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Guitar Solos

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After @Twang’s magnificent thread on guitar albums (how’s Doolittle in your ears, brother?) and the recent Night In with Led Zeppelin’s BBC Sessions, I though of guitar solos. I do not like much blues rock fret wanking. I like my guitar solos compact, an intricate part of the song, lifting it on to a higher plane. Think of George Harrison in The Beatles and you are there. After some thought, I wrote down my top twenty. Most of them are more than thirty years old. I set aside Jazz guitar for another day.

I know The Afterword loves a list, so here it is:

20. David Gilmour – Blue Jean Bop

Personally, I find Gilmour’s guitar playing dull. Not on Paul McCartney’s Run Devil Run. The sparks fly, the fingers are nimble and he keeps it brief. Perfect.

19. Fred Tackett – Shore Leave

Tom Waits song is remarkable. It captures the excitement of exploring an exotic city but it is underpinned by a tender longing for home. Tackett uses very few notes but he makes your heart ache and sing at the same time.

18. Paul Warren – Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone

The guitar sound associated with The Temptations masterpiece is the Wah-Wah. However, the bluesy figures by a then 17 year old Warren match Denis Edwards irascible, heartbroken vocal much more.

17. Paul Simon – Mrs Robinson

This is acoustic guitar in excelsis. I honestly believe that Simon can play guitar just as well as gods like Townsend and Page. Normally, he just contents himself with melody lines but when he lets rip, he is fluid as Mick Taylor.

16. John McGeoch – Spellbound

McGeoch helped formulate Magazine’s sound. By the time he joined The Banshees he had developed so many extra elements. He could carry the melody, drive the rhythm and add variation and colour all at the same time.

15. Carlos Santana – Samba Pa Ti

This man blends notes together beautifully. Try and listen to this with your mouth closed.

14. Jack White – Little Bird

Jack pushed against his own self-imposed boundaries, creating a scuzz blues. On De Stijl, The White Stripes laid down their manifesto, simple, effective and loud. Little Bird could turn your world upside down.

13. Mick Taylor – Sway

Sway is ragged untidy song until Taylor stamps his class all over the last minute. At the time, he was the best guitarist in the world. He rendered the string section superfluous.

12. Joey Santiago – Vamos

Vamos is basically a bit of Spanish from Frank Black, a kick drum and Santiago making a glorious noise. The longer version on Surfer Rosa multiplies the pleasure.

11. Phil Manzanera – The Thrill Of It All

Manzanera’s guitar is other-worldy, glamorous, artistic and spectacular, never more so than on The Thrill Of It All. Thrill doesn’t cover it.

10. Ry Cooder – Shakespeare Didn’t Quote That

Ry has had an incredible career over fifty years, starting as a mere teenager with Taj Mahal and Captain Beefheart, covering multiple styles. He sounds best amongst friends. Terry Evans and the band are friends and his guitar here is magnificently eloquent.

9. John McKay – Jigsaw Feeling

Punk cleared the decks and talent like McKay filled the void with a new way of playing, provocative, alienated and unnerving. Jigsaw Feeling is effectively one long solo. It drips with venom.

8. Prince – Sign O’ The Times

Prince was the ultimate showman, capable of the most amazing fret-wankery displays. However, he was at his best focused and disciplined. His playing on Sign O’ The Times is as tight as gnat’s chuff. It takes one of his better songs on to a higher plane.

7. Robert Fripp – Baby’s On Fire

David Bowie invited Fripp to play dirty, filthy rock and roll on “Heroes” and Scary Monsters. He knew he was capable of it because of his performance on Eno’s tasteless joke. He squawks and squeals for over two minutes. He doesn’t add to the song, he takes it over. His solo on Baby’s On Fire trumps anything he did for King Crimson.

6. Keith Levene – Poptones

Levene creates a relentless, seemingly endless loop that is as nagging as toothache. It’s not an easy listen. It’s certainly not pop. It may not even be classifiable as a guitar ‘solo’. Whatever. It’s magnificent.

5. John McLoughlin – Right Off

This isn’t Jazz, it’s Rock and it rocks like a bitch. It’s an instrumental, lasting 26 minutes and there’s no trumpet for ten minutes. Released in 1971, a vintage year for Rock Guitar Gods, only Mick Taylor came close.

4. Paul McCartney – Taxman

George Harrison is my perfect lead guitarist, brief, unassuming and always makes the song better. He wrote this song but McCartney delivers the solo, aggressive, pithy and angular. It is the best Beatles guitar solo, so good they reversed it and put it on Tomorrow Never Knows for good measure.

3. Eddie Hazel – Maggot Brain

George Clinton instructed Hazel to play as though his mother had just died. Ten minutes later, Hazel had produced something that goes way beyond blues. Edit out Clinton’s introductory nonsense and I want it played at my funeral.

2. Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower

Jimi was a magician, an alchemist, a wizard, a God. After he heard this, Dylan said that all his songs are Jimi’s. It’s the kind of performance that can be listened to back-to-back a hundred times and still sound amazing.

1. Larry Carlton – Kid Charlemagne

Becker & Fagen wrote a good song. A really good song with a nice tune and a toe-tapping rhythm. Carlton’s solo is so perfect, the most perfect solo ever, that he transforms it into something extraordinary, something from another world, the world of jazz.

6

Comments

  1. Ok let’s put a new wave/punk spin on this:

    The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
    Stiff Little Fingers – Johnny Was
    Pretenders – Kid
    Buzzcocks – What Do I Get?
    Television – Marquee Moon

  6. Just throwing out the first few that spring to mind…

    Little Red Bottle – Martin Stephenson and the Daintees.

    Roddy Frame – solo from Edwyn Collins “Putting it to the Back of my Mind”.

    Robert Smith of the Cure – The Kiss

    Adrian Belew – Crosseyed and Painless version from the Name of this band is Talking Heads.

    Robert Quine on Lloyd Cole’s “Half of Everything”.

  8. Sterling thread Tig. Obviously I can’t just knock out an answer – thus requires a little more thought, though I can, obvs, say your number 1 is sur l’argent.

    Not checked out the Pixies yet but I should. I know before I hear it that you’re wrong, mind you, but I’ll give it a shot. 😄

  9. Tigger, you are remarkable. You have an idea about a thread on guitar solos and then you pull a remarkably varied list of twenty out of your hat.

    Just like that!

    My gob is smacked.

    I submit a tentative vote for Santana on The Healer by John Lee Hooker. The sensual, late night Latin rhythmn, John Lee and his wonderfully lived in voice and then those passionate guitar lines that send it searing off into the stratosphere.

  10. Kid Charlemagne, good choice, and to be fair it could be any of a long list of great Steely Dan guitar solos. Back in the early days of the Word site, when I suspect there was more tolerance for threads about The Dan, we had a long and passionate debate about the best SD solo. My choice was and remains Denny Dias’s lovely fluid playing on Your Gold Teeth II.

    Back to the OP:
    Something – George Harrison
    My Love (Wings) – Henry McCullough
    Jimmy Page – Since I’ve been loving you
    Jimi Hendrix – Little Wing

  11. Big Star – Thirteen

    It’s never going to win a virtuosity contest – it sounds like it’s being played by someone who’s still figuring out the guitar. But it fits the song perfectly.

  12. Carlos Santana – Just in time to see the sun (Caravanserai)
    Eric Clapton – Have you heard (Mayall)
    Steve Winwood -Stevie’s Blues (seventeen years old!)
    David Lindley – Late for the sky (Jackson Browne)
    David Lindley -Biloxi (Ian Matthews)
    David Lindley -Spodie
    Ry Cooder -Lipstick Sunset (John Hiatt)
    Jimi Hendrix -Red House (UK version)
    Bill Nelson – Crying to the sky
    Bill Nelson – Pink Buddah Blues
    Peter Green – Need your love so bad
    Jon Hetherington – When Caroline says yes
    Pete Haycock – Amerita (Climax Blues Band)
    John Perry – Peter and the pets (Only Ones)
    Albert Lee – Song and dance (Head Hands and Feet)
    Robert Quinne – Divine Intervention (Matthew Sweet)
    Brian May – Crazy little thing called love
    Val Mccullam – Walls and doors (Jackson Browne). Short but sweet.
    Denny Dias – Bodhisatva
    Jerry Donahue – The sea (Fotheringay)
    Richard Thompson – Days in the park (Teddy Thompson)

  13. I like noodling and I like concise, despite never having thought of myself as a guitar man. I

    Howabout the solo in “Initiation” by Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, or “Just One Victory” are both uplifting and get a lot into a few bars. And, just to show i can ring the changes, I also love the very simple solos by “The Cramps”.

  15. My memory doesn’t have a compartment for guitar solos. Neither does it have any for best intro to a song, best lyrics about (insert subject), best backing vocals, worst rhyme ever, best scene in a film about squirrels etc etc.
    So these threads always leave me wondering; What exactly is my memory doing with all of that space? Is it renting out rooms for snippets of pointless conversations once had with complete strangers?
    🙁

    • I know exactly what you mean. Until I started actively thinking about guitar solos, i wasn’t really aware of any. They were all part of the performance of the song. I think of Johnny B Goode and in my mind’s ear, I hear all of it except for the solo (which is an extension of the melody).

    • That’s me, that is! I have a friend who can remember every detail of our holiday in 1982, the plot of every book he has ever read and the exact time the pedal steel guitar kicks in. Me, I just stumble along saying “yeah, that’s right”.

  16. Page – Achilles’ last stand – arguably his best recorded solo?

    Richard Thompson – solo from the live “Night comes in” on the ‘guitar, vocal’ album – never surpassed.

    Mike Oldfield – the solo from Ommadawn, at the end of side one, just before the heartbeat drumming…..

  17. Given compact is used in the OP I’m surprised any of the solos on Steely Dan records haven’t got a mention yet.

    I like the theme but, equally, I don’t see how a stunning blues solo doesn’t lift that song to a higher plane.

    I’d have song of the Wind over Samba Pa Ti though I think it is Neale Schon doing the finger dancing and Can’t You Hear Me Knocking Over Sway though I take your point.
    The solo on Crazy Mama, a solo that sounds like a yawn and a stretch on a backwood’s veranda.
    Ed Kuepper on his own Honey Steel’s Gold just builds and builds and builds.

    Here’s a Melbourne band , the Sand Pebbles bit trippy- Future Proof

    • So far, three Dan solos have been mentioned: the number one in the OP (just above Jimi), Spotcheck Billy and Peanuts Molloy.

      As for Knocking rather than Sway, I think it’s the sax solo and Charlie’s cymbal work that get that song going. Mick simply follows the mood. In Sway, he takes a sad song and makes it better.

      • Hmm that is what happens when you comment before your first coffee. Re Knocking I think it is both the sax and the guitar.

        Perhaps we could agree on the guitar for Sister Morphine

  21. Frank Zappa – Black Napkins – not just a solo, a whole song
    Jimi Hendrix – Johnny B Goode – from “In The West” – a trite old tune which is used to pull out pretty much every trick known to man and one or two previously unknown. Close tie with “Message To Love” which is an ordinary song that has has 45 seconds or so of wall of sound wailing that is unsurpassed
    Jan Ackerman / Focus – Eruption – takes up the whole second side of “Moving Waves”. With multiple solos It’s got feedback, jazzy runs and solid riffs
    Buck Dharma / Blue Oyster Cult – Dominance and Submission – just sublime.
    Rival Sons – Pressure and Time – a monster riff and a demented solo
    Eddie Van Halen – Eruption – a song that is a solo
    Alex Lifeson / Rush – YYZ – Alex never does the obvious

  22. Of the post punk stuff John McGeoch’s playing really stood out ‘Shot By Both Sides’ has some killer lines. Also, whisper it quietly, The Edge’s playing on the early (and later) U2 records makes a lovely sound (The Electric Co., New Years Day, The Unforgettable Fire)

    And a bit of Metallica. Kirk Hammet’s stuff on Master of Puppets ( all of it ) is a thing of wonder. Never bettered.

    • Let’s go there @sixdog and wake the U2 haters up. This starts with 30s and ends with almost a minute of shivery Edge loveliness with nary a who-hooo in sight. (Can’t say that about the rest of the song sadly).

  23. Mmmm, yes, that’s a nice, eclectic, thoughtful list, Tigger.

    To add just one more to your selection, I think I’d take a song that I was listening to yesterday afternoon, for the first time in many years. It’s the 13-minute “Loan me A Dime” from Boz Scaggs’s second album “Boz Scaggs”, recorded at Muscle Shoals, with the Duane Allman taking the guitar solos. Impeccable.

  24. I’m with you on the No.1, Tigger, KC pips it for me but I’d also mention two others from my top 5 list:

    Glenn Tilbrook on “Some Fantastic Place” – short and perfectly melodic, and actually takes the song off in a different direction and never fails to send a shiver down my spine.

    Secondly, Andy Partridge on “Church Of Women”. All of the above applies.

    https://youtu.be/mOToRAzUTWc

  25. Jimi Hendrix – Little Wing (live version from Hendrix In The West)
    Jay Graydon – Peg: Steely Dan
    Peter Green – Need Your Love So Bad: Fleetwood Mac
    Les Paul – How High The Moon: Les Paul And Mary Ford
    Eric Bell – The Rocker: Thin Lizzy

  26. The guitarist in a pop group should be like the referee in a football match.
    A necessary component for the whole, but if you’re concentrating on it you’ve missed the point entirely.

    Did George play any guitar solos in the “Eight Days A Week” film?
    Saw it on Thursday, going to see it again tonight. I honestly couldn’t tell you.
    He’s certainly doing something vaguely ‘guitary’ between John and Paul and in front of Ringo.

    Hendrix was never at his dullest than when he had to do the obligatory guitar solo – usually in a cavernous, soul-less hall in America, and ever increasingly as he neared Sept. 18th 1970.

    Right now I’m listening to “Four Sail” by Love, it would be as good as “Da Capo” and “Forever Changes” if they’d not succumbed to the 4 or 5 minutes of (obligatory – circa late ’69) twiddly guitar that peppers it.

    Thin end of the wedge/diminishing returns etc., tends to tie in with crap haircuts/clothes as well.

    • George plays several guitar solos in EDAW. He also fluffs a few lines like the arpeggios (sorry folks) between the chorus and verse of Help in the Blackpool concert – actually he speeds up and you see John have a wtf moment before the whole band slips perfectly into gear.

  27. Fantastic eclectic list Tigger with loads to explore. I love the fact that you picked out John McKay – what amazing guitar sounds on those first two albums (and the first few singles). Although my post-punk club membership means I can never admit to liking guitar solos of more than a couple of notes and longer than 2-3 seconds I have to say that these two always get me even though they’re pretty ‘trad’ solos:

    The Hold Steady – Lord I’m Discouraged (3.00s). Tad Kubler.
    The Only Ones – The Beast (3.48s). John Perry.

  28. My fave is by someone who will never get any props, and neither will his solo. However, there are 2 known facts in music. One, is that the Mott version of Sweet Jane p*s*es all over the original. And, two, is that this is the greatest, most tuneful, most singalong solo ever recorded.
    Mick Ralphs, take a bow, son.

  29. Guthrie Govan’s solo on Steven Wilson’s Regret #9 isn’t too shabby. Must admit, I prefer Mr Govan reined in rather than give too much scope to noodle as he does with his own band, The Aristocrats. Gets to the stage where I think “Mmm .. heard too many notes. Aural indigestion”

  31. The Fly Catcher – Roy Harper
    (Actually two solos, overlapping, by Andy Roberts then David Gilmour)
    Pretty Peggy-O (any GD live 1978-79) – Jerry Garcia
    Calvary Cross – Richard Thompson (Guitar, Vocal version)
    Prove It All Night (any live 1978) – Bruce Springsteen
    Pictures Of A City – Robert Fripp
    Referendum (Legend) – Roy Harper (Chris Spedding)

  32. I think “Peg” by Steely Dan is the best. As far as I know Jay Graydon only played one solo amongst their published body of work. I’ve never knowingly heard him play anything else. I think he was MD with the Manhattan Transfer at the time

    Both the solos on “Stormy Monday” from The Allmans “At Fillmore East” at 3.35 and at 6.00 are sublime. I’m never quite sure who is who. Duane first I think, and Dickie Betts later

    Jeff Beck’s solo on “Looking For Another Pure Love” off Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book. There is a lick in there that is so good he repeats it later in the song and then plays it again on Blow By Blow on Stevie’s tune “Because we’ve ended as lovers”

    Lots of RT. I think some of his compact ones get overlooked in favour of the long workouts. I particularly like his solo on “The Sea Captain” off Sandy Denny’s debut “The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens”

    And another shout for Jerry Donohue’s solo on Fotheringay’s “The Sea”

    • Jay Graydon played on the Manhattan Transfer single “Twilight zone” – another ripper solo, and played on that whole album and the next one. He had a big in Japan band in the 80s called Air Supply whose first album is classic OTT 80s pop soul, again with stonking guitar. More recently he had a band called JaR with Randy Goodrich whose album “Scene 29” is a cracker, a bit Dan-ish, and again stuffed with sterling guitar playing.

  33. It may because I was a metal fan in my youth but I’ll take a wild, howling atonal squall over a polite copy-the-verse-melody any time. To pick a few at random –

    Richard Thompson – Two Faced Love, Semi-Detached Mock Tudor version. This builds to couple of bars which I would trade other musician’s entire careers for.
    Funkadelic – Maggot Brain. Legend has it George Clinton told Eddie Hazel to play ‘like your momma had just died’, and I can believe it
    Michael Schenker – Attack of the Mad Axeman – One Night at Budokan. For nostalgia. It turned my head inside out when I was in my early teens and I still get a kick out of it now.

    • Michael Schenker is a name not bandied about too much these days. As an adolescent I thought he was the bees knees and saw the first couple of incarnations of The Michael Schenker Group before inexplicably turning my attentions to Pink Floyd, Yes and other purveyors of progalicious goodness.

      I enjoyed his fiddly-widdly bits on tracks like ‘Into The Arena’ and ‘Armed & Ready’ but the song for which I retain an enduring love is ‘Rock Bottom’, particular the version on Strangers In the Night.

      Every so often I scour Youtube to check up on Herr Schenker’s latest ministrations, then hastily beat a retreat to more measured shores. You really can grow out of certain styles/genres of music.

  34. Two that spring immediately to mind are:

    Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealin’

    and

    Dinosaur Jr – Start Choppin’

    Also has anyone mentioned Easy by the Commodores yet?

  35. Re Allmans Fillmore East which guitar is which. The version of “The Fillmore Concerts” on Blu-Ray I was listening to recently certainly had Duane in the left channel and Dickey in the right. Any slide guitar before Brothers & Sisters is always Duane. Dickey started playing slide on that album in an effort to replace Duane.

    It is possible that the many different Fillmore releases reverse channels though. You might be surprised how often remaster engineers accidentally swap left and right. Ziggy Stardust 40th Anniversary being one heinous example; it also edits out the between song spoken bits too and is therefore an utter travesty.

  36. Two solos from Leslie West, one at 6.26 and the other at 10.50. I have loved this track for 45 years, and can sing both solos. Wonderful, indulgent, ridiculous nonsense, sure, but my 15 year old self thought they were the puppies privates, and my 60 year old self still plays them, a lot.

  38. @Tiggerlion – Thrill of it all is a great Manzanera choice….
    I’d be tempted to add Chance Meeting for controlled feedback use
    ….and Editions of You, for a solo with inverted commas around it.

    Also, the title track from Diamond Head (Quiet Sun toons probably not concise enough to fit the OP)

  39. The best melodic guitar solo ever? I have to submit this one. Albert Lee on Rodney Crowell’s original version of Till I Can Gain Control Again. This song speaks to me and I have my own take on what “gain control’ means. And this beautiful solo reflects the song. Too many solos are just music for its own sake but – for me – a great solo is a part of the picture told in song. This solo is part of the song. It’s not that technically difficult, I’d say, but the notes Albert chooses and picks are sublime.

    Oh yeah – years ago The Observer used to tun ‘The Expert’s Expert’ and when they did guitarists most (all ‘experts’) picked Jeff Beck. Jeff was interviewed as The Expert’s Expert. He chose Albert Lee as his expert.

  40. Only one brief mention in this thread (I think by Junior) for the master of the concise guitar solo – JJ Cale. Ticks all the boxes for me. I just can’t get enough of the warmth of his guitar sound which has influenced Clapton and Knophler among others down the years but never been bettered.

  41. Here goes:-

    Isley Brothers- Summer Breeze
    Nils Lofgren – Keith don’t go (the acoustic version on Acoustic Live)
    Steely Dan – Boddhisattva (is that 2 guitarists duelling or overdubs?)
    Ritchie Blackmore on Child in Time off ‘In Rock’

    I know it is well too familiar but Paul Kossoff on Alright now.

    When all is said and done though I agree with the post from Clive re Goodbye to Love being right up there.

  42. The actual Steely Dan solo you need is Third World Man. 47 seconds of perfection.

    Also, good shout on John McGeogh but I think his definitive solo is on Philadelphia. Superb noise-over-melody solo – you are aching for release by the end..

  44. Queen – Brighton Rock. The badger-loving, home-made guitar sensible man of glam lets rip (earning a rare nod of approval from Zappa no less) all while recovering from a bout of jaundice.

    Wings – My Love. Yes to Henry M

    Julian Cope – Double Vegetation. Mike ‘Mooneye’ channels Mac’s Bunnymen for this beautifully atmospheric coda, cut (I think, according to ‘Repossessed’) in the immediate aftermath of Cope pal Pete DeFreitas’s death

    Blur – London Loves. Graham Coxon nearly outFripps Fripp

    David Bowie – Fashion. Fripp outFripps Fripp

    Stones – Sway. Another vote for Mick Taylor’s moment of incandescent brilliance. There is a live recording from the Marquee, ’71, I think, in which his solo on ‘Dead Flowers’ is just astonishingly wonderful

    Beatles – Taxman. As Tigg mentioned, possibly the best HJH guitar solo

    Beatles – Old Brown Shoe. Followed by this, IMHO.

    Marty McFly – Johnny B Goode. “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it”

  45. Johnny Marr generally eschewed guitar solos in The Smiths, but I would highlight a couple of genuine solos in ‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’ and Nowhere Fast, and several lovely, melodic codas which are solos all bar Mozzer’s moaning and groaning – The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Suffer Little Children, the mandolin in Please Please Please…, I Know It’s Over etc

    Lest we forget, the late, great Mick Ronson weighs in with iconic solos on Moonage Daydream, Life On Mars and The Prettiest Star (after Marc) amongst his other, more fretwankery efforts.

    And speaking of Marc, I’ve always been taken by his wah-wah drenched solos on ‘Monolith’ from Electric Warrior.

  46. I could still add to all of the above (some of my faves are already covered) but I will just add this. John Martyn is generally regarded as a singer/songwriter and a guitarist with a near unique style. But lead guitar?, guitar solos? Well he doesn’t really ‘fit the bill’. Really? Just listen to this. Acoustic too. This is effectively a ‘guitar solo’ from start to finish. (According to Edith the link may not appear – it’s The Easy Blues if you’d like to explore).

  47. Some which come to mind – many fine ones already bagged…

    ‘Cause we’ve ended as lovers – Jeff Beck
    Whole lotta love – Jimmy Page
    Aqualung – Martin Barre
    Hideaway – Eric Clapton
    Kid Charlemagne – Larry Carlton
    Time – Dave Gilmour
    Country boy – Albert Lee
    Black Magic Woman – Carols Santana
    The Supernatural – Peter Green
    Wild Horses – Mick Taylor (agree Tig, “Sway” is magnificent)
    Don’t believe a word – Gary Moore
    Munroe’s Hornpipe – Tony Rice
    Mystery train – James Burton
    Rock n roll hoochie coo – Johnny Winter (version off “Roadwork”)
    Running on empty – David Lindley
    Walk on hot coals – Rory Gallagher
    Inside out – Barry Finnerty (from “Heavy metal bebop” by the Brecker Brothers)
    Help the poor – Robben Ford
    You win again – John Jennings
    Pretty much anything but let’s say “Shoot out the lights” off Guitar/Vocal – Richard Thompson
    The bricklayer’s beautiful daughter – William Ackerman
    Anji – Paul Simon
    The thrill is gone -BB King
    The Hunter – Paul Kossoff (live version best)
    Rock me baby (live) – Robin Trower (the whole live album is brilliant)

    Boringly old school – need to examine the iPod and try to find something more recent…

  49. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird

    May be a tad obvious (certainly in the context of this thread), but it is bloody good.
    (Virtually) guaranteed to bring out the air guitarist in us all

  50. You couldn’t call this solo by a 17-year old Mike Oldfield compact. It meanders quite a bit and nearly derails a couple of times. Nevertheless it has a quirky charm and lifts the song beautifully.

    (Whatevershebringswesing)

  51. Two that I don’t think have been mentioned yet

    Freak Scene by Dinosaur Jr (actually, The Wagon by Dinosaur Jr as well). J Mascis is one of the finest guitarists living

    Field Of Fire by Richard Lloyd. Used to be in Television, and you can tell.

  52. Can’t believe we’ve got this far down….cont. p94

    Copper-bottomed guitar solos – much-battered by lawsuits and so over-familiar it’s almost impossible to listen to, the guitar solo at the end of Stairway to Heaven is still inescapably great.

  53. More 80s. The House of Love were set apart from the other indie groups because of Terry Bicker’s guitar expertise: “Touch Me”, “Christine” and “Mr Jo” are his best.

    And although Sonic Youth didn’t really do solos as such, the interlude to “Pacific Coast Highway” is ace.

  54. James Williamson:

    On “Penetration” on the remixed Raw Power, and basically throughout “Death Trip” (either mix, Bowie’s or Iggy’s). An absolutely vicious guitarist, able to switch effortlessly between lead and rhythm.

    Also, the Get Yer Ya Yas version of “Sympathy For The Devil” with firstly Keith’s very raw solo followed by Mick Taylor’s more rippling, bluesy affair. It might just be the Stones’ finest moment.

  56. No Neil Young yet, or have I missed something? I could throw in half a dozen, for starters. Would like to add Mike Campbell too – short concise solos, always adding to any Petty song. I Won’t Back Down has 14 notes of perfection, then there’s Running Down a Dream, of course. How about Nils Lofgren’s Moon Tears? The live version on Night After Night is a stunner. I always get blown away by Emerald by Thin Lizzy, superb duelling guitar, never know who’s playing what, but one of them takes over and runs away laughing to the finishing line, amazing stuff! Then there’s EC on Badge and While My Guitar, two of the best solos ever. I could go on…..ans will, Mick Taylor on Time Waits For No One!

  57. More Dan

    My absolute favourite is Jay Graydon on Peg. In fact the entry of that schmearow schwawangah sound (you can tell that I’m a pretty technical musician type) is perhaps my favourite moment in Rock.

    That aside – a more conventional but still brilliant solo is Jeff Baxter’s on Night By Night. About 2 minutes in and 30 seconds long.

    Steely Dan
    Night By Night

  62. I forget who, but a wiser man than I once wrote ‘ a guitar solo shouldn’t take longer than it takes to order a round of drinks’.

    My few are:
    Pretenders – Tattooed love Boys: James Honeyman-Scott impersonates his guitar heroes, one by one.

    Fountains of Wayne – Valley Winter Song : Jody Porter captures the wistful nature of the song, without making it cloying. A masterclass in playing for the song.

    Jason Falkner – She Goes to Bed: Just perfect. About 2 minutes in here. For what it’s worth, one of Dave Gregory’s favourite solos. And JF is playing every bloody instrument!

  69. Around 1969 it became acceptable for mainstream pop records to have tasty little string-bending pentatonic guitars solos. Of course Jeff Beck and Hendrix had already been doing this throughout 1967/68 with chart hits such as Hi Ho Silver Lining and The Wind Cries Mary respectively. Then there was Fleetwood Mac’s Need Your Love So Bad (1968), and Cream’s Badge (1969) both of which have lovely lyrical parts too.

    But inevitably it was the Beatles who brought this style of guitar solo into the nation’s living rooms with Something in late 1969. From that point “proper” guitar solos were de rigueur for even the most mainstream pop band.

    One such band was Marmalade. In late 1969 the Ob La Di, Ob La Da hitmakers gave us a great little single called Reflections Of My Life. With its descending bass line and stately tempo it was really just Something revisited, but I’ve always really enjoyed the song. And it has a lovely little reverse tape guitar solo, too, played by Junior Campbell, I think.

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