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No Pink Floyd? No Hendrix? No Led Zeppelin?
There are no numbers indicating whether one is first or fifth. If the solo is listed here, it is simply one of the best.
Guitarist: Robert Fripp
Song: “St. Elmo’s Fire”
Time: 1:20
Album: Another Green World
Artist: Brian Eno
Amongst a landscape of lush piano chords, modulating synthesizers, and a ‘blue August moon’, Robert Fripp’s guitar bursts through like a freight train rolling up the mountainside. Fripp swoops fiercely from top-to-bottom of the fretboard with high-speed hammer-ons and pull-offs, mind-twisting repetitions, and epic sustain. In the album’s liner notes, Fripp is credited with playing the Wimshurst Guitar on the track, a reference to Eno’s request that the solo imitate the electrical charge between two poles on a Wimshurst machine. It would be an understatement to call Fripp’s playing on this track ‘electric’. What this solo lacks in easy-to grasp melodies it makes up for it with slides that squawk like a dial-up modem yet glide over and blend into Eno’s acoustic backdrop effortlessly making you believe that robots can have a soul. Digital, acrobatic, and heart-warming, Robert Fripp is king.
Guitarist: Jerry Garcia
Song: “Friend of the Devil”
Time: 5:00
Album: Dead Set
Artist: Grateful Dead
Jerry’s guitar cries of joy on this slowed down “Friend of the Devil” from Dead Set, a collection of live material from the Grateful Dead recorded from concerts in September and October of 1980, a period where “Garcia was definitely in the best condition he’d been in for quite a while, both physically and mentally,” writes Garcia biographer Blair Jackson. Jerry starts the solo with an ascending cry followed subtle slides and whimpers. Sensations while listening range from twitching to tears to absolute fist-raising joy in a matter of two measures. Jerry’s ability to communicate the universal feelings of struggle and redemption all through a simple string of notes and perfectly placed accents is romantic in the Wagnerian sense: glorious and moody. Jackson adds “[Dead Set] consists mostly of unadventurous (and edited) version of first-set tunes,” and he’s right. You can download FLAC/MP3/Ogg Vorbis or stream the unedited version here, but I prefer the more expressive and clearer sounding edited version.
Guitarist: George Harrison
Song: “Michelle”
Time: 1:25
Album: Rubber Soul
Artist: The Beatles
Sing it back to me. Right now. I bet you can. And if you can’t, the second you listen to The Beatles’ “Michelle” and Harrison sneaks into the mix, you will find yourself humming or whistling George Harrison’s well-paced melody which follows a complex sequence of minor seventh, dominant seventh, and diminished chords. “La, da-da-da, da-da-da, da.” Is it a solo? Or is it just a background phrase? It’s an earwig, another essential role a guitar solo can play. It’s not always about the guitarist’s speed or technique or flagrant expressiveness. In Harrison’s case, his simple yet well-spiced melody fits perfectly into the song between vocal melodies and adds another layer of character to the composition as a whole. C’est très magnifique.
Guitarist: John Petrucci
Song: “Take the Time”
Time: 6:45
Album: Images and Words
Artist: Dream Theater
Master shredder John Petrucci exhibits flawless melodic composition combined with mind-boggling technical mastery that leaves the listener constantly wondering where this solo is going next. By the outro, Petrucci has already plastered down mega-riffs, used a multitude of different harmonic chord voicings across the neck, and danced in unison at break-neck speed with keyboardist Kevin Moore. He starts the form with a harmonization on the refrain “Find all you need in your mind if you take the time,” and elongates to a bluesy slide pattern. He settles the rhythm with power chords and soars back into the “Take the Time” harmonization with flair. He sweeps multiple arpeggios with swing. Petrucci gives high-speed riffs a funky and natural feel, an incredibly difficult task. All the while, the melody actually builds upon itself. Each phrase is impossible to the resolve until you hear the next. Petrucci unleashes a flurry of triplets like machine gun fire. After an alternating and descending scale, the song fades, and his solo continues. In the darkness, Petrucci sails on with majestic licks, although we may never find out what they were.
Guitarist: Alex Lifeson
Song: “Limelight”
Time: 2:35
Album: Moving Pictures
Artist: Rush
Alex Lifeson’s “Limelight” solo from Moving Pictures is a sonic exploration through ambience and futuristic harmonies. First his guitar moans. Then, like wisdom or a beacon of light shooting from someone’s forehead, Lifeson pierces his stratosphere of gloomy tension with a blocky set of high-pitched phrases, not resolving the tension from before, but providing a new light to his previous agony. A dive bomb is followed by a set of blistering bends. Lifeson hangs on dearly to the final note providing no actual resolution from the tension between the overcast beginning and the hopeful second half. Maybe Lifeson is telling Neil Peart’s story. Geddy describes Peart’s relationship to the song: “Limelight was probably more of Neil's song than a lot of the songs on that album in the sense that his feelings about being in the limelight and his difficulty with coming to grips with fame and autograph seekers and a sudden lack of privacy and sudden demands on his time ... he was having a very difficult time dealing with” (“Moving Pictures”, In the Studio with Redbeard. 1988.) Lifeson’s solo is a bittersweet reflection on Peart’s condition: while there are moments of brilliance and joy there still remained a pervasive sadness.
No Pink Floyd? No Hendrix? No Led Zeppelin?
It's just an opinion not factual. Very similar to Stereophile's reviews.
@GeorgeHolland
"It's just an opinion not factual. Very similar to Stereophile's reviews."
Good one ;)
How could 'best guitar solos' be factual?
Besides, it's a bit of fun, enter the spirit....
But AB, how could you omit Tony Peluso's heart wrenching solo on the Carpenter's Goodbye To Love? OK their type of music isn't the most obvious (or fashionable) place to look for scorching axe work. If in fact it is scorching; I'm not technically up on the art I'm afraid. But boy does it pull the heart strings in almost prescient way.
Tend to agree something a la Gilmour from DSOTM or WYWH would be a strong contender as well. Where to start though.....
What genre? Jazz? Rock? Fusion?
If this is a Rock-n-Roll list, heres goes:
Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover/ When the Sun Meets The Sky
David Gilmour - Comfortably Numb
Eddie Van Halen - Eruption
Steve Lukather - Rosanna
Neal Schon (HSAS) - Valley of The Kings
I have to add this song too, because it has two great solos in it. Peter Framptons' "I'll Give You Money" tune from his 1976 'Frampton Comes Alive' album. This one totally smokes! And you'll really like it because Frampton is on a Les Paul Black Beauty, the one with three humbuckers.
On the Les Paul tribute / compilation album (it defies categorisation but who cares). If so I agree, it meets the criteria. Spotfy link - Les Paul – I Wanna Know You
I bet Clapton doesn't meet the criteria though so I won't mention him. And how come Soulful didn't get an earful for mentioning Gilmour? :-)
ab- methinks you inserted the wrong album cover. the cover you inserted was for a robert hunter solo acoustic album. double clicking on the title brings on to the utube site and the correcr song with comments.
When we were first going gonadal the gospel was Steely Dan’s Reelin’ in The Years. But AB should not so quickly dismiss the idea of genre – we really are just adolescents talking rock. Otherwise, names like Wes Montgomery or Kenny Burrell, and greats from other categories would no doubt pop up. And since it’s pretty obvious that most of the great rock solos were so practiced as to be composed, dismissing classical guitarists is arbitrary. I seem to recall greater musical revelations from Burrell at a small club, than down front for Page and Company at some big dome, though the stories are clearly better from the latter.
George Barnes's solo on Lipstick On Your Collar, Duane Allman's on Boz Scaggs's Loan Me A Dime, Hank Garland's on Elvis's Fool Such As I, and Jeff Baxter's on the Doobie Brothers' Little Darling
This is a great subject of discussion Ariel! Here are a few of my favorite guitar solos.
Kansas (Livgren or Williams?) - Carry on wayward son
The Cars (Elliot Easton)- Tonight she comes
Boston (Barry Goudreau)- Long time
Rod Stewart (Jeff Beck) - Infatuation
Two names without which any list of great guitar solos cannot have credibility.
Django Reinhardt. Tony Rice.
also, for a phenomenal solo by a guy for whom guitar wasn't even his primary instrument, check out "Slopes," from The Telluride Sessions by Strength in Numbers. Yes, that's Mark O'Connor.
Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer, Bella Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and Mark. BTW Mark's first pro gig was replacing Tony Rice on Guitar in David Grismans group. And way no Larry Carlton, or even Jay Graydon's classic solo on Steely Dan's Peg?
Nice list, though very limited.
Slash's solo at the end of November Rain is another great one.
For my money, it should have been Fripp's UNBELIEVEABLE solo on Brian Eno's "Baby's on Fire" on his 1st solo album "Here Come The Warm Jets"!
I agree with your assesment of the Gilmour omission, but the solo in Comfotably Numb is just SO tasty, if not particularly innovative. "Reelin'" is great too, but if I had to pick a Steely Dan solo (not sure why I'd have to, but...) it would be Skunk Baxter's on "My Old School". I'm a sucker for those solos that build up momentum though the entire song then get awesome right at the fade, much like Steve Gadd's rhythmic lunacy on Aja.
Thanks for getting me to think about guitar solos this morning, what a great way to start the day.
I fever there was a memorable one it is the messiah will come again from Roy Buchanan. As laid back as can be but stil... If you don't know it, look it up, it starts in the middle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM4Soeyabss
I hear Cralos Santana not bad either!
;-)
Nice top know that I am not alone in thinking St Elmo's Fire is one of the great guitar solos in rock history. From the first time I heard it, after buying the record in '75, it has be in my head. The album is one of those rare landmark records, along with the other three from his vocal period.
Prince comes running to tie some serious shoes...
I might suggest this be on the list - if you can't wait, forward to minute 3:29 - this may as well be the finest guitar solo of all kind on earth or in any galaxy - happy viewing!
http://vimeo.com/22533001
Funkadelic, Maggot Brain
Eddie Hazel's extended solo on the title track of Funkadelic's 1971 release defines the genre "guitar solo". Angry, soaring, anguished, transportive -- it runs the gamut. After hearing Eddie perform this, the only thing to do is quietly turn off the stereo and sit in a darkened room for a while.
Stevie Ray Vaughan - RivIera Paradise
Absolutely remarkable.
UFO's Obsession [1978]. Michael's short solo on Only You Can Rock Me is certainly not the leading edge or state of the art but always takes me to the place I need to be each time I hear it!! Check it out.