Last great guitar hero

Babones

jonnyburgo said:

I thought Page's best riffs were gifted to him by John Paul Jones.

Well Zep in general, they came mostly from black/folk/blues artists in general. riffs, lyrics, melodies... Here's just a small comparison.

equalsql

The last great guitar here... doesn't come more heroic than this:

EdGrip

koneguitarist said

Mm if I have to look him up on wiki then is he a guitar hero ? I can't see what he has done for music full stop apart from a catchy riff and singing like that nutter from Police academy!

That's how us kids feel about all your old-man guitarists, grandad! Only joking - your post was too curmudgeonly to resist!

Jack White smashed up his fretting-hand index finger in a car crash in 2003, so he's another three-finger player. 

I would credit him with being the first to really fetishise the noises between the notes - the mutes, the pick scrapes, the deadened hammer-ons as spat through a Big Muff. Listen to "Steady As She Goes" for a good example of what I mean. I might credit him also with making dirty, nasty, lo-fi fuzzy distortion sound massive, and sound cool, where previously people prized "tight" or "smooth" or "creamy" or "natural" in their distorted sounds. Band of Skulls owe plenty to Jack. 

Albums to listen to though good headphones would be "Elephant" by the White Stripes, or "Broken Boy Soldiers" by the Raconteurs - the latter is my favourite Jack White album.

EdGrip

Vibetronic said:

Dan's a mate of mine, we lived together at uni Lovely chap and a really inventive guitarist. 

Haha! I think if things had gone differently he could've ended up alongside Greenwood etc. Do tell him he got cited as a guitar hero. D'you know if he's still playing in any capacity?

exocet

Steve Vai in the Dave Lee Roth "eat 'em and smile" era. Richie Kotzen? Slightly more up to date, Philip Sayce? I don't think that Guitar Heros exist in the same way as they did in the 70's, 80's and 90's?

dafuzz

Slash was the last great guitar hero, but if you insist on redefining the term to mean 'guitar innovator' (why?!) then I'd agree with Tom Morello as the most recent.

Being a guitar hero is more about style and swagger in my book, so I'd include people like Keith Richards and Elvis.

Innovators would be people like Steve Vai, Robert Fripp and The Edge.

Only Hendrix to my mind properly pushed boundaries *and* was a guitar hero. I know a lot of people rate Jeff Beck but I don't hear much originality there myself, nor is he known to Joe Public apart from Hi Ho Silver Lining.

Otherwise guitarists tend to be an innovator or a hero, not both.

All imo, obv.

1nten5e

In the 80's The Edge shaped a lot of my playing....although I don't actually rate him as a 'player' he certainly changed the direction for rock guitar.........Frusciante all the way since then, no 'million note' solo's but to me everything he does is so different to everyone else, and his solo stuff is even more so

not_the_dj

Wisdom to @dafuzz

daveww

Concur with many of the views/points raised but surprised no one mentions mark knopfler anymore. Not the latest by any means but a guitar hero to many nonetheless

richardhomer

The Edge, SRV?

ICBM

daveww said:

Concur with many of the views/points raised but surprised no one mentions mark knopfler anymore. Not the latest by any means but a guitar hero to many nonetheless

Absolutely - one of my early heroes and a big influence, but very definitely not the last.

Iamnobody

Well a poll of 30,000 listeners ( perhaps not that representative of the man on the street as 6 music listeners are more knowledgable than most I would imagine) gives it to Frusciante.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8611997.stm

All of the top 10 have been mentioned on this thread with the exception of Prince - who we all know is fine guitarist but not always first to come to mind.

And Peter Buck who is perhaps the surprise inclusion - it's easy to forget how massive REM are/were.

suspiciousminds

For me, weirdly, as a scotty moore, james burton, george harrison and general fan of rock, and rocknroll etc, kurt cobain tops my list as the last great guitar hero.
I wanted to hate it when his music first came out but i dont,i love it.
Considering he was supposed to be the anti-guitar hero he produced many a great riff and a distinctive style and sound.

lustycourtier

EdGrip said:

Seems like we've got two questions here: 

1. Who is the last Guitar Hero that someone in the chip shop might have heard of (most people, contrary to your assertion, won't have heard of Slash. My dad hasn't heard of Slash, nor has my mum, and nor - I suspect - has the woman in the chip shop.) The problem here is that the "probably heard of" threshold is a bit vague and subjective; I would *guess* that more people have heard of Brian May than have Slash, and that still more people have heard of Jimi Hendrix - though I suspect that only Jimi would make it over the "over 50% of people you ask" majority threshold. So I think that's asking the wrong question - I think a better one would be who among people who enjoy rock'n'roll music is the last Guitar Hero? Hmm.

Anyone in the 2000s? Jack White? Matt Bellamy, maybe, but I don't think so. Alex Turner probably did more to bring loud guitar back into the mainstream after its little holiday, even make it cool again, but I don't think anyone would call him a Guitar Hero. Popular appetite was huge for nu-metal at the start of the 2000s, but I don't think the kids buying those albums were particularly interested in who was playing what on the guitar - they were there for the music and the pain.

Anyone in the 1990s? A few - Morello, Armstrong, Homme, Greenwood. Cobain. These are people where I think that listeners and fans of the band who were non-guitarists would nonetheless have appreciated the guitar playing of these guys in itself, in addition to the music. I can imagine non-guitarists playing air guitar to these tracks. There are plenty of people playing guitar now because of each one of them.

And so, to the 80s. Where, let's face it, it's Slash. It just is. 

The other question is, who was the last guitarist who influenced you? Surprised you, inspired you, made you want to be able to play like they do?

For me, lately, this has been Russell Marsden, of Band of Skulls, and the guitarists in CAKE (there have been two, Greg Brown and Xan McCurdy). But the two players who have been there or thereabouts throughout my time playing guitar are Brian May, Jonny Greenwood, and The Crocketts' guitarist Dan Harris (who is now living in Ibiza or something, not being a guitarist). If I could ever hope to play guitar in a way that was somehow a sum of these guys... that would be me well and truly chuffed for ever.

Have a wisdom for mentioning CAKE. One of the greatest bands ever, 

kelvinburn

Joshua Homme for electric. Like clockwork proved the man is a riff machine and interesting soloist. His use of effects is also brilliant. The fact that everything he touches is musical gold - Screaming Trees, Kyuss, QOTSA, Dessert Sessions, Them Crooked Vultures - just adds to it. Obviously IMHO Jon Gomm for acoustic. If you haven't heard him I recommend heading to youtube immediately. If you have heard him then its likely you'll agree

koneguitarist

I think after listening to the answers, I wonder if we actually have a place for "the guitar hero" anymore due to the way society moves on so quickly. The guitar hero of the 60's era was easier as everything seemed new and was pushing the boundaries at that time, be it Beck, Clapton with Cream or Hendrix.

So each new style that hits the scene such as sweep picking frank Gambale, the delay drenched Edge or the primitive style of  Jack Black, we see it hear it then move on to next new fad. 

As opposed to really getting into a theme of exploring that genre of playing to the umpteenth degree, in the way we did before. 

SRV spawned a whole school of imitators of something that in itself came from a degree of imitation.

Vai and Satriani took EVH  style and improved it beyond its basic style and moved on with the skill levels.

And that's where I think my view is, the last person to be totally original, not taught and developed, but with a sense of sheer wonder  at the possibilities of what can be done is EVH, because it was so fresh, he had absorbed all the stuff that had gone before amalgamated it and turned it completely into his own style and spawned the last great opening up of the guitar. 

To this day I am not sure if any one person will ever have the same effect again on any instrument.

FWIW

My own particular heroes in order of me learning on guitar is as follows.

1 my Brother.  Who first showed me stuff.

2 Luther Perkins, as that's what I was first hearing growing up in my house.

3 James Burton , with Elvis

4 Scotty Moore with Elvis

5 Dave Edmunds, that 335 tone.

6 Robbie Robertson of the Band, musical sense of playing what's needed not just for the sake of a solo.

EdGrip

I think I would agree that Josh Homme is probably the closest thing we've still got to a bona fide guitar hero. QOTSA and TCV are true rock and roll, air-guitarable, head-banging purveyors of technically-good and innovative guitar. This, in addition to the fact that he is a huge ego and very charismatic, mean he probably qualifies as a guitar hero. Jesse "Eagles of Death Metal" Hughes has got at least as much charisma, but is hardly a scholar of the electric guitar.

I think Koneguitarist hit the nail on the head - the noises that this 6-stringed thing is capable of making have largely been explored, by musicians from every syle and background. People are limited to exploring the boundaries between styles, rather than try bringing the electric guitar to a completely new genre of music. Additionally, I think there's often a certain reluctance from guitarists in any "scene" to soak up other styles and be influenced by them, because the scene is prescriptive about the sound, chords, structure etc.

ICBM

koneguitarist said:

I think after listening to the answers, I wonder if we actually have a place for "the guitar hero" anymore due to the way society moves on so quickly.

I agree. The electric guitar is no longer the pre-eminent instrument in modern music, and when it is used it's more for its sound and attitude than as a virtuoso soloing instrument, which is what 'guitar heroes' tend to be associated with.

I still think Jack White counts as a guitar hero if there is such a thing as a modern one, but he's obviously still not a virtuoso in the way someone like Steve Vai is.

In which case the right answer might be Matt Bellamy...

kelvinburn

Would anyone class PGS Andy as a modern guitar hero? Thinking about it I probably hear more of his playing than anyone elses and would say I'm quite a fan. This may also apply to Rob Chappers for some too

Travisthedog

Josh Homme

No one else like him