The best British Guitarist?

AlexC

Just an observation - how many people who comment on a thread actually read all the comments? There’s a lot of the same points being made and people saying so and so hasn’t been mentioned when they have.


Give it a page and someone will say - how many people read all the comments! 

Voxman

guitars4you said:

Sorry guys but I don't buy into this the 'best' - Not measurable in any way shape or form

Great that we can be influenced by so many and have our favourite hero's - And GB + Ireland have provided many fine players that are influential around the world - From many different styles

Don't want to put a damper on your OP (yet I have) 

Many have influenced me in different ways but if I had to pick 2 favourites then I'd say Gary and Rory from the emerald isle

+1 - The list is huge.  Other great British players include Peter Green & Mark Knopfler for their wonderful touch, Mick Ralphs (RIP) and Paul Kossoff for their simpler approach, tone and classic riffs (don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep), and speaking of Led Zep - Jimmy Page of course.  And that's before you go onto Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton, Steve Marriot, Bert Jansch, Mick Taylor, Clem Clempson, Dave Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Howe, Johnny Marr, Hank Marvin, Brian May, Alvin Lee, Andy Summers, Pete Townshend, Ted Turner, Steve Winwood, Bruce Welsh....

....and the list just goes on and on.  We've been so fortunate to have (and had) so many great players that have each brought something different - and the more you listen to, the more you appreciate the influences and cross-over influences - it really is quite extraordinary. 
 

blobb

Tony Cuffe

Dan86

The BEST - no such thing?

My personal fave.. Gary Moore 

TeleMaster

stickyfiddle said:

Avoiding the blues/dullards, how about;

Brian May
Pete Townshend
Johnny Marr
The Edge (born in Wales)
Matt Bellamy
James Dean Bradfield
George Harrison
Them blokes off of Iron Maiden
Jonny Greenwood

The Edge was born in Barking!

Keith for me!

Voxman said:

guitars4you said:

Sorry guys but I don't buy into this the 'best' - Not measurable in any way shape or form

Great that we can be influenced by so many and have our favourite hero's - And GB + Ireland have provided many fine players that are influential around the world - From many different styles

Don't want to put a damper on your OP (yet I have) 

Many have influenced me in different ways but if I had to pick 2 favourites then I'd say Gary and Rory from the emerald isle

(don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep),

 

In what regard? Bad company werent even in the same league as Led Zep for album sales, hits, influence, tours, merchandise etc. 

Grocer_Jack

Grumpyrocker said:

jeztone2 said:

There’s a few issues here.

1: Music is art, art is subjective.

2: In terms of mass media. Culturally Britain has been anti technical guitar since about 1977. The Journalistic ideals of punk have never really left the UK music scene. So a technically good British guitarist would likely be slagged off, long before their art or ideas could come into focus. Indie musicians have a cultural Stalinism that makes being innovative quite unlikely. I’m sure I read somewhere that Annie the bassist in Elastica was a shit hot blues player, but couldn’t make any money doing it. So took the indie dollar on bass. 

Maybe with a new new wave of female players coming to the fore, that might finally change.

3: How would players come to anyone’s notice now? Social media? But then that’s not the same as writing a killer song. 

British media - and the many middle aged journos writing for the Guardian and others - for a long time has vastly overstated the importance of punk. The BBC is the same, always trotting out the punk v prog myth at every turn. Of course the reason glam and punk represent British music so much for the BBC is that's because those bands could be relied on to pitch up and appear on Top of the Pops so the Beeb has footage it can endlessly repeat. Meanwhile the British bands that were selling millions across the world didn't do much Top of the Pops - Zeppelin, Floyd, Sabbath, Purple, Fleetwood Mac et all were too busy being genuinely successful. 

One of the few 70/80s music journalists with a realistic view of punk's (important - I'm not knocking punk) place among the many new music forms of the 70s is Danny Baker. He's often pointed out how there was something new almost every year of the 70s and punk was one of many, it didn't destroy anything, it was just what it was. Disco was bigger anyway.   

The importance of punk wasn't so much the music itself, but in the access to making and distributing music via independent/DIY labels. Sure, the majors signed up lots of punk artists, but many of them had had their first break through tiny labels that hadn't existed 6 months previously. That was the game changer - breaking down the barriers to entry. Of course lots of low quality music came out too, but overall it was such a positive development. 

The cultural Stalinism thing is spot on though - I came through via punk, but my view was 'now we're in let's get as good as we can'. I always wanted to combine the energy and attitude with the musicality and song craft of the Beatles, The Who, The Byrds, The Kinks, Syd Barrett etc. I left quite a few bands because no-one wanted to work at it. In some circles if you even mentioned the Beatles in the late 70s/early 80s no-one wanted to know. Anything pre- year zero (1976) didn't exist, apart from a few you were allowed to like (Bowie, Stooges, VU, MC5). 

Anyway, my favourite British Guitarist: 
Townshend. 

Sassafras

Ed Sheeran.

guitarmangler

Holdsworth 

GuyR

Nobody has yet mentioned John Etheridge, so I have.

Voxman

TeleMaster said:

Voxman said:

(don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep),

 

In what regard? Bad company werent even in the same league as Led Zep for album sales, hits, influence, tours, merchandise etc. 

Not correct.  Bad Company (also managed by Peter Grant of course) had huge success in the US eg 'Bad Company' was No1 in the Billboard 200 & No.3 in the UK album charts, had numerous Platinum records and they were playing big stadium gigs. A lot of folk don't realise how huge they were in the day. OK, no one was as big as Led Zep - but they weren't far behind. Unfortunately when John Bonham died Peter Gent lost interest and the band fell apart. 

TeleMaster

Sorry but they were pretty far behind. Led Zep had 300m+ record sales, are featured everywhere and still hold a lot of relevancy. Bad Company had 1 US number 1 and although I can’t find exact numbers it doesn’t seem like they hit even close to Led Zeps numbers. Paul Rodgers had 90m record sales total, which while impressive is still nowhere near 300m. 

They were a very big and successful band, but they don’t compete with the likes of the Stones, the Beatles, Zeppelin, Floyd, Elton John etc I’m afraid. 

Perhaps you have different criteria to me.

Mark1960

Albert Lee?

Fretwired

Sassafras said:

No Brian May fans on here then?
I'm not one but I'm surprised he hasn't had a mention.

He's on my list on page one .. :-)

He has a unique tone and his multi-laying technique on Queen recordings was innovative.

JayGee

I’ve kept up with the thread but I still haven’t seen anything to make me want to reconsider my nomination of Jeff Beck.

Yes he’s been around for a long, long, long time, and no he’s not got the hit writing credits some players have but...

A) He’s been innovating, changing, and growing for his whole career, which in view of how long that career’s been so far gives him somewhat of an unfair head-start over younger innovators like Coxon, Marr, Bellamy et-al.

He’s been on a hell of a lot of other people’s hit records!

The main thing for me is still the man’s sheer versatility though, I mean I’d always known he had a wide range, but watching the Les Paul tribute show left me utterly gob-smacked...

Sassafras

Fretwired said:

Sassafras said:

No Brian May fans on here then?
I'm not one but I'm surprised he hasn't had a mention.

He's on my list on page one .. :-)

He has a unique tone and his multi-laying technique on Queen recordings was innovative.

I'm sorry but lists for the best guitarist are disqualified. I'm afraid you can only pick one 

NelsonP

Den Dennis

SimonC

Voxman said:

TeleMaster said:

Voxman said:

(don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep),

 

In what regard? Bad company werent even in the same league as Led Zep for album sales, hits, influence, tours, merchandise etc. 

Not correct.  Bad Company (also managed by Peter Grant of course) had huge success in the US eg 'Bad Company' was No1 in the Billboard 200 & No.3 in the UK album charts, had numerous Platinum records and they were playing big stadium gigs. A lot of folk don't realise how huge they were in the day. OK, no one was as big as Led Zep - but they weren't far behind. Unfortunately when John Bonham died Peter Gent lost interest and the band fell apart. 

If you go by record sales, you would have to include Steve Clark and Phil Collen.

TeleMaster

SimonC said:

Voxman said:

TeleMaster said:

Voxman said:

(don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep),

 

In what regard? Bad company werent even in the same league as Led Zep for album sales, hits, influence, tours, merchandise etc. 

Not correct.  Bad Company (also managed by Peter Grant of course) had huge success in the US eg 'Bad Company' was No1 in the Billboard 200 & No.3 in the UK album charts, had numerous Platinum records and they were playing big stadium gigs. A lot of folk don't realise how huge they were in the day. OK, no one was as big as Led Zep - but they weren't far behind. Unfortunately when John Bonham died Peter Gent lost interest and the band fell apart. 

If you go by record sales, you would have to include Steve Clark and Phil Collen.

The Spice Girls?

EricTheWeary

SimonC said:

Voxman said:

TeleMaster said:

Voxman said:

(don't forget Bad Company was almost as big as Led Zep),

 

In what regard? Bad company werent even in the same league as Led Zep for album sales, hits, influence, tours, merchandise etc. 

Not correct.  Bad Company (also managed by Peter Grant of course) had huge success in the US eg 'Bad Company' was No1 in the Billboard 200 & No.3 in the UK album charts, had numerous Platinum records and they were playing big stadium gigs. A lot of folk don't realise how huge they were in the day. OK, no one was as big as Led Zep - but they weren't far behind. Unfortunately when John Bonham died Peter Gent lost interest and the band fell apart. 

If you go by record sales, you would have to include Steve Clark and Phil Collen.

If we are talking sales then  (Scot) Davey  Johnstone would be up there as well ( well ahead of Clark and Collen I guess). You'd probably have to throw John Lennon and George Harrison into that mix as well. 

PhilW1

Might as well  have a  'whats your favourite length of string,' thread(see what I did there).