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Who really is the best rock guitarist?



We love lists in the media business. Readers sometimes complain about list stories but then read them voraciously.

But if you came for a list story here, you aren’t going to get one. This is more a Behind-the-List Story story.

They are very subjective, you know. Lists, rankings. Take best guitarists.

Is Eric Clapton really better than Carlos Santana? Was Jimi Hendrix really better than Stevie Ray Vaughn?

How about Nick Drake and Leo Kottke with their innovative acoustic folk, blues, rock? Is Pete Townshend on rhythm better than Keith Richards or their teacher, Chuck Berry?

I’d be hard pressed to find a better rock guitarist than Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin but there’s some old(er)-timers our there that say Alvin Lee of 10 Years After was the man. Listen to this live version of Woodchopper’s Ball.

Slow down, I’m getting to the point here. These lists usually encapsulate three things going on:

(1) Popularity of the artist and his or her songs, Clapton and Page are famous for working with some of the biggest selling bands of all time. Are they truly better guitarists than Steve Morse. Who? Steve Morse who played with the Dixie Dregs and is now with Deep Purple. He can play. Glenn Phillips, of the Atlanta area, is pretty much the best guitarist you’ve never heard of. In the same neighborhood, his student Bob Elsey of the Swimming Pool Q’s plays tasty licks without walking over anyone. How many of these guitarists can play Nancy Wilson’s intro to ‘Crazy on You.? Probably most of those in this company, with time and study, but I would venture to say Nancy’s would be the best version..

(2) Speed and long solo skills A lot of guitarists get noticed because they can shred. That is, hit X number of notes in x number of seconds, usually going up and down scales. That’s a useful skill set especially in metal, hard rock, punk and even guitar-based jazz. But it’s one tool. The best shredder may be mediocre playing folk blues, for example.

(3) Flamboyant style. Jimi Hendrix was truly innovative but it wasn’t all flamboyance in the cause of the music, it was aimed at the ‘show.’ I’m pretty sure Hendrix can play better with his fingers than his tongue. But tonguing a guitar solo will leave people with their jaws hanging.

These three factors I’m saying play a role in these ranking and probably should. But before you start talking about who is better, Eddie Van Halen or Yngwie Malmsteen, Prince or Queen’s Brian May, the Schenker brothers of Scorpions and UFO fame, let me proffer that perhaps the best guitar players are those that do what’s best for the song. Delivering a fine song with a guitar solo that lasted 5-minutes too long is not necessarily being a great guitarist.

So it comes to this: Duane Allman.

I’m not saying he’s the top guitarist of all time or anything. But he had an unusual grasp of what sound to put forth while playing a song. How loud. How soft. When to fill and when to cut loose. The story goes that Duane was doing some session work at like age 22 or so, at Muscle Shoals studios, backing the great Wilson Pickett on a cover of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude.’

Listen for the guitar in this as it starts. You have to concentrate because it’s in the background.

But it’s perfect, the fills. And as Pickett winds up, Allman with electric guitar is right there supporting the singer, whip snapping Pickett into his famous ‘yow’ screams.

“He stood right in front of me, as though he was playing every note I was singing,” Pickett said months later. “And he was watching me as I sang, and as I screamed, he was screaming with his guitar.”

Duane’s legend was picking up steam.

[If you secretly do like list stories and want to take a peek at the most underrated artists, albums and songs in my collection. CLICK



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Joseph Arthur — 602

ALBUMS: Temporary People  (2008)  Limited Edition

MVC Rating: 4.0; $$$$$

Arthur is one of my favorite artists. I feel like he has somehow channeled some of the best of my 678 vinyl records and re-created them, absorbed all their influences. Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Lou Reed, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Small Faces, Byrds, Bad Company, Donovan, Cat Stephens, the Replacements, Violent Femmes.

Rare hand-drawn cover by Arthur for his Temporary People album

This is that  A-music artist I mentioned in my previous post that somehow got stuck in the C-section.

He has channeled a lot  of music and culled the good stuff. He copies and creates. He can write hits. He can write and perform alternative to alternative. He has, I heard, worked in a record store or was it guitar  store? Either way makes sense.

He’s so prolific, I feel like he needs to slow down.  His lyrics dip close to cliche but then swing back to poetry: I  need to smell your dad’s cigar in the ashtray as you wrote in Redemption Son. That’s concrete; it immediately brings me to where you are at. The cigar summons the ghost.

But, I mean this with all love. There’s something about his tremendous musicianship, his bass to falsetto vocal delivery. He makes beautiful and cathartic songs. I hope he finds that thing that will take it even higher.

 ‘Cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need’

Yes, that’s us. All of us. Good line.

I’ have lot of Arthur on digital. This is my only vinyl record of him. His body of work occurred in  the CD era, so I appreciate this album. Here’s a couple videos that only give you a glimpse. Also below is a  lyric so simple but so sad. Don’t know if it would help.

If you’re gonna leave, you should say goodbye
You should say goodbye
You should say goodbye

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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AC/DC’s Malcolm Young Died of Dementia

Malcolm Young, the founder along with his  brother, of the globally successful Australian rock ‘n’ roll band AC/DC died today.

Of dementia. His family said that.

So far, all of the news stories report dementia as a cause or contributor to Young’s death  but don’t describe it beyond that.

I wish they would because I have Lewy Body dementia, the second leading type of dementia  behind Alzheimer’s.

I was diagnosed at age 56 more than a year ago. With Lewy  the life expectancy averages 5 to 7 years after diagnosis.

Young was 64.

I am doing three things with  this blog  www.myvinylcountdown.com

  1. I am shouting for more funding for research, for more awareness of Lewy. Some believe the 1.4 million number often used to describe how many are affected  now is vastly understated. Some whom are diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s may actually have Lewy body dementia and there are some treatments for these diseases that are contraindicated for another and could be life-threatening. OK, believe it or not that’s one thing. Two more.
  2. Staying alive is important to me — but with my faculties intact. Right now I struggle to write this because my fingers don’t glide along the keys like they used to.  It’s part of the disease which affects me physically as well as mentally. I have set up this blog to review my 678 records (vinyl) that I have collected over the years. This has been a way to stay connected to my past and remember my love of music and music collecting. I look forward to trying to post every day, if not more. Be sure to check out the About Me page, and click on the post’s title if you want to comment.
  3. Now third is having fun. I want to chronicle and laugh about things I still remember. My music, my basketball, my family, my years in the  news business. That’s fun for me and hopefully will tie into my second rationale.

So I’m not really a fan of AC/DC.

I don’t own an AC/DC album. Of course I know their music as did every teen (male?)  in the late 70s with a car radio (w/power booster and 6X9’s in the back). My younger brother whom I’ve mentioned before in these blogs had the album ‘Back in Black,’ if not more. I always thought AC/DC was like asking for a drink of water and receiving a firehose to the face. Some folks like that.

But I did have some records that have a degree of separation connection to the band.

Malcolm’s younger brother was in the band, Angus (the guy in shorts). But his older brother, George Young, along with friend Harry Vanda were founders of the Easybeats, sort of the Australian Beatles. And they were good. Really good, way back when. Friday On My Mind was an international hit.

They later, Vanda and Young, formed Flash and the Pan and they were good and weird. Very weird.

George, who also produced a number of AC/DC albums, died only about a month ago. I haven’t seen a cause of death reported. I have albums — which I will review as I have been in alphabetical order — of Flash and the Pan and the Easybeats.

The Easybeats video that follows is an old favorite  of mine. Stay with it until the end and you’ll know what I mean when I say I hope he has kneepads on.

There’s also a good documentary on Australian rock from the Easybeats to AC/DC.

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Athens, Ga. –Inside/Out Various artists (1987) — 665

Athens Inside Out/Various Artists

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

One young evening during my freshman year at the University of Georgia I walked next door from my dorm in Reed Hall to Memorial Hall. There was a concert going on, and to these 19-year-old ears calibrated on what would later be called classic rock and southern rock, it seemed out of bounds.

It was a free concert by the Swimming Pool Q’s and the newly famous B-52’s.

This was 1978, nearly a decade before this entertaining, shoestring documentary

In 1987, ‘Athens, Ga.–Inside/Out’ came out with its running commentary by my man Ort.

I had it in VHS, lost it, then DVD, lost it, but I still have the vinyl record.

Now by 1987 this New Wave, alternative, punk thing had been filtering through the music industry for a while, seeping into the mainstream where the masses drink.

The B-52’s truly created a new sound; the Swimming Pool Q’s are still on my turntable after all these years. (Bob Elsey gets my vote for underrated understated guitarist of all time). Love Tractor has a bizarro Christmas album I recommend checking out.

And Ort? Well I haven’t lived in Athens for more than 30 years. But my parents are still there. I went to high school there and did a year at UGA. I have come back to Athens quite a bit over the years. But I haven’t seen Ort in a long time. A downtown Athens fixture, Ort is a music history savant. I used to sit down with Ort and talk about music for hours over beer (me buying).

But neither Ort, nor the Q’s, nor the B-52’s is on this record, which is the soundtrack of the documentary. The documentary chronicles what these aforementioned folks wrought, so to speak. Athens was a hip little cauldron anchored and fueled by the university, surrounded by swimming holes and pine forests. And there was kudzu, the invasive species in the South that greened up nearly every bridge, old barn and derelict wall around. There’s a metaphor growing in there somewhere. REM featured kudzu on its first full album, ‘Murmur.’

REM is clearly the standout on this record, with a cover of ‘(All I’ve Got to Do is) Dream’ and  their own ‘Swan Swan H.’ The rest are songs from  bands that achieved varying degrees of success at levels well below REM: Love Tractor, the Squalls, Pylon, Time Toy, Kilkenny Cats, and Flat Duo Jets.

The Jets played some wild rockabilly punk, but, alas, Jason and the Scorchers, not from Athens, were better at this. My God, Pylon, considered one of Athens’ most dynamic live groups, blisters with ‘Stop It.’ If that doesn’t make you bang your head, check your pulse.

Time Toy does some stream of consciousness, white rap slam poetry behind the rhythmic guitar sound of Paul ‘Buzz’ Hammond.

I went to Cedar Shoals high school with Paul and was a friend long long time ago. I lent him my acoustic guitar, which I couldn’t play too well. Months went by and he said he lost it. Damn Paul.

He gave me a banjo in return. I never learned to play and sold it cheap to a very happy banjo player (Is there any other kind?)

I lost track of Paul after moving out of state, and starting career, family, etc., but in the late 70s or early 80s I saw him numerous times playing in his earlier band, Little Tigers.

I Googled his name recently and was sad to find his obituary from 2016. RIP Paul.

So what are we to make of this? Athens was an early adapter of this ‘scene’ way of developing and attracting talent. Chapel Hill, Austin, Seattle, among others, followed suit with their own scenes. Athens was a pioneer. It was and probably still is, a special place for creative and diverse ideas because of the ingredients: sleepy southern town, hotbed of matriculation and home of numerous practicing thespians. OK, I’m goofing now.

For  an Atlanta view of the ‘scene,’ check out Swimming Pool Q’s band member Jeff Calder’s take.

As Calder notes:  “The South that created George Wallace also produced Tennessee Williams.”

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

In memory of Paul Hammond.

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Chet Atkins — 666

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Stay Tuned (1985)

Chet Atkins was a guitar legend of the 50s and 60s who could seamlessly drift from country to jazz and spice it up with a little rock and roll and even some blues.

This album was one of those high concept albums.You know one of those superstar summits where all the super heroes trade licks.

It looked good on paper. And even sounds good on vinyl or, in 1985, those newfangled things called CD’s.

Here’s the pitch: Let’s bring a few of  the new, great  guitarists of the ’80s together  and let them jamnoodle with an aging legend. You know flutter about and pick it. Let’s see what you get. The other guitarists were all good, if not up and coming big stars, in their own worlds. They included: Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton, George Benson and Mark Knopfler among others.

No, Pat Metheney wasn’t there, nor Santana. But they had a quorum for first rate guitar playing. All the build-up and, in the end, it was dinner music, good dinner music, mind you.

Champagne tinkling high end  instrumental dinner music. Highland Bar and Grill dinner music. But nonetheless, dinner music. Background cocktail partymusic. That’s too harsh. Because these guys, at that point in time, had some of the greatest guitar skills of that era and beyond.

There’s certainly a place for impeccably played strum and twang.

But, alas, if it’s after dinner music you want, If it’s into the evening, staring- down-midnight-music you want, don’t come here. Instead try something like this: Mercury Blues.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Aztec Camera — 667

Knife (1984)

MCV Rating: 3.5/$$

This is a hard one to review. I like, for the most part, the lyrics, or what Roddy Frame is trying do with them. I like the easygoing acoustical music approach.

But, the opus title song, Knife at  9 minutes, is atmospheric to a fault and sounds like an outtake to Mark Knopfler’s music for the ‘Local Hero’ movie soundtrack. Excellent low-key movie BTW and excellent low-key Knopfler music on its soundtrack.. This album Knife, surprise, is produced by Knopfler.

Upon listening after many years of not digging into my collection to pull this one, I have to say some of this comes as a new found revelation. Part of the reason I wanted to do this whole Countdown thing in the first place to remember great songs that I’ve forgotten.. Aztec Camera has songs on this album that could be minor folk/ rock  classics, stuff I’d listen to all the time. Stuff played in every corner pub.

But I haven’t been. Playing these songs that is.

And I don’t feel there are a lot of club singers with this  in their repertoire. ( Could be wrong)l

Why? I think because those three or four truly good songs on the  album get lost in the esoteric Knopflersque mist. Nevertheless, there are quite excellent songs on here, starting with “Still on Fire.”

Maybe the way to go is Best of Aztec Camera. However, I just checked and it didn’t have ‘Still on Fire’ or ‘Just like the USA’ on it, which leads me to wonder about it’s direction. It reminds me of a truth that my years of song collecting has provided:  Sometimes all you  need to know about a group is in the greatest hits record, or anthology compilation. But sometimes those Best Of records are only starting points to help peel back the layers and find the truly good, even the best,  work by an artist.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Average White Band — 668

 

AWB (1974)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Is this name a self-deprecating move? Maybe what they want you to believe is that they are pretty funky for some average white guys from Scotland.

This band is tight. They jam. They make you jump up and shake your groove thang. Dang, these average white boys.

All they did was have a No. 1 U.S. Billboard  hit,  Pick Up the Pieces that was mostly instrumental funk. Tight. Right?

I think the rest of the album suffers a bit from comparison to ‘Pick Up the Pieces’. I’m a bigger fan of that Southern fried funk country jam folk (for lack of a better description) — of someone like Randall Ramblett: That other Mile.

But Pick Up the Pieces –, gosh the song — with it changalanga rhythm guitar intro joined abruptly by hard stopping trumpet punctuation — should come with a  warning label:  May cause involuntary muscle  spasms in human and other mammals.

But again, the chance of a song in this vein breaking out to worldwide status today is nil. Heck the chances were pretty much nil then in 1974 although Top 40 radio was more diverse, or so  it seemed, in styles of music. This is the bottom line ( a cliche’ I know but given the album cover and the excellent bass playing I thought it might work. Bear with me).: AWB played like they meant it, like they loved it, like they felt it.

They weren’t about to just arbitrarily funk it up..

(back cover has this shot of this average white boys’ band.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington — 669

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington (1965)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

This is a good old school jazz record, like the kind my dad used to play many years ago. My father had a rather large collection of Dixieland, which included an ample selection of ‘Satchmo.’

He also  had a boxed set of 45s by Bill Haley and the Comets that included Shake, Rattle and Roll and Rock Around the Clock. I would have loved that one but,  after many many moves in at least a half dozen states, those records –and my huge baseball card collection– have slipped through the cracks of time.

So I can’t remember where I obtained this particular record.  But I was surprised to find it on the Sears record label.

Yes, that’s correct, that place where you buy Kenmores is/was in the music business? Did not know that.

I kind of expected the sound of washing machines in the background. But Sears is serious. It seems. In small print on the back cover, Sears assures us that the ‘hallmarks of Sears Authentiphonic True Dimensional Sound are your tickets to a new experience in listening pleasure.”

Authenti-wha? Bah.

But the sound is fine. Vinyl well-preserved. Music good. Mood? Indigo.

Hidden gem: ‘Black and Tan Fantasy.’ (1929).

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

(Little known fact: Tom Petty’s first guitar was a Sears brand, no kidding.)

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Paul Anka — 670

 

ALBUM: The Fabulous Paul Anka (1959)

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$ (Gained a .5 for introducing me to some obscure R&B)

The cover of this record album has 7, no less, photos of Paul Anka all in different sizes, including the big one. They are all the same floating mug of Anka with an alarming grin..

The Anka mug shots are shaded in  purple, green, pink, and red. In medium font THE FABULOUS is followed by PAUL ANKA in really large type.

And then, if you really look, in tiny little itsy bitsy type it says: “AND OTHERS.” (See where I circled it in blue under the A at the end of Paul’s name in the cover  above.)

Really? Talk about your bait and switch. Only two of the 10 songs on the 1959 Riviera R0047 album are Anka songs. AND IT NEVER SAYS THAT ON THE COVER, SLEEVE OR RECORD ITSELF.  THERE ARE TITLES BUT NO  OTHER NAMES EXCEPT ‘AND OTHERS.’

I guess folks back in 1959 had to Google for the playlist with names  like I did.. By Googling, I found out there were cuts by such obscure luminaries as Marvin & Johnny, The Cliques and Shirley Gunter& the Queens.

Now I raise this issue because I remember getting burned buying albums back in the day that were actually re-recorded versions of the originals. Of course that information was hard to see on the album without a magnifying glass.  Now that pissed me off.

But in this case, it was not so bad for me. I bought this record for 50 cents at a flea market in Fruitland Park, FL,  when I was working the area as reporter for the Orlando Sentinel.

Flea markets tend to have old records, that might be valuable if only they were in good condition. Most of the time they are not in good condition, so it’s kind of like the bottom of the barrel. In this case, the Anka album’s cover is torn and taped. However, the vinyl looks good, there are a few minor pops and crackles.

Anyway, I buy these things for the music and, despite, or maybe because of, I enjoy this record for its variety of doo-wop, teenaged 50’s music (think Happy Days) and blues. It actually has B.B. King performing a song on it. It sounds weirdly out of place, but welcomed as a side 2 ender, “Please Love Me.” On the other side there’s “Mary Lou” sung by Young Jessie:

Mary Lou (Mary Lou) she took my watch and chain
Mary Lou (Mary Lou) she took my diamond ring
Mary Lou, she took the keys to my Cadillac car
(Mary Lou) jumped in my kitty and then drove a-far

As it turns out, I don’t really like  the two Anka songs as much as most of the other stuff.

My  news story, by the way,  for the paper was a feature about a woman who worked in this ramshackle flea market. She sold odds and ends, such as used kitchen utensils and pre-worn clothing..

She had higher aspirations, though. She said she had been working on a Star Trek novel for more than a year. It was about a little prince who had been kidnapped by some alien beings. She said she started the story when her husband took their son and ran away. She hadn’t seen them in more than a  year. She wanted to get her novel published when she finished.

I never found out if she did.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

MVC Record Grades Explained
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The Allman Brothers Band — 671

ALBUM: Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas (1976)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$

In hindsight I would have bought the Live at Fillmore East album, considered by many critics to be one of the best live rock albums of all time. And it had Duane Allman, who later died in a motorcycle accident.

But at age 15, I probably didn’t know all that and just bought the latest Allman Brothers release, Wipe the Windows, a collection of concert songs from the early to mid-1970’s. It may suffer from Fillmore comparisons, but it isn’t bad. ‘Wasted Words,’ ‘Southbound’ and ‘Rambling Man,’ recorded at various times and venues are tight, sometimes searing renditions.

A 17-minute workout of ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’ brings up a comparison debate I’ve had about jam bands, specifically between the Bros and the Grateful Dead.

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, an instrumental takes up a whole side of this double record, propelled by twin guitars and the amazing keyboards  of Chuck Leavell (later of Sea Level).

I carry the Southern banner high in this debate because if I’m going to listen to jam bands (yes the Allman Brothers were a jam band), I’ll take the Bros over the Dead any time.

One of my favorite, and possibly the best reviewer I’ve ever read, is Robert Christgau. The NY-based critic could do more in three sentences to destroy a musician’s conceits or identify or  exalt a band’s glory.

But I disagree with him on the Bros. v the Dead.

He wrote in his excellent Consumer Guide: “But even if Duane Allman plus Dickey Betts does equal Jerry Garcia, the Dead know roads are for getting somewhere. That is, Garcia (not to bring in John Coltrane) always takes you some place unexpected on a long solo. I guess the appeal here [with the Allmans] is the inevitability of it all.”

Now first off, I don’t buy the fuzzy math. I don’t believe Garcia = Duane Allman + Dickey Betts. Duane may have died before he was 30 but one listen to the album “Layla and other love songs” dispels the notion that Duane needs Dickey Betts to help him in a guitar fight with Garcia.

Now I’m in favor of going to unexpected places. But for Deadheads (and I’ve know many having lived in Marin County for a decade) every Garcia lick must have seemed a new path – that is, until the acid wore off.

With the Bros, especially when Duane was still with us, the guitar rides took us down backroads and small time Southern byways. We rolled, brothers and sisters, down Highway 41.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.