Had topic starter Kenny Burford been able to provide this information, this would be a very different thread.

Here is how they introduce the article on the table of contents page:

"THE 100 GREATEST GUITARISTS"

"It's the list that launched a thousand arguments: David Gilmour's too low! Kirk Hammett's too high! Who's Hubert Sumlin? (You really owe it to yourself to find out.) Here they are, the hundred guitarists that the rock world couldn't live without, complete with each one's essential work. Complainers, take your best shots."

The hundred guitarists that the ROCK world couldn't live without-and at the end of the article, on the page about Hendrix (which was written by Pete Townshend), they provide the web link with the following verbiage: "YOUR GREATEST GUITARIST...Don't agree with our list? Vote for your favorite at rollingstone.com/greatestguitarist."

Oh-I like a passage from the Townshend piece that was highlighted in larger print: "With Jimi, I didn't have any envy. I never had any sense I could come close."

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 17 October 2006 at 08:46 AM.]

I thought after Caravan Serai,
Carlos went to MacGlaughlin territory,
and not the other way round.

I also know Chester and Lester put Chet in with Les Paul,
and that certainly quailfies as great guitar playing.

Obviously, to use one of your favorite guitarists (and mine) as an example, Joe Pass never had either of his feet planted in the rock world in the way that John McLaughlin did, hence the magazine's inclusion of John (regardless of how Carlos and John got together).

The guitarist ranked at number 98, Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer, couldn't carry the gig bag for someone like Joe Pass, but he was included for the following reasons: "Back in 1968, before heavy metal had a name, Stephens was shredding eardrums with the psychedelic trio Blue Cheer. The group bragged of being the loudest in the world, and Stephens' molten solos epitomize Sixties rock at its most untethered and abandoned."

I know-I saw them play twice-not on purpose-I remember they were a group on multi-band bills. I don't know if my ears ever did really recover!

I wouldn't walk across the street now to see Leigh Stephens, the way he played back in the early Blue Cheer days (since we have such a diverse group here, no doubt someone is going to jump in who was a friend of Leigh Stephens and explain that Leigh had a geat career after Blue Cheer playing jazz clubs and became known as a stellar jazz player-LOL), but his effect on the forthcoming metal era surely was influential.

In my opinion, the title of the article would have been more appropriately written as "The 100 Most Influential Guitarists On Rock Music Of All Time."

Robert Johnson was not a rock guitarist either, but his INFLUENCE on the future music form was certainly huge.

But if a Rolling Stone staffer walked into Jann Wenner's office with a title like that in hand, he would have either laughed him out of the room, or fired him.

"Go back to your desk and come up with something shorter and catchier-we're in the business of selling magazines here, not a freakin' masters thesis!"

And as some of you no doubt remember-it was pre internet days of discussions like we are having here that helped give rise to the whole punk rock movement, hence the inclusion of Johnny Ramone at number 16.

Johnny hated guitar solos!

Oh-the Charlie Christian reference went over my head-I don't believe Charlie was included on the list.

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Mark
<

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 17 October 2006 at 11:55 AM.]

quote:

---

I know-I saw them play twice-not on purpose-I remember they were a group on multi-band bills.

---

I have read interviews with guys like Keith Richards and Pete Townshend that have acknowledged the greatness of the top Nashville guys. I read an article about Eddie Van Halen, where the author was spending time with Eddie in an L.A. studio, and they went down the hall to check out Albert Lee who was doing some recording, and I recall that the author referred to Eddie's jaw dropping while checking out Albert on the Tele.

Mark Knopfler idolized Chet Atkins,and he and Chet became good friends, and they went on to make a couple of CD's together.

Since I found my copy of the magazine, I read some of the profiles in the article written by the "pill poppers," and these guys were right on the money about a lot of these guitarists.

Criticizing the article without having even actually having read some of it doesn't strike me as being very fair.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 18 October 2006 at 08:54 AM.]

I have this "discussion" with my 16-year-old, Andrew, who is convinced Zakk Wylde is the "greatest ever", to no apparent use. Why do I think that a comittee of Andrews made that list.

Blue Cheer... it's been years. Winterland, 1968. Aside from having the biggest row of Marshalls yet seen in San Francisco, the consensus was that they should be shot at the county line.

[This message was edited by Eric Jaeger on 18 October 2006 at 03:54 PM.]

For example, number 40 Fogerty is characterized for "...his taut riffing, built on the country and rockabilly innovations of Scotty Moore and James Burton, was the dynamite in CCR hits such as "Born on the Bayou" and "Green River."

Our high school football coach allowed us to pretty much play any music we wanted in the locker room after practice and I can remember about 40 young guys rockin' out to "Born On The Bayou." It was certainly NOT virtuoso guitar playing-but it WAS great rock and roll playing. Big difference.

As Eric mentioned, John would be the first to tell you that he is no great guitarist, but I read an interview with him a couple of years ago, and it was based on the idea that he wanted to, even well up into middle age, improve himself as a musician, which came out of his growing friendship and respect for his favorite player-and mine as well-Jerry Douglas.

There is a sidebar interview with Fogerty in this now notorious issue of Rolling Stone, and a list entitled "MY TOP TEN":

1. Jerry Douglas

2. Duane Eddy

3. Scotty Moore

4. James Burton

5. Steve Cropper

6. George Harrison

7. Chet Atkins

8. Albert King

9. Roy Buchanan

10. All the rest

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 18 October 2006 at 02:59 PM.]

I finally got to see the Stones play in concert for the first time a few years ago at HP Pavillion, in San Jose, which is where the Sharks play hockey.

Once again-not virtuoso playing like a Chet Atkins, but when Keith played those opening riffs to "Gimme Shelter" I could feel the goose bumps rise on my arms.

That's some great rock and roll.

It's a little like showing the AP Top 25 ranked college football teams list to someone but not having anything to say about why USC is ranked number 3.

For whatever reason Rolling Stone has kept the list on the internet as an active link.

I'm not being critical of you for starting a thread based on the list, so if you are taking it that way, please don't. As evidenced by part of the statement from their table of contents-even having read the article, they expected disagreements.

It wasn't your fault you didn't have the information. It seems like a legitimate subject for which to start a thread in the Music section on the Forum.

Aside from the fact that I still have a copy of the magazine, it appears that almost no one else even recalls having read the thing when it came out a few years ago.

So the title of the list, without any additional explanation, as I cited in an earlier post, would appear that they left off obvious choices like Chet Atkins, or a number of jazz greats, when it becomes clear when you have the copy in your hand that it is about rock and roll and guitar players that had significant influence, not who is the best guitar player period, regardless of genre.

I have no association with the Rolling Stone, other than the fact that it started as a much smaller time publication in San Francisco in the late 60's, and my brothers and I used to eagerly await a new issue every two weeks. Plus being a Bay Area boy it was local to us-just like the first ever FM rock station, KMPX, and after the DJ's walked out on strike, led by Tom Donahue, they formed a new station, the legendary KSAN, where the DJ's had a lot of freedom to play tracks off of albums, way before there was ever the dreaded Clear Channel. San Francisco was THE place for rock music back then, and the Rolling Stone was the locally owned magazine that wrote about it. It is not the same magazine it was by a long shot, it has become more general coverage, but there is still some good musical writing and content-but it has been many years since I last had a subscription.

Jann Wenner moved the operation to New York many years ago, because that is the capital of the publishing industry, and he wanted to go "big time" with it. As I said, I still read it once in awhile, but the mag was never the same after the move to New York from San Francisco. It lost a lot of the "grassroots" feeling it had from the early years.

Some of the best rock music writers wrote for RS for years. People like Ralph J. Gleason, Jon Landau, Cameron Crowe, Ben Fong-Torres, and Greil Marcus, to name a few. It was one of the first publications to legitimize writing about the subject of rock music (though punkers like Johnny Ramone and Sid Vicious would be adamantly against that sort of thing-the intellectualizing of the music).

But since all the others who have participated in the thread didn't have a copy in front of them like I do, I felt a responsibility to at least point out that they're not getting the whole story of the list without the article itself, and there were a number of negative posts scoffing and dismissing the magazine like they're a bunch of idiots and dillettantes, who have no clue about what they were writing. The fact is, when you have the article in front of you, and you read the reason RS has a player on the list, you might say to yourself, "Yeah-I can see that, that makes sense."

And as far as disagreeing with at least a dozen names on the list-they even expected that sort of thing, as evidenced by how they wrote the introduction. It's the same deal as a few guys sitting around in a bar with beer and pretzels arguing about the all-time best baseball players at each position-of course there is going to be disagreement, because there is no way you can legitimately quantify such a thing-and rating musicians is going to be even more difficult because of the somewhat abstract nature of the subject, hence the great saying "writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Though that doesn't mean there is anything wrong in trying.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 October 2006 at 02:23 AM.]

Derek Bailey
Bolo Sete
The Assad Brothers
Janet Feder
John Fahey
Carlos Paredes
Jennifer Batten
Laurindo Almeida
Kazuo Imai
Debashish Bhattacharya
John Keese
Jao Gilberto
Freddie Green
Atahualpa Yupanqui

and from Texas:
Jackie King
Willie Nelson
Bucky Meadows
Paul Buskirk
Johnny Copeland

[This message was edited by Susan Alcorn on 19 October 2006 at 04:38 AM.]

Oh-but John Fahey was included.

I give up...

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 October 2006 at 08:53 AM.]

I think a younger virtuoso like Indian classical slide guitarist Debashish certainly has influenced Derek Trucks, but if one took a poll of well-known rock guitarists-there probably aren't that many that have the music of Debashish in their i-pod.

But it is without question, an impressive list-and I have some homework to do on the players with which I'm not familiar.

Hey- I like Willie's guitar playing myself, but I have read a fair number of posts on this Forum slamming Willie for his picking.

I guess the bottom line is-it's all subjective!

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 October 2006 at 09:27 AM.]

Influential (to musicians, in the sense these people made us look at the world and our music differently. In no particular order):

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Chuck Berry
3. Eldon Shamblin
4. Bert Jansch
5. John Fahey
6. Don Rich
7. Roy Buchanan
8. B.B. King
9. Robert Johnson
10. Freddie King
11. Elmore James
12. Ry Cooder
13. David Lindley
14. Mike Bloomfield
15. Albert King
16. Buddy Guy
17. Leo Kottke
18. Tony Rice
19. Pete Townshend
19. James Burton
20. Steve Cropper
21. T-Bone Walker
22. Charlie Christian
23. Duane Allman
24. Albert Lee
25. Duane Eddy
26. Merle Travis
27. Django Reinhard
28. Doc Watson
29. Clarence White
30. Chet Atkins (though he kept citing Merle Travis)

Guitarists that had impact but considered THEMSELVES derivative:

1. George Harrison - cites Carl Perkins, etc
2. Keith Richards - cites Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson
3. John Fogerty - cites Duane Eddy, Link Wray, Robert Johnson
4. Roger McGuinn - cites George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Fred Neil...
5. Neil Young - cites Duane Eddy, Cliff Gallup, etc.
6. Eric Clapton - cites Robert Johnson, etc.
7. Billy Gibbons - cites John Lee Hooker, Freddy King...
8. Carlos Santana - cites Gabor Szabo, John McLauglin, B.B. King
9. Jerry Garcia - cited Doc Watson, Don Rich, Wes Montgomery

"Popular" (and you can see my own bias here):

1. Yngwie Malmstein
2. Ace Frehley
3. Zakk Wilde
4. Kirk Hammet
5. ....

This could go on for a long time. What I find really interesting is the massive impact by guitarists who frankly credit their own roots. I don't know what it means, but it must mean something.

And thanks, Mark for the bit about the early days of RS. As a San Francisco boy who subscribed to the first issue and hung out at their office (on Townshend?), it has memories.

-eric

[This message was edited by Eric Jaeger on 19 October 2006 at 01:17 PM.]

But you did list a lot of players that were on the RS list as well.

They also left off one of my all-time favorites, Amos Garrett, and if I sat down and picked my own brain-I'd probably come up with 10 more.

As far as the "derivative" thing goes, I think the majority are derivative up to a point-probably the least derivative of the big guys might be Jimi.

Clapton always comes off as very humble about his abilities (almost to the point of me wanting to say: "Eric-please stop being so self-effacing, you are a GREAT guitarist-and this "waxing humble" thing gets old!), and he may be derivative-but that doesn't lessen his greatness to me!

Was the original KSAN the all-time best radio station or what?

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 October 2006 at 12:45 PM.]

-eric

"Tom Donahue first worked as a disc jockey during the late '40s in Charleston, West Virginia. He later worked at Washington, D.C.'s WNIX and Philadelphia's WBIG before being hired by San Francisco radio station KYA in 1961. Donahue and fellow disk jockey Bobby Mitchell formed Autumn Records in early 1964, hiring Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone) as its principal producer. Autumn had hits with Bobby Freeman's "C'mon and Swim" in 1964 and issued the earliest hits of San Francisco's first major group The Beau Brummels. Autumn also recorded Grace Slick's first group, The Great Society. Donahue and Mitchell also produced rock concerts in the park at least two years before Bill Graham, including the Beatles final public performance on August 29, 1966.

On April 7, 1967 Donahue took over the 8 p.m. to midnight shift at FM radio station KMPX. The station allowed Donahue to play album cuts, broadcast live music, refuse to air certain commercials, make public announcements of a political and general nature, and generally get involved with the community and its concerns. KMPX soon became the first full-time album oriented FM radio station. The format proved popular and was adopted by FM radio stations across the country. After a strike against KMPX management, Donahue and most of staff moved to KSAN-FM on his May 21, 1968. The station was virtually unchallenged as the area's top progressive rock station for years, and Donahue became the station's general manager in 1972. On the verge of becoming general manager and part owner of KMPX, Donahue died of a heart attack on April 28, 1975, at the age of 46.

Tom Donahue was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996"

"KSAN-the jive 95!"

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 19 October 2006 at 01:34 PM.]

Back then, I lived across the street from a small club in Sacramento where a lot of acts started their tours with a shakedown before heading to San Francisco. I watched five feet from John Lee Hooker, Van Morrison, Savoy Brown, Tim Buckley, Albert King, and the most charismatic performer I've ever seen, Freddie King.

It's very true. These lists always reflect the opinions, prejudices, and in-trends of the listers, and little else. Is what makes someone a great guitarist just the fact everyone says so, or, perhaps because of a profound innovation they introduced to the
landscape?

She also did Miles of Aisles with Tommy Scott and Robin Ford, not bad company either.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 25 October 2006 at 04:50 AM.]

I agree! It IS disturbing that such talent only amounted to a 'blip on the radar'.

I'm indebted to Doug Livingston for urging me to go and watch Thumbs playing at 'Calamaty's' in LA - that was twenty five years ago! I'd heard of him but, thanks to what I thought was a 'hokey' down-home type of nick-name, I'd not taken him very seriously - there's a lesson right there! Doug just smiled and said, 'You need to go see him...'

He blew me away to such an extent that I returned for two more nights - three in all! One of the best guitar players I ever heard! I now have all four of his CDs and a treasured memory of that week in LA - I don't think I took me eyes off Thumbs all night - not even to watch Sneaky Pete who happened to also be in the band. (

But Esteban - there were some earlier posts on him, and he did actually get a few lessons with Segovia, was in a bad auto accident that affected/crimped his playing for about 10 years.

His tales of woe are on the web, and so ya'll can take it from there.

I had the same revulsion of sorts when I saw his late-night infomercials on guitar lessons/playing.

But when someone pointed out in another thread about this guy, and his "story", and I read it - I came away with a different opinion of Esteban.

I don't have the URL at hand, but it shouldn't be that hard to find. Check him out. You might think twice after reading it.

[This message was edited by CHIP FOSSA on 10 November 2006 at 04:26 AM.]

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 10 November 2006 at 12:55 AM.]

Duh!? Does anyone over 25 actually really read this mag, let alone, give much credence to it?

I always sort of considered it the Enquirer of the music world.

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 10 November 2006 at 02:01 PM.]