The Three Most Influential Guitar Solos On Your Life.

equalsql

What are the top three guitar solos that have influenced you the most?

The three solos that changed your life and made you re-evaluate your playing?

For me it's:

Tony Peluso's solo on the outro of The Carpenter's 'Goodbye To Love'

Larry Carlton's legendry solo on Steely Dan's 'Kid Charlemagne'

And Robben Ford's solo on The Yellow Jackets 'Monmouth College Fight Song' captured at Montreux on the 'Casino Nights Live' album.

Which, incredibly, was actually filmed!

Kicks in at 1:36

guitarfishbay

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

Dokken - The Hunter

Megadeth - Tornado Of Souls

dindude

In order:

Join Together - The Who. Odd choice I know but those lead breaks made me want to play guitar in the first place.

Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan. Well no explanation needed.

Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson (the whole thing). Heard it on the Radio when it came out and at the time couldn't believe my ears.

equalsql

dindude said:

Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson (the whole thing). Heard it on the Radio when it came out and at the time couldn't believe my ears.

I remember that track was on a flexi-disc attacked to the cover of Guitar magazine when EJ was first discovered. He was on the front cover. It was completely mind blowing being a live recorded version. I remember in the article Steve Morse was saying how in awe he was of Johnson's playing.

This edition..I think I still have this somewhere up in my loft...with a bunch of other issues from the same period.

http://www.guitarflashback.com/backissues/guitarplayer/8605gp.JPG

stimpsonslostson

Hendrix- Voodoo.  Initially not the solo, but the intro- though the solo is a killer too. My dad had a warped 45 single. Just hearing the crackle then THAT intro still sends shivers down my neck. My introduction to something other than the terrible pop on the radio in the 80s. Made me want a guitar in the first place. 

GnR- Rocket Queen. Again, not the solo, but the bit where it becomes REALLY crunchy chordal riffs. Made me realise guitars could be sleazy and dangerous. 

Satriani- Surfin with the Alien. All of it. I had never heard instrumental rock guitar before. It opened up a whole new world for me. 

Rocker

Johnny Cash - I walk the line

Horslips - Dearg Doom

Gloria - One day at a time

tone1

Ride on or The Jack Live - AC/DC 
Baker Street-  Gerry Raferty
Jessie's Girl- Rick Springfield 

Danny1969

Not a solo but a complete instrumental ... Apache  by The Shadows, that was the sound that made me want to play guitar

Eruption ... bear in mind I'm old, when I heard that it didn't even sound like a guitar, I thought it was a keyboard. I was playing but had no idea a guitar could sound like that !

Mother, Pink Floyd .... never comes up as his best work like Numb does but the sheer feel in that solo struck a chord in me and still one of my faves 

Veganic

Only You Can Rock Me - UFO.
Melodic and not completely pointless.

Marquee Moon - Television.
(Relatively) Clean can be cool.

Hello  -L. Richie.
I just really like it.

That's just three off the top of my head.  I usually switch off during solos.

mudslide73

Goodbye to love by The Carpenters (my dad is a Carpenters completist). It's bloody marvellous.

Badge by Cream. First solo I learned note for note properly. It has some fantastic phrasing.

Warning by Black Sabbath. I listened to this yesterday and noticed how I'd lifted nearly all my licks from it. Tony is a massive hero.

fandango

In the order I discovered them:

Lynyrd Skynyrd's epic on Freebird - as i say, this was and remains epic

The solo on Black Sabbath's Paranoid - short and sweet

Hawkwind's Master of the Universe, as I have these on a mind loop

Frank Zappa's Watermelon in Easter Hay on the Joe's Garage album - probably one of Frank's best and most accessible solos

 Yes, I know I slipped in an extra, but we like bonus tracks, do we not?

Grunfeld

"Then Came The Last Days of May"  -- Blue Öyster Cult -- On Your Feet live version -- bends and phrasing - a grower, not a grabber.

"Rock Bottom" -- UFO    -- Strangers live version [I could have chosen any number of Michael Schenker solos but this has lots of my favourite Schenker trademarks]

"Baby's On Fire"  -- Robert Fripp playing on Eno's song is beautiful madness! 

richardhomer

Sultans of Swing - I remember being amazed how the guitar intertwined with vocal - it was as though it helped 'tell the story'

Shine on You Crazy Diamond - I'd never heard a solo this long before - or which held my attention. It may well be my favourite piece of guitar playing of all time.

Need Your Love So Bad - Peter Green's masterpiece of understatement and phrasing. The most 'elegant' of all blues players....

TheBigDipper

Venus De Milo - Television (can't remember if it was Tom or Richard). @Veganic - clean (on the edge of breakup) definitely IS cool... 

The Kid With The Replaceable Head - Richard Hell & The Voidoids (Robert Quine)

Lookin' At You - MC5 (Fred, I think)

I'll have another list by lunchtime, this is just what popped up right now in my little head.

ICBM

Brian May - We Will Rock You
Lindsey Buckingham - Go Your Own Way
Mark Knopfler - Tunnel Of Love

There would be a Ritchie Blackmore one in there, except that I can't nail it down to one solo.

EricTheWeary

I was listening to Goodbye to Love the other day and I'd almost say it isn't a solo in the sense of something like 'improvised interlude' and more of an instrumental section that's a fundamental part of the song. 

Anyway, I usually say Whole Lotta Love as the song where I thought aha that's what they mean by lead guitar, although it's a memory shrouded by the mists of time so who knows. 

Dressing Trashy by Philip Walker ( might have been Otis Grand on guitar) as it was the first of still a tiny number of songs where I attempted to learn a solo to reproduce it live in a way that passably resembled the original.

Dallas 1pm by Saxon. I'd have to admit in retrospect much of their stuff doesn't stand up that well but I loved the dynamics of this. 

Winny_Pooh

this is hard, but on pure impact at the time I heard them:

Dave Gilmour - Time
Eric Johnson - Desert Rose
Marc Ribot - Jockey full of Bourbon

I was going to put EVH but I was more inspired by the riffage and licks than full solos.

DarnWeight

Adrian Belew - The Great Curve (from Talking Heads' Remain In Light LP)
Bob Mould - Wishing Well
Neil Young - Cortez The Killer

I'd probably include something off Marquee Moon too, but I wouldn't want to try and separate the whole Verlaine/Lloyd thing.

viz

1) Parisienne Walkways (live single that came with Corridors of Power)

2) Stargazer

3) For the Love of God

Kebabkid

1/ Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan (Larry Carlton)

2/ Still in Love with you - Thin Lizzy and the Live & Dangerous version (Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham)

3/ Hard to say I'm sorry - Chicago (Steve Lukather)

Bubbling under were more Lukather, particularly the ballads or something off of "Isolation"
Robben Ford's "Talk to your daughter" and "Help the poor.
Something from Neal Schon from the Escape album
"Eruption" by EVH
And.."Hotel California"

stratman3142

There are numerous solos over the years that have knocked me sideways. As we're limited to three , I'll go for three early ones.

Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child : Sounds/effects I'd never heard before. Gave me a vision of what the guitar was capable of, beyond simple notes. 

Paul Kossoff - The Hunter : That wailing vibrato. For a long time the only guitarist I wanted to play like.

Larry Carlton - Kid Charlemagne : Up until then I'd worked out for myself how to use major/minor pentatonics, the blues scales and modes of the major scale. I couldn't fathom how Larry Carlton made his note choices, which resulted in me taking a few jazz lessons to set me on the right track.

Btw. Monmouth College Fight Song mentioned in the OP is a fantastic solo by Robben Ford and I once learned it note for note.