I remember in 1984 bringing home a vinyl copy of the Rising Force album by Yngwie, I was 15 yrs old and I swear I had a listening to Van Halen 1 in 1978 experience. The sheer accuracy and precision just blew me away and I wanted to be Yngwie. I saved and saved and eventually bought a red usa strat with maple neck to play thru my peavey bandit 65 in the bedroom and drove my mum and dad insane with reverb soaked high gain and endless speed picking and sweeping arpeggios.<br><br>This was all fine and dandy for years until I had the experience in 1988 which shook my guitar world. Cant remember where I was or what I was doing but I heard the track "see the light" by Jeff Healey and I was shellshocked to the boots.<br><br>Had to find out more and then imagine my shock when finding out he is blind and plays the guitar horizontally on his lap whilst seated. Got the see the light album on vinyl and stuck it on dads turntable and sat down to listen. Where Yngwie ran up and down the same E harmonic scale on nearly every song and just didnt let up for a whole album at a time, Healey could literally stop traffic with a single note, that vibrato, that tone and that intensity and Yngwie grew old immediately.<br><br>I can appreciate Yngwie for what he did back in 84 but nowadays I find his music apocalyptically boring. May Jeff Healey rest in peace, my guitar hero forever and the man who killed my interest in Yngwie and the whole shred thing stone dead. When did you not want to be Yngwie, or do you want to play just like him ?
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