Category: Performance

I have often said that we do not play music for people to hear, we play music for people to feel. Were I only basing this list off of technical ability and skill in guitar playing this solo would not make the list, an intermediate guitar player could easily learn to play this solo, but when George recorded this one he nailed it to the wall. It’s the first time that you hear a guitar in the song and after the organ drops down with a sense of anticipation that first bent note of the solo just drives straight through your chest and your heart pumps the notes through arteries and veins until the whole solo becomes a part of you. If you don’t feel this solo, you aren’t listening to it.

Note: There is a newer remix of this song that I have heard in which the guitar solo is ripped almost completely out, there’s all the build up and then a big let down. I don’t know who did the re-mix and I’m not going to look it up, but whoever it was did a great disservice to both the song and the listener and needs to smacked up side the head with a Les Paul. Twice.

I consider this to be the quintessential heavy metal song, it’s got it all: It’s a song about a madman, it’s got the classically influenced guitar riffs, choral elements, a great ebb and flow between the heavy and the soft, exotic scale work . . . yeah, it’s got it all.

The solo is just right there, when I hear this solo, I hear a musical synapsis of the story of the madman in question, coming on the tail of the heaviest riffs of the song it seamlessly bridges the gap between one part and the next.

Two by the same guitarist? Yes. It’s not my fault that Randy Rhoads was amazing, I’m just glad that he was. I could probably put quite a few of his other solos on this list as well (Over the Mountain comes instantly to mind) but these two are just over the top. Randy had an ability to make a solo fit in to a song just the way it’s supposed to. This one stands out it so many ways, it’s not easy to even describe it, it’s a part of the song, yet stands on it’s own at the same time.

I know a lot of people may consider this a tired old solo, but it’s undeniable that it was a trendsetter. Eddie was among the pioneers of shredding and of killer guitar tone, and Eruption hit the scene like a train hitting your chest, it may seem old hat now, but it still stands as one of the all time greats.

David Gilmore can say more with a single note than many guitarists can say with an entire album. David doesn’t just play notes on a guitar, he makes the guitar sing.

In this piece I feel like you learn just as much about the story from the guitar solo as you do from the lyrics, possibly more.

It took me quite a long time to appreciate the music of Eric Johnson. My older brother had given me a cassette tape of Ah Via Musicom in the mid-nineties and I tried to listen a few times but the intro track builds so slowly that I didn’t really give the album a fair chance until I finally had it on CD and just skipped the slow bit and actually heard Cliffs of Dover.

One of the things I really like about this piece is that there is a very easy way to play the notes of the main theme on guitar, but if you play it that way it won’t sound quite right. But when you rearrange it and play it the way Eric did, all of the sudden it’s quite difficult, but once you get it, it sounds great. Of course the song is much more than just it’s main theme, and for any aspiring guitar player, it’s well worth your time to sit and analyze this song to see how Eric did everything that you are hearing.

Stevie Ray Vaughn is one of those players that borders on “Is he rock? Or is he blues?” I’d put him in both categories, and if Mark Carras can list him in his “Top Ten Best Hats In Rock N Roll” list, then I can put him here as well.

Now, Stevie has got a ton of great solos to choose from and this one was kind of my introduction to him. When I had been playing for about three or four years I found a guitar tab of this piece and played through it without knowing what it should sound like. I thought it was really cool and wanted to hear the original. When I listened to it I had one of those internal dialogues about getting my stuff together because he was playing it about three times as fast as I could even start to get to. It gave me something more to aspire to and it was one of those lessons that still get me motivated today.

There can be a lot said about S.R.V.’s playing, but no matter what you think of him, he had style. You want to know what his style was? Go listen to Scuttle Buttin’, and if you don’t like the idea of not hearing the rest of the album, you may be on to something.

Alex Lifeson, I believe, is rarely given due credit. The dude is something else, he can make a guitar howl like a wounded angel, lament in the deepest torment and praise the glory of creation–simultaneously. You never see him show up on the lists that come out of the top guitarists of all time, which should be taken as an indicator that the list is invalid.

If you ever want to get Alex’s autograph here’s what you do: Get a copy of Hemispheres by Rush and listen to La Villa Strangiato. It’s the same thing.

Yngwie is often cited as being among the most pretentious personalities in all of guitar history, and from the interviews with him that I have read, it seems that it may be an accurate description. I felt that in his later work, that pretense started to come through in his work, and I really lost interest in what he was doing with the instrument, which is a shame, because he is one of the best.

But in his early days, he put out some pretty incredible stuff. His debut album is still among my favorites. Black Star opens the album and sets the tone not just for the album, but, I believe, for much of his future work. sometimes, being an audio engineer, when I hear a recording I can see it taking place in the studio; I can imagine the interactions of the band, the decision making process, equipment selection . . . Not so with this, it simply you takes you off on a journey, which is what great music should do.

OK, here’s the problem with this list: It is based around two very limited things, recorded music and my personal experience. Truthfully the best solos often go unrecorded, it’s some guitarist in a bar or a coffee shop or a bedroom that’s just raging like a bull on steroids. I’ve had the experience myself of doing a gig and afterward thinking, “I wish could hear a recording of that solo, that felt so right.” And I’ve had the experience of sitting in the audience in someplacesomewhere and being just blown away by someone I’ve never heard of before.

If I were to compile the best drum solos ever I would probably include In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and The Birth of the Beat and then draw a blank because I don’t listen to many recorded drum solos, but the best drum solo I’ve experienced was Julian MacDonough live with a jazz group in a coffee shop in Bellingham, Washington.

Plus, being limited to rock we are missing so much: Andre Segovia, Christopher Parkening, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, Francisco Tarrega, B.B. King, Muddy Waters . . . So, where this list is good, it’s limited and it is only a small part of the story. If you want great music, go out and find it–better yet, go out and create it.