The Best Guitarists of All Time | Matthew Iovane

Coming up with a list of the best guitarists of all time can be a challenging task, as it is often quite subjective and taking into consideration that there are many genres to choose from such as blues, jazz, rock, funk and classical. Speaking of classical, the first guitarist that comes to my mind is Andre Segovia. He was known as the "Master of Classical Guitar". Moving from the classical realm to gypsy jazz and flamenco, Paco De Lucia and Django Reinhardt come to mind. I realize that I am jumping around quite a bit (listing the best guitarists is a bit of a stream of consciousness exercise) and I want to cover as many of my favorites here as possible.



I was heavily influenced by the jazz fusion guitarists of the seventies and eighties by artists such as Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Steve Morse, John Scofeild, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Alan Holds worth and Scott Henderson. In the straight-ahead jazz world, a few of my favorites are Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, Howard Roberts and of course one of my all-time favorites: George Benson who later crossed over to the Smooth Jazz and Pop Music world.

George started out in his career playing straight-ahead and bebop and was featured in the group of the great jazz organist, Jack Mc Duff'. He later went on to record several solo albums with great success and is one of the most recognized and covered guitarists in jazz. One of George Benson's long-time musical partners is Earl Klugh, who is a master of the nylon string jazz styling. Charlie Christian was a jazz guitar pioneer who influenced many of the jazz guitar icons including George Benson and Wes Montgomery! Wes Montgomery was a true musical genius, which in my humble opinion, could be the greatest jazz guitarist of all time!

On the rock side of things, we have Jimi Hendrix, who was a true pioneer and had a profound impact on guitar players of many different genres and styles to this day. I also need to mention Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Robert Fripp, Steve Howe, Richie Blackmore, Eric Clapton (who could also be considered a bluesman), Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I could literally spend hours and hours compiling a list of the greatest rock guitarists and still not be able to list them all!

I am also a great fan of the Los Angeles and New York studio session guitarists who played many different styles and in various musical situations. Larry Carlton is known as the master of session work and was best known for playing on iconic recordings with Steely Dan, The Crusaders and for TV shows such as Hill Street Blues. Additionally, Steve Lukather and Michael Landau were the top session guitarists on the LA studio scene in the eighties and nineties and are still out there touring and tearing up the guitar neck! Another great studio guitarist (and one of my personal favorites) is Buzzy Feiten who has been performing recently in Bette Midler's show in Las Vegas.

Another of my all-time favorite guitarists has played the LA jazz, funk & fusion studio scene for years and more recently the blues scene. I am speaking of the one and only Robben Ford. I can't leave out the blues, which is the root of most of the modern guitar styles. Leading the way for other blues guitarists were the likes of BB King, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins, Freddy King, the list goes on and on. I also have to acknowledge the masters of blues guitar from the Mississippi Delta area that laid the foundation for modern blues, rock, R&B and soul music, but there are just too many to list here! I think that I might have to write a second article covering more great guitarists and any genres that I may have left out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Matthew Iovane | How to Play the Guitar: Get Started Playing the Guitar Today

Image
Matthew Iovane "When I started to play the guitar, I did things the hard way, trying to play chords and play songs. It was frustrating because my fingers just couldn't find the right position to make the guitar sound good. Since then, I've learned how to get started playing the guitar that's much faster and much easier and I'm going to show you how you can play the guitar right away. I love playing the guitar! I'm self-taught until a few years ago when I started working a music teacher. I bought my first guitar in 1989. But it's only been in the past five years that I've really focused on playing the guitar well. And now, I'm pretty good. I can jam with good musicians and I can sit down and entertain myself for hours with my guitar. Today, I'd rather play guitar than watch TV. Here's why: after watching TV, I'm relaxed and I've wasted an hour. After playing guitar, I'm relaxed and I'm an improved guitar player. A D
Read more

Matthew iovane | The Greatest Rock Guitarist - Who is He?

Image
It seems that rock guitar players have always been a crowd pleaser, even going back to the days of Les Paul. He may not qualify as a rock guitarist in the sense that we understand it today, but Les Paul certainly made people sit up and take notice whenever he played. Of course, Les was in at the very beginning of the solid body electric guitar's entry onto the stage, so at that time there were very few guitarists who were even interested enough to get the technique to become a great rock guitarist. The foundation of the concept of the rock guitarist lay in the consolidation of the small group with drums, bass, lead and rhythm guitars, plus, maybe a keyboard. Groups like The Shadows, The Ventures and Dick Dale's Dell Tones made young men go out and buy guitars and sit in their rooms for hours practicing. When The Beatles became the first small group to gain international attention from people of all ages, the guitar reached the height of its popularity. The era of the g
Read more

Matthew Iovane | The Best Way To Learn Guitar

Image
Matthew Iovane - One of the most asked and yet trickiest questions to answer for many beginner guitar players when they are first starting out is: what is the acceptable standard, or "best way" to learn how to play guitar? Of course the answer is there is no one single right way to learn how to play guitar and it all depends on the guitarist. Matthew Iovane - There are those that learn easily from books and can figure the rest out for themselves such as proper finger placement, technique, and of course, final sound, while others may choose a live instructor, a DVD series, or online guitar lessons from one of the great guitar learning systems that are available. Lastly there are people who will be entirely self-taught and who with time and practice will develop their skill sets. In actuality there is no one way of learning that will make you a better guitar player than another. Most of the best guitarist have in fact studied under seve
Read more