Ok then, who are the greatest guitar players in the world? It’s the kind of debate that gets tongues wagging in pubs up and down the country and so I’m going to put my two pennies in. Let’s see what you think. At the end of it all it really doesn’t matter it’s a completely subjective question and your 4 might be every different to mine and just as right. One thing I do know is that if any of these guys had been seen in any of the Guitar shops Gloucesterhire way it would have caused quite a scene. Why don’t you check out this website https://www.guitarsmiths.co.uk/ and get an axe of your own, maybe you could make this list one day.
- J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Ok, I’m starting with a less well known one. J is the ultimate slacker rocker, his band Dinosaur Jnr erupting from the garage sound of the mid-eighties on the Blast First label. They were grunge before grunge was even a thing using distortion pedals and long slow lazy riffs that often descend into a cacophonic chaos. J Mascis makes playing the guitar look like the easiest thing in the world to do, as if he’s just picked it up and decided that he’s going to give this guitar lark a go.
- Jimi Hendrix – And the next one is very well known. It is of course the master of the axe Hendrix. Of all the artists I wish I’d been able to see it is the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix, a onetime guitarist for James Brown, is a true legend. He had to play his right-hand Strat upside down because he was left handed and couldn’t get one. What manual and mental dexterity! It didn’t stop him playing it with his teeth, behind his head and then setting fire to it.
- Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin. One of the greatest bands in the world needs one of the greatest guitarists. Jimmy Page learnt his craft working and performing with some of the cornerstone bands of the 60s at the Marquee club before forming Led Zeppelin and basic inventing Heavy Rock and Heavy Metal in one fell swoop. A brilliantly talented guitarist who never ignores melody and tune remembering his blues background to the very end.
- Dave Brock – Hawkwind. If you say Dave who? I will be very upset. Hawkwind may have never troubled the charts apart from once in the 1970’s but Dave Brock should be given so much more respect than he gets. If Zeppelin invented the foundation of Metal Hawkwind took up the mantle and developed it and built it into the megalith itis. Dismissed as a prog rock band is unfair. Under Brocks guidance Hawkwind were already playing Punk before it got a name and working on ambient sound as well. Brock fused poetry, Space rock and performance through a haze of Psychedelics, and he’s still doing it to this day.
This is my list tell me yours.