocker Girl Camp ,for girls age 10-17 "who want to rock". The women also donated 10% of their proceeds from CDS and merchandise for this cause.

The event was recorded for CKUA and the estimable Holger Peterson was on hand to emcee the proceedings. If you missed the concert, try to catch the radio broadcast. It might just be your piece of cake.

Emily Haines's moody blue voice and enigmatic lyrics

2007-08-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Speaking of unique female artists with quirky rythmns and good singing voices---
Emily Haines is a chip off the old block--her father Paul Haines (1932-2003) was a poet-songwriter-crtic for the jazz and progressive rock scene in Paris New York, New Delhi (where Emily was born), and New Mexico until he moved to Canada, and most famously wrote the libretto for Carla Bley's sprawling 1971 meisterpiece Escalator Under the Hill. Emily came up through the Toronto club scene fronting a band called Metric. I just purchased an EP yesterday called What is Free To a Good Home? and I liked it enough to jump at a chance to see her live if she comes through town again. Her lyrics are just a little mysterious without being opaque; her voice is like a cool breeze in November; and her piano self-accompaniment is sparing and competent. A good example is "The Bank," in which she sings of how so many work so hard just to be able to fill up their time with empty pursuits:

Whatever it is spit it into a bottle and sell it to me/I’m looking to buy freedom from my sobriety/Just like Huey Lewis/I need a new drug/I need a new drink/I need a new drug that does what it should/So take me to the bank/Take me to the bar/Can you take me to the hot spot?/This is what we worked so hard to afford /but...Take me to the bank/Can you take me to the bar?/Can you take me to the hot spot?/This is what we worked so hard to afford/ but how I wanna hide/The next time you visit me here/How about coming out to my place/We can sit on the floor and play my brother’s records/We can sit on the grownup bed/Couple with the coin/Lighting up to join the coping crowd/My big brother said to stay unsatisfied/Never work a day to pay off your desire/Couple with the coin/Lighting up to join the coping crowd

My only concern is about whether Haines has enough variety in her compositional and stylistic repertoire to sustain a career. Perhaps she and her new band, The Soft Skeleton, have answered that question already. They have just released a full-length album, Knives Don't Have Your Back. I haven't heard it yet, but I recommend checking it out, starting with the band's website. The album is a compendium of songs reflecting on episodes in her life from the past decade--mourning the loss of her father, the early days of Metric and its growing commercial success, and the dilemmas of artistry. Not coincidentally, the album design matches that of Escalator Over the Hill.

Mary Margaret O'Hara: Building a Mystery

2007-08-12T12:44:00.001-07:00

I had neither seen nor heard Margaret Mary O'Hara before yesterday's concert at the Edmonton Folk Fest. I didn't even know that Maureen O'Hara had a sister.

After the concert, I wanted to tell Mary Margaret about the ethnic restaurants in my neighbourhood.--African food for Africans, Chinese food for Chinese people, Vietnamese for Vietnamese: she would like gastronomic authenticity, or so I think. Sure, there have been few murders around here lately, and you wouldn't want your kids to run around in their bare feet, and several prominent signs have been posted recently stating that "This Community Does Not Tolerate Prostitution", but hey...she and her band would like to eat in some of these places, I can tell just by looking at them.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find her address and she doesnt' even have her own website. After recording the critically-acclaimed album Miss America in 1988 (named by MOJO magazine as one of the top 100 albums of all time), she never recorded another, except for the Christmas EP and the recent soundtrack to the recent film Apartment Hunting. In Canada, Chart Magazine recently named Miss America #14 on its list of best Canadian albums ever. Fittingly, she has recently been named to the Alternative Canadian Walk of Fame for "achieving international music legen d status on the strength of one 17-year-old album, and for refusing to play celebrity"

Interestingly, on the way home from the concert I began associating her in my mind with the old Carla Bley/Paul Haines collaboration Escalator Over the Hill. Then I found out on angelfire.com that she had contributed a track to the 1993 Paul Haines Album.

According to writer J.J. Ecto -- if that really is his name--"Seeing Mary Margaret O'Hara let fly elicits a level of emotion not unlike that of being witness close up to the product of Van Gogh's madness." And I would add that--rather unusually for artists of this ilk--I think that she has a very good singing voice, one that I imagine would sound very good in a country and western context, which unfortunately is not weird enough for her occasional humourous forays into extemporaneous scat-rap. She successfully marries the most heartfelt of lyrics (Yes I even thought of Patsy Cline) with an outre improvising jazz sensibililty, because that is who she is. Check out "When You Know Why You're Happy" and "Not Be Allright"---already two of my favourite songs.

She also refuses to record anywhere that is not within walking distance from several Catholic churches, as she claims these are her favorite places to "hang out".

She's even been on You Tube.

What a find. Who knew?

Caught: Maria Schneider at the Banff Summer Arts Festival, June 23, 2007

2007-07-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

About a week before the Down Beat cover story about Maria Schneider hit the news-stands, I got a close up view of her work as the guest conductor of the Jazz Orchestra Finale of the Banff Summer Arts Festival. Other featured artists included trombonist/conductor Hugh Fraser, who is the director of the program at the Banff Centre; superb Albertan saxophonist P.J. Perry ("Dr. Perry", now that he has just received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Alberta); and trumpeter/composer John Korsrud, whose superb new composition "The Lowest Tide" almost stole the show for me.

But the evening belonged to Maria Schneider. Calling her "the most important woman in jazz" , is the sort of hyperbole that I have come to expect from Time Magazine, but for once it did not set me up for disappointment. If we are to think of big band/orchestral music as a contemporary twenty-first century phenomenon, and not simply as a mid-twentieth century artefact, then we must look above all to Schneider's composing, bandleading and arranging capabilities.

Ms. Schneider is somewhat unusual in the tradition of big band leaders, in that she does not normally play an instrument onstage, and it is difficult to see how how she could, given how much expressive movement and physical energy she brings to the act of conducting. I attended the concert with a professional symphony violinist of some 20 years standing, who remarked that Schneider moved like a dancer. Her grace and physical beauty seemed integral to the music (although I found myself wondering which instrument her pelvic movements were directed at!), and I later discovered that indeed several of her compositions were largely influenced by her love of dance and movement.

She opened with "Allegresse", a piece which was commissioned by Frits Bayens and the Metropole Orchestra (and which in the original studio version featured Nanaimo's Ingrid Jensen soloing on trumpet and flugelhorn). The youthful Banff orchestra did a creditable job on this one, especially considering that (judging from the busy schedule listed on her website) they only had two or three days to rehearse with her before the concert. What it lacked in memorable melody it more than made up for in beautiful hue and texture.

"Green Piece" was her first major composition, written while an understudy of Bob Brookmeyer's in New York in the mid-1980s, and it recalls the musical influence and distinctive instrumentation of Gil Evans. Like other compositions from her first album, Evanescence, it seems at once both more melodic and more familiar than her more recent work--even though her more recent work is on all accounts superior in terms of its development.

"Sky Blue" was a preview of her new album of the same name, to be released on July 12, 2007. It was written for one of her best friends, who she explained had been dying of cancer; not morose though, it is a lovely piece. Schneider's rapport with her audience is another aspect of her music that was showcased in Banff. "Hang Gliding" is daringly written in 11/4, but that suits the piece perfectly, as it attempts to describe the beauty of being lifted by wind currents during her first introduction to hang gliding in Rio De Janeiro.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend to be in Banff. On the way to the concert, I picked up a hitchhiker named Eva, (the aforementioned violinist), with whom I watched the concert and with whom I hiked around Lake Louise the next day. If she ever sends the pictures she took, I'll post one or two right here!

The 100 Greatest Electric Guitarists of the Blues/Rock Era

2007-06-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone's controversial ranking of the "100 greatest guitarists of all time" is a curious mixture of historically astute observation and almost ridiculous pandering to popular taste. In a very real sense, it is incoherent. What exactly are the criteria? If there is no mention of Chris Parkening or Andres Segovia, it is because this is not about classical music. And if most of the great jazz guitarists are not on the list, it is because it is not about jazz--except perhaps insofar as jazz is related to, or an influence upon, rock music. And why place Robert Johnson at #5 and leave so many great acoustic blues players from the 30s (Mississippi John Hurt or Leadbelly, for example) off the list altogether? Let's stick to apples and oranges, and leave the peas and grapefruits out of it.

If Jimi Hendrix is the consensus choice for #1, it is because this poll is really about (1) the past 50 years, and not "all time"; (2) the electric guitar, which is the authentic voice of rock and not the acoustic guitar; and (3) while it is broadly concerned with all of contemporary music, as Jimi was, its focal point is rock. With that in mind, it makes sense to reserve the highest honours for those who gave the guitar its modern sound in the 60s and 70s, followed by the electric blues and R&B giants who most influenced them, and then the jazz-rock and heavy metal pioneers who most helped to carry the torch of innovation, musicianship and influence forward.

I shall give you my list of the Top 100 Electric Guitarists in Rock History , (each is followed in brackets by the ranking given in Rolling Stone). I hope that you will agree that it is an improvement over that of RS.

Let's start with The Top Ten:

1. Jimi Hendrix (1)
2. Eric Clapton (4)
3. Jeff Beck (14)
4. Jimmy Page (9)
5. Duane Allman (2)
6. Chuck Berry (6)
7. B.B. King (3)
8. Albert King (---)
9. Stevie Ray Vaughn (7)
10. Keith Richards (8)

Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page and Allman were the most skillful and innovative of the people responsible for defining modern rock guitar in the late sixties and early seventies. Clapton took Robert Johnson, Freddie and Albert King along with other influences to help forge the original blue-eyed modern rock guitar sound. Why did I move Jeff Beck up to #3? Can you think of any other guitar player who was cutting -edge in the mid-60s and is still cutting edge today? Albert King was a huge influence on Hendrix, Clapton, Otis Rush and especially Stevie Ray Vaughn; he was the most ripped off guitarist in history and to not include him in the RS's list of 100 greatest guitarists of all time is to rip him off all over again. I place him at #8!!! (In terms of his impacts on contemporary guitar music generally and cutting-edge rock specifically, he could even be ranked ahead of B.B. King.) Stevie Ray Vaughn was the foremost interpreter of both Hendrix and Albert King as well as being a unique stylist in his own right; and has been a huge influence on the latest generation of blues-rock guitarists, such as Kenny Wayne Sheppard, and John Mayer.

The Next Ten : Pride of place goes to the remaining pioneers of style and technique--blues and R&B initially; then jazz-rock and heavy metal. Imagine RS putting Johnny Ramone at #16--for his "buzzsaw" technique--and then putting Eddie Van Halen down at #70. It really should be the other way around!! It would be wrong to place Carlos Santana ahead of Peter Green, to whom he owed much, but he still deserves credit for defining that unique Latin-blues-rock sound.

11. Buddy Guy (30)
12. George Harrison(21)
13. Eddie Van Halen (70)
14. Pete Townshend (50)
15. Freddie King (25)
16. Peter Green (38)
17. Carlos Santana (15)
18. Mike Bloomfield (22)
19. Mark Knopfler (27)
20. Les Paul (46)

The Next Ten : (Just ask Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck about the influence of Les Paul; or Mark Knopfler or Randy Bachman about the importance of Chet Atkins. Larry Coryell and Sonny Sharrock were pioneers of jazz-rock in the 60s and 70s, very nearly on a par with John McLaughlin.)

21. Steve Cropper (36)
22. Bo Diddley (37)
23. Steve Howe (69)
24. Jerry Garcia (13)
25. Chet Atkins (---)
26. Frank Zappa (45)
27. Ry Cooder (8)
28. Roy Buchanan (57)
29.Larry Coryell (---)
30. John McLaughlin (49)
Johnny Winter and James Burton flesh out the list of great 60s and early 70s blues-rock innovators. Brian May, Joe Walsh, Ritchie Blackmore and Robin Trower were all huge in the seventies, helping to fill the huge void left by Jimi Hendrix.

31. Johnny Winter (74)
32. Brian May (39)
33. Joe Walsh (---)
34. Joe Satriani (---)
35. Steve Vai (---)
36. Dick Dale (31)
37. Sonny Sharrock (---)
38. James Burton (20)
39. Warren Haynes (23)
40. Jack White (17)

There are a few more of those great blues artists who were the sources of modern rock and jazz guitar. Howlin' Wolf's guitarist Hubert Sumlin (who also played briefly in Muddy Waters' band and as a solo artist)was a vital catalyst to the British blues boom of the early and mid sixties, by providing a link between Mississippi acoustic blues and the electric guitar. Otis Rush and Albert Collins were amond the unique guitarists who followed. And a few more blues-influenced white guitar masters who surfaced later: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Ron Asheton, Paul Gilbert and Dickie Betts, who was second only to Duane Allman in creating the Allman guitar sound. And watch out for the new kid on the block: Joe Bonamassa!

41. Wes Montgomery (---)
42. Hubert Sumlin (65)
43. Otis Rush (---)
44. Albert Collins (---)
45. John Frusciante of RHCP (18)
46. Billy Gibbons (---)
47. Richard Thompson (19)
48. Muddy Waters (---)
49. Paul Gilbert (---)
50. Robin Trower (--)

51. John Scofield (---)
52. Bill Frisell (---)
53. Jennifer Batten (---)
54. Stephen Stills (28)
55. Ritchie Blackmore (55)
56. Jeff Healey (---)
57. Ali Farka Toure (76)
58. Neil Schon (---)
59. Curtis Mayfield (---)
60. Dickie Betts (58)

61. Yngwie Malmstein (---)
62. Adrian Belew (---)
63. John Martyn (---)
64. Kirk Hammett (11)
65. Eddie Hazel Funkadelic (43)
66. Robert Fripp (42)
67. David Gilmour (82)
68. The Ventures (Bob Bogle and Don Wilson)
69. Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath (86)
70. Lightnin' Hopkins (71)

Wes Montgomery stands out like a "sore thumb"--no pun intended! I was going to leave the mainstream jazz guitarists like Pass, Montgomery and Benson out of this altogether, but then I reflected on how Wes's sound found its way onto Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun" and Eric Johnson's "Ah Via Musicom" and his octave and thumb-playing got into into so many guitarists' repertoires, I just had to put him in.

71. Joe Perry of AeroSmith (48)
72. Scotty Moore (44)
73. The Edge of U2 (24)
74. Johnny Ramone (16)
75. Ron Asheton of the Stooges (29)
76. Kurt Cobain (12)
77. Tom Morello (26)
78. Mike Stern (---)
79. Eric Johnson (---)
80. Robbie Robertson of the Band (78)
81. Derek Trucks (81)
82. Alan Holdsworth (---)
83. Link Wray (67)
84. Mike McReady of Pearl Jam (---)
85. John Petrucci (---)
86. Vernon Reid (66)
87. Gary Moore (---)
88. Luther Allison(---)
89. Neil Young (83)
90. Mick Ronson (64)

91. Clarence White of the Byrds (41)
92. John Fahey (35)
93. Mickey Baker (53)
94.Paul Kossoff of Free (51)
95. Pat Metheny (--)
96. Eddie Cochran (84)
97. Hank Marvin of the Shadows (---)
98. Jorma Kaukonnen (54)
99. Robby Krieger of the Doors (91)
100. Bonnie Raitt (---)
101.Randy Bachman (---)
102. Joe Bonamassa (---)
103. Hiram Bullock (---)
104. J.J.Cale (---)
105. Peter Frampton (---)
106. Jean-Paul Bourelly
107 Henry Garza
108 Takeshi Tarauchi
Over 40 of the guitarists listed above do not appear on Rolling Stone's deservedly much-criticized list. I hope that in some small way I have contributed to the correction of RS's misrecognition of so many great artists. --MC

P.S. Thanks to readers who are more knowledgeable about 50s and early 60s guitar than I am --Link Wray and Dick Dale clearly deserve to be on this list, and I initially left them off. The reason for this error was that I am most familiar with classic rock from the mid-60s to the 90s-and the blues and R&B artists who they cite as their greatest influences. While a perfect list is impossible, the purpose of this exercise is to come up with a list that is a LOT better than Rolling Stone's, and I think that I am succeeding.

Most elevated: Albert King, the King of the Blues Guitar, who so greatly influenced the most important rock guitarists of the 60s and 70s, from somehwere off RS's list to #8 on my survey. Steve Howe (69), the great Yes guitarist who was the perennial winner of Guitar Player's best all-round guitarist category in the seventies, stands somewhat outside the blues tradition, but nonetheless deserves to be raised 46 notches to #23. Eddie Van Halen (70), who rises 56 notches to 27th place in my estimation of his originality, skill and influence in guiding the evolution of guitar music in the 1980s and beyond. Then I raised him to #11, which might be a little high. (There is a conspicuous divide between the great all-round guitarists who forged modern rock and those later innovators who specialized in a particular technique, using that to fill in a small part of the broader canvas which Hendrix et.al painted. Van Halen belongs at the head of that second, albeit lesser class.)

Most egregiously overrrated?---Hmmm....I brought Kurt Cobain (12) down 29 notches, compared to 58 notches for Johnny Ramone; 53 notches for Kirk Hammett and 49 for the Edge. After listening to Jack White (17) & watching a Stripes video, I only brought him down 23 pegs. It is daring in today's context to just play guitar and drums with old equipment; even if a lot of his originality lies simply in how well he has learned Hendrix and Page and the older blues artists.

The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time?

2007-06-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone's ranking of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in its August 2003 issue has served to stimulate controversy and raise the profile of a number of guitarists whose originality, musical skill, influence and impact on music merit wider recognition. The difficulty is that the precise criteria for this list is not clear to either the readers or (0ne suspects) the simple critics who voted on this question.

If the glaring omissions of classical and flamenco greats from Segovia to Parkening to Paco DeLucia are made explicable by reference to Rolling Stone's emphasis on contemporary music, then we can also forgive the omission of Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang, and Django Reinhardt. If we limit our list to rock and pop music, and the blues and R&B tradition most directly connected to rock, then their list starts to make more sense. BUT...

It is nice that B.B. King, the dean of blues guitarists, is ranked as the third greatest guitarist of all, after Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman, and that a number of other bluesmen are sprinkled throughout the list: Robert Johnson (#5) Freddy King (#25) Buddy Guy (#30) T-Bone Walker (#47) Muddy Waters' guitarist Hubert Sumlin (#65) Lightin' Hopkins (#71) are all rightly honoured as primary influences upon rock's greatest innovators. But where the hell is Albert King? NO great blues guitarist has been more ripped off than Albert King--maybe the simple critics who were surveyed for the Rolling Stone poll just simply didn't know where all those licks came from. Imagine asking Stevie Ray Vaughn what he would think of such an oversight. But one need look no further than Wikipedia to recognize this error:

"His work on Stax Records was never monotonous and has a timeless appeal that eludes almost any other blues artist. King influenced many later blues guitarists including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Mike Bloomfield, Gary Moore, and especially Stevie Ray Vaughan, who also covered many of King's songs. He also had a profound impact on contemporaries Albert Collins and Otis Rush. Clapton has said that his work on the 1968 Cream hit "Strange Brew" and throughout the album Disraeli Gears was inspired by King.

King died on December 21, 1992 from a heart attack in Memphis, Tennessee, but he played till the very end. Joe Walsh spoke at his funeral, saying Albert King could blow Eddie Van Halen away with his amp on stand-by. This was probably not a knock on Van Halen, so much as an example of the difference in the audible and emotional power in King's playing and the popular Rock and Heavy Metal guitarists at the time. Although not the household name of a B.B. King, Albert King is often cited as more influential. Both Blues and Rock musicians imitate him constantly, whether they know it or not. "

I would even go so far as to say that Albert King has been far more influential on rock guitarists (Peter Green and one or two others aside) than B.B. King, with his lighter, single string playing, ever was. Robin Trower ranked Albert King with Jimi Hendrix as the best guitarists he had ever seen. Stevie Ray Vaughn felt the same way. Just listen to "Raining in California" and then "Texas Flood"; or "I'll play the blues for you" and then "Aint Giving Up on Love", and you'll recognize what a huge influence Albert King was on SRV.

While the majority of jazz guitar greats--viz. Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessell, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, Lenny Breau--have operated outside of the contemporary blues-rock idiom, a few of the greats have not. Both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck were disciples of Les Paul, who pioneered the modern solid-body electric guitar and several modern recording techniques. In 1988, Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Jeff Beck, who said, "I've copied more licks from Les Paul than I'd like to admit." Paul is recognized in the Rolling Stone list (at #46) and jazz-rock pioneer John McLaughlin is as well (#49), but two other great electric jazz guitarists were experimenting with combining jazz and rock rock sounds since the 1960s: Larry Coryell and Sonny Sharrock. Al Di Meola was a driving force in electric jazz-rock in the 70s and 80s .And the great jazz guitar voices of the 90s--Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Mike Stern and Bill Frisell--arguably merit consideration as well, as does the remarkable Hendrix-meets-James Blood Ulmer guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly.

Mark Knopfler and Randy Bachman have both cited country virtuoso Chet Atkins as a major influence, but that omission is perhaps not surprising. After all, room had to be made for the likes of Johnny Ramone (at #16!) Tray Anastasio of Phish (#73), Glen Buxton of Alice Cooper (#90)and Kim Thayill of Soundgarden ! My goodness! I think Rolling Stone succeeded in giving some great guitarists some richly deserved recognition, but all too often were simply holding a mirror up to popular culture and transient commercial success instead of meditating seriously on the evolution of the electric guitar in contemporary music. The result was that too many young fans continue to be in the dark about some truly great talents.

Next: To help rectify this problem, My own Top 100 List!

Sonata for a Good Man

2007-05-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

" Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the young West German film-maker, points out that he did not set out to make a film "about the German Democratic Republic. Instead he came from the angle of classical music, Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", which he listened to one night during his student years. Suddenly he remembered reading about Lenin who had said that that he could not listen to Beethoven's sonata "Appassionata" because if he did he would never finish the revolution. Apparently the effect of the music on him was so strong that it made him want to "tell people sweet stupid things and caress their heads" instead of "smashing in those heads mercilessly". ... Henckel von Donnersmarck began imagining what would have happened if Lenin had been forced to listen to the "Appassionata". And then the central image of a man with headphones, listening to beautiful music, formed in his head. The man was a "professional" listener; he was spying on an enemy who loves music. Thus the central figure of "The Lives of Others" was born. Within minutes the treatment for the film was written. The technical aspects of Stasi work which pervade the film were all carefully researched and are authentic."
----"Mizze", Gobsmacked Again

For a good albeit "conservative" review of this film; as an interesting side note to this film, Ulrich Mühe, who plays Stasi Agent Wiesler was himself an East German spied upon by the Stasi and betrayed by his wife.