52 Guitars
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Sonic Youth (Thurston Moore and Lee Rinaldo) I'm cheating; this week's installment is actually two guitars. But I can't separate them–they don't alternate solos or anything like that, and they produce one sound that I doubt could be produced by either of them alone. Perhaps one of them is more responsible for the strangely appealing…
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Phil Keaggy CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) is not the place you'd normally go to hear some shredding. That's part of the reason why Phil Keaggy's name is not widely known outside the circles of CCM and guitar aficionados and players. (He converted to evangelical Christianity as a rising rock musician with the band Glass Harp,…
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Luther Allison Does anything else really need to be said? Have another taste: If you haven't heard of him before, here's his Wikipedia entry; sadly, he died at a relatively young 57. I first heard him on the Alligator Records 25th Anniversary Collection, which includes some great stuff. (Warning: that page has a music…
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Derek Trucks As I mentioned last week, Derek Trucks is the nephew of Butch Trucks, one of the three original members of the Allman Brothers Band who are still with the group today. And starting in 1999 and continuing until just recently Derek was in it, too. He was a child–well, ok, a teenaged–prodigy, as…
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Duane Allman In my none-too-humble opinion, the Allman Brothers when Duane was still alive were the greatest blues-rock band there's ever been. (For those who don't know the story: Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971, at the age of 24. You can read the band's entire long story at AllMusic.com.) Without him…
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Danny Gatton An obvious follow-up to Roy Buchanan: another Telecaster master with mind-boggling technique, not very well-known outside the circles of those who are specifically interested in electric guitar. Like Buchanan, he was even called "the world's greatest unknown guitarist." He was also nicknamed "The Humbler" in reference to the way other players felt about…
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Roy Buchanan That's the great and tragic Roy Buchanan, once introduced as "the world's greatest unknown guitarist." He never did become very widely known, but he was certainly admired, respected, and influential. I reviewed the double-CD collection Sweet Dreams here a few years ago…well, over seven years ago…and for further information, and an opinion which hasn't…
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Terje Rypdal A Norwegian player whose work is most often something that could be roughly classified as jazz-rock fusion, Rypdal is a long-time ECM artist, going back to the mid-1970s, which really tells you more about him than an attempt to place him in a genre. I'm familiar with maybe four or five of his…
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Joe Satriani I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Satriani was Steve Vai's teacher. I like Satriani better, to the extent that I know his work. His material just seems more appealing to me, more overall-musical. I reviewed his Flying in a Blue Dream album several years ago, and am still of more or less the…
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Steve Vai Well, for the first time in this series, and the last, I'm going to feature some music that I don't really like all that much. I know Steve Vai's work more by reputation than actual listening, and had decided he would be next. But when I started looking for clips to post, I…
Light On Dark Water 