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Great guitar solos of these times

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I love a great guitar solo. And I especially love it when it grows organically from a great song, both taking reflected glory from the song it is part of and adding to the overall impact of that song. There have been few recent examples as gorgeous as one of my favourite tracks from last year, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s ‘Between the Dirt and the Stars’. As Carl pointed out in his superb review of the album, which he posted back in December, it’s a beautiful, heartfelt lyric. Chapin Carpenter looks back to when she was 17, driving along listening to Wild Horses, carefree and young. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since.

Just over halfway through this elegy to lost youth, and reflection on the heartache of lived life, Duke Levine’s electric guitar emerges and builds. It’s a superb ending to a great song (and album).

And all the more notable because there is something slightly old fashioned about it too. You – or, more accurately- I don’t hear solos like this so much these days.

What are the greatest guitar solos of our time?Please post other perfect guitar solos you love – any will do (you can’t hear that Goodbye to Love solo too many times) but especially more recent ones welcome.

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Comments

  1. In response to that question this is my reflex response. There are actually two solos, both brilliant. of course the Dan tracks are rammed with great solos, the one on Peg being a good example,

  2. Screamadelica is really, really, really recent in the big scheme of things. Just a mere 30 years old. Is the guitar solo on Damaged a great guitar solo? Might be easy-peasy for all I know. I like it a lot though. It’s not my favourite guitar solo, mind. My favourite guitar solo and my favourite riff are both in the same song, which is a handy coincidence. That song being Waterfall by The Stone Roses. Yes.

  3. Can I have another. One from the Might Tull, Martin Barre produced this gem while Jimmy Page watched from the control room, probably making notes as he couldn’t have done it in a million years, great though he is. While Jimmy favours the licks falling downstairs approach, Martin’s grasp of phrasing and drama make it a perfect blend of flash and restraint. Comes in at 3.20 for civilians.

    • Have as many as you like @twang – fill your boots. Am especially interested in the suggestions of someone who can actually produce a guitar solo himself as you can and who knows what he is talking about.

      • Oh go on BB you smooth talker. Another favourite of mine. Rory on Irish Tour. The fun starts at 5 mins with a series of mind boggling licks the like of which people still wrestle with today. Also he didn’t use pedals, everything is done with hand on Stratocaster.

  7. Just to come at this from a different, poppier angle I’m going to nominate Roland Orzabal and especially the solo in “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”. The op states…”I love a great guitar solo. And I especially love it when it grows organically from a great song, both taking reflected glory from the song it is part of and adding to the overall impact of that song.” Well if this doesn’t meet the brief even though it’s from a top pop 80’s hit…. There’s a little taster in the middle but the solo in the outro takes a great song and makes it really special. To me anyway…

  8. Walker Brothers – No Regrets
    This song, like many other Walker Brothers tracks is dominated by Scott Walker’s moody baritone.
    The arrangement and that vocal would usually be enough, but then the solo arrives and takes the track to another level.
    The internet, not always the most reliable of places, cites many options for the provider of this solo, including Big Jim Sullivan, Jeff Skunk Baxter (later of Steely Dan), and John Walker – who was actually a Walker Brother, but what are the chance of a member of a 60s band actually playing on their own song?
    Popular opinion suggests the widdling was by Alan Parker – later of Blue Mink, and whose guitar work was heard once a week for nigh on 10 years as a member of CCS who did the “Whole Lotta Love” version that introduced Top Of The Pops

  9. And where the blimmin flip did this fuzzed up bit of guitar widdling come from. Nestled in the middle of MOR favourites, the plank dexterity is a bit tasty.
    Carpenters – Goodbye To Love

  10. Here’s a thing what I wrote about 10 of the finest solo guitar moments:
    http://histopten.blogspot.com/2020/09/guest-post-thursday-11-guitar.html

    The chioces are:
    No Regrets – Walker Brothers (Alan Parker)
    Dead Flowers (Live At The Marquee 1971) – Rolling Stones (Mick Taylor)
    Kid – Pretenders (James Honeyman-Scott)
    Boredom – Buzzcocks (Pete Shelley)
    Reelin’ In The Years – Steely Dan (Elliott Randall)
    Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush (Ian Bairnson)
    Another Girl Another Planet – The Only Ones (John Perry)
    Another Nail In My Heart – Squeeze (Glenn Tilbrook)
    Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty (Hugh Burns)
    Goodbye To Love – Carpenters (Tony Peluso)

      • I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Twang on his best ‘Dan selection. With Bodhisattva also a contender.

        While I admit my knowledge of recent guitar-based music is pretty limited, I can’t think of any properly exceptional guitar solos from the past 20 years. Plenty of “good” and even “very good” ones, but none that I’d call “great”.

        Personal favourites:
        “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” – Jeff Beck (Wired)
        “Pink Napkins” – Frank Zappa (Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar)
        “Autopsy” – Fairport Convention (Unhalfbricking)

  11. Mick Taylor joined The Stones in 1969 replacing Brian Jones, and within a month had provided overdubs and guitars for ‘Let It Bleed’ and was sitting at Number One with “Honky Tonk Women”.
    He makes a huge contribution to ‘Sticky Fingers’, and “Sway” ranks as a high point, but the solo on the album version of “Dead Flowers”, great though it is, falls just short.
    Not when played Live however (as seen here) – Mick Taylor is effectively soloing all the way through the song. It’s cool, laid-back, laconic even, but fills every gap required to be filled.
    With Brian Jones, they were the second greatest pop singles band in the UK. With Mick Taylor, they were (probably) the greatest Live Rock n Roll Band standing on a stage.

  12. I might have one or two to suggest…

    Here’s Jan Akkerman on the 1969 Brainbox single (issued in Britain as well as Holland, albeit to no avail) – an amazing amount of drama – from 1:17 – 1:50. And fabulously recorded too.

    • If you go with Ackerman in the list it surely has to be AQQA from Focus 3 – which Ive said many times on this site is possibly the greatest ‘rock’ guitar solo of all time. Ill temper that outrageous comment by saying that JA can also be tedious. But on his day unparalleled (IMHO).

  13. Hmmm, “of these times”? Uncertain if any of these quite fit the remit of the OP, bar the OP. But, I guess, the art of the guitar solo is seldom felt a current must in these times. I’m struggling, as isn’t only the elder gods who are still producing such thing. And, even then, only much in a live setting. There are fabulous guitarists around, Justin Adams for instance, and he’s over 60, but I can’t think of a studio solo as such, his modus more to provide mood. (Yes there are loads of gurnfests from him live chez Plant, but more in the sense of a dog on his back paws, a celebration a lesser seen entity.)
    Unless it is jazz or blues of course, but, again, few spring chickens.

  15. Another ‘perfect’ solo from Jan, from 1:27 – 1:50. Most people know the melody and toe-tapping tempo of ‘House of the King’ (though fewer know what it’s called), but I’ve always found the short & sweet solo section the icing on the cake – a distinct section with slower tempo and a minor key feel contrasting the tune’s major key. It’s also a different time signature – 4/4 to the tune-proper’s 3/4 (or is it 6/8?). It resolves perfectly with one of Jan’s trademark burbles up the neck… in time for the tune-proper to recommence. 🙂

  16. Oh, well, folk are just posting their all time faves so, if you can’t beat ’em…..
    And to scratch the expected RT itch, IMHO his best two.

    From about 3.30, its brilliance is the use of the lower notes, unusual in the rock canon, ahead of careering all over the shop, blending frantic strums and notes. Can never hear it too often.

    From about 3.59, much the same idea, a slow burn and build, gradually getting all the more frantic, like an electric leak from a faulty plug, lava from a volcano as it hits magma.

  18. Moving away from one’s favourites, as Retro puts it, I’ve always thought this solo was brilliant – three notes repeated (with an occasional fourth) eight times, with a variation on the eighth occurrence. Tension-building and yet euphoric.

  19. Most people would point at Moonage Daydream as evidence of Mick Ronson’s outstanding prowess on guitar, but I would go for this, also enhanced by his stupendous arrangement.

    • Ronno again, this time on Lady Grinning Soul (the Bond theme that never was) at about 3:00 until the end. Coupled with Mike Garson’s piano and Bowie’s wailing vocal, just an amazing sound

      Never gets a mention in any Bowie “top” lists but an absolute belter of an album closer and I’ll never get bored of hearing it

  20. And in a similar vein to the Hedge’s minimalist brilliance, I’ve always thought Martin Simpson’s ‘solo’ here to be sensational: one micro-tonal bend followed by an unresolved picked chord, with exquisite timing, and that sequence repeated once, with the changing synth chords underneath momentarily bringing it into a major key – like the sun coming out from behind a dark cloud – and then falling back to the unsettling minor-ish mode of the song in time for June’s voice to re-enter. From 2:54 – 3:24:

    • Quite possibly my favourite solo ever. It sends a shiver down the old spine every time I hear it. Short though it is, the solo winds around the melody of the song but is totally unpredictable and yet totally perfect.

  24. That Mary chapin carpenter solo is a peach isn’t it? Wow.

    Here’s one of my favourites from the last 30 years, from Boz’ incredible 1994 album ‘Some Change’. The guitar is there from the start, bubbling along, but Boz lets his warmth fly from about 3:45 and then again towards the end of the song. Don’t jump right there looking for fireworks, listen from the start and relax into its liquid gorgeousness:

    https://youtu.be/O8y3azfjcp0

    • Given the consistently high quality of his output since SC, it’s baffling that Boz will always be best known for his mid-70s hits (exquisite as they were)

  26. My favorite guitar solo is James Honeyman-Scott’s solo on ‘Kid.’ Took me bloody ages to learn it.

    Another favorite is Roddy Frame’s solo on ‘Oblivious’

    and Andy Partridge’s solo on ‘Science Friction’

    Short ‘n’ sweet.

    • JP’s solos are one reason the OO’s first album is one of the great debut albums. Shorn of the OTT horns and other extraneous embellishments, the Peel sessions are even better.

      Pretty decent music writer, too.

    • Somehow missed your post Rigid, I’ve included another John Perry solo further down. I always felt he was a bit overlooked as he never really looked rock and roll enough (more like a new wave Clive Anderson)

  32. JJ Cale. Artificial Paradise.

    He lets go with two zingers at 1:43 and 3:28. Both seem to my ears to be improvised on the spot. They soar away, making a pentatonic klutz like me want to punch a wall.

  35. I’ve posted this before (probably too many times!) but the lead out guitar solo on Joan Armatrading’s “The Shouting Stage” is sublime…… (from about 4 mins on)

    Bet you can’t guess who its by 🙂

    • Sounds like Mark Knopfler to me, and very good it is too (as are many others on this thread, especially the first one which was new to me)!

      Many years ago my guitar tutor reckoned that once I could master the differing techniques in Sultans of Swing I could start calling myself a guitarist. I couldn’t even start approaching it… and never will. Still, I can strum some basic chords and dribble (and I don’t mean a football) at the same time so it can’t all be bad!

  36. Erm … have we had any Tom Verlaine yet?
    No? Well then I think we should.
    This is a lovely solo from “Last Night” on TV’s eponymous debut album.
    It starts at about 3:33.

  37. On the first day of my first visit to the States, this played on MTV.
    The whole track and the guitar solo totally blew me away. I thought the guitarist sounded a lot like the guy from Defunkt.
    Then I found out there was a reason for that.

  38. John Perry on the Peel session version of Miles from Nowhere by the Only Ones.
    I always felt they had more in common with Television and The Heartbreakers than anything UK punk had to offer. About 2 minutes in, just incendiary

  40. I’m going to be cheeky and post another.

    This is by a young jazz fusion band called Mathias Heise Quadrillion.
    Go to 5.27 if you want to skip to the solo. Wonderful melodic playing.

  42. Since we’ve clearly given up on the ‘of these times’ element of the OP, and I must confess I was struggling, which I guess illustrates the point, here’s my bit of ‘old’. Plenty of lovely licks en route, but it’s the utterly joyous lead out, which takes up nearly half the track, that marks this out.

    • Bloody love the HoL, and Terry Bickers is massively underrated. Incidentally, extremely loud the one time I saw them live. Like, ear pleadingly, rib cage shakingly cloud.

      • Terrible lyrics, Bickers masterclass? That goes for pretty much all the HOL material! There’s a great live clip from Snub TV of them doing Destroy The Heart and (I think) Love In A Car. I’d post it, BUT there’s also a toe-curling interview midway through. What a brilliant band, though but. And Tel’s stuff with Pete Fij is a joy, too.

        • I remember that TV spot. I saw the HoL live in a tiny venue in 1987 and they were fantastic, but Guy Chadwick could be painfully upper-middle class: like the Velvet Underground fronted by Hugh Grant.

  46. well, this is becoming an education, I must say. Plenty here I know, but a great deal I don’t and which I look forward to exploring. You just know that the Afterword is going to come up with a very eclectic mix of well known and unfamiliar stuff from across the genres and the ages.

    As others have said, however, very little new or recent here. Maybe because it simply isn’t there; maybe because it is but we’re not familiar with it, or maybe simply becuase anything we have heard in the last few years simply isn’t hardwired in our brains the way old favourites are. As twang implies at the top of the thread, most of us will have long loved tracks that come immediately to mind. Here’s one such from me.

    In the meantime – keep posting; this is great stuff.

  49. Two solos from Tim Reynolds playing with Dave Matthews. Two Covers. Fairly recent – this century anyway. Starting around 2.45 in both instances…

    Down By The River…

    And Daniel Lanois’ ‘The Maker’ – this was the first time I heard this song and maybe because of that it’s my favourite version…

  50. My go-to track is always Song Of The Wind by Santana from Caravanserai. Pretty much a solo all the way through. Totally uplifting. Neal Schon is the principal soloist highlighting just how central he was to their high period.
    Here is some phone footage from the House Of Blues in 2017 demonstrating just how much it was his song.

  51. A couple of my faves which come under the heading of Guitar Solos You Didn’t See Coming, as opposed to Inevitable Because They’re in the Lead Guitarists’s contract.

    1: The Commodores, Easy (2:48)

    2: Booker T, Green Onions (1:10)

  52. Another, more from the point of view of the develop rather than the flash harry, that being the outdo from E.C.’s Let It Grow. For all I know it isn’t even Clapton and maybe was the fella on rhythm, Jamie Older, was it?

    Hardly even a solo, more a repetitive motif, but as the backing swells and envelops around it, it is utterly gorgeous.

    • agreed – and there is a similar feel on the lovely coda on Opposites, the final track of the next album where I think it is both Clapton and George Terry his other guitarist at the time, who, as you say, I believe took a numbe of the lead duties at the time.

  53. Felt aren’t the first band that come to mind for guitar solos. But there are at least three very different classics from various times in their career. All of which kick in halfway through more or less.

  54. That Mary CC solo is a doozy.

    My vote is for Jason Falkner’s ‘She Goes to Bed’ – starts messily quoting the melody line a al Cobain, ends up rich and euphoric. It’s one of Dave Gregory’s favourites too, FWIW. Starts at 2:05

  58. I have been trying to think of recent guitar solos, but I cannot get beyond the 90s. This is a chance to call out the great, underrated Thin White Rope, whose Roger Kunkel could switch from deft country twang to intense, Robert Fripp-style solos like this one (at the 2.15 mark)

  62. I wasn’t going to add to this list, but I was just somehow reminded of this song and couldn’t resist:

    Solo starts at 1′ 20″ and for some bits of it I really can’t tell how he does what he does.

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