King’s sound is unmistakable, but this is above all an emotive solo, working off the sentiments of the lyrics, down to the pleading tones at the end. For the last two minutes, his guitar Lucille steps up and wails. King’s breakthrough hit single was the part they didn’t play on AM radio. A showcase both for Clinton’s free-associative verse and Hazel’s guitar, the song ran 10 minutes on record and regularly topped a half-hour onstage.Ĥ: B.B. It was however darker than anything in Hendrix’s catalog, steeped in Vietnam-era dread and the after-effects of LSD.
If all the guitarists who picked up on Hendrix’s influence, few did it sooner or better than P-Funk lead guitarist Eddie Hazel, who employed the full arsenal of fuzz and wah-wah effects on this apocalyptic epic. 5: Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (Solo: Eddie Hazel) Note the backup and mandolin solo by the team of Homer & Jethro, better known for their comedy. Yet the whole thing feels casual and friendly it’s a tune you could whistle. The technique is certainly impressive, with the bent strings giving it an almost Hawaiian feel and the elegant tone comes from Atkins’ own modifications on his D’Angelico Excel guitar. This early 50s track captures the essence of Chet Atkins, right down to its title. On the extended solo, he uses the Roland synth to plead and wail, upping the song’s emotional ante.Ģ1: Chet Atkins: Country Gentleman (Solo: Chet Atkins)
He turns it loose on the live Travels version of his most popular tune, originally a lilting samba. Pat Metheny was one of the first major players to embrace guitar synth, more for its expressive capacities than for the neat sounds it could make. 22: Pat Metheny Group: Are You Going With Me? (Solo: Pat Metheny)
This blues showpiece (whose definitive version is on 1975’s Livestock) opens with some fast runs to show you who’s in charge, but then he starts twisting and teasing notes until he’s got it speaking in tongues. Those wails toward the solo’s end must be the guitar screaming for mercy.ģ7: Roy Buchanan: Roy’s Bluz (Solo: Roy Buchanan)īlues-rock players don’t get more underrated than Roy Buchanan, who had fiery fingers and imagination to match. So, the start of the third solo – after he’s already stomped on the fuzzbox, throttled the upper threats, and generally raised hell twice – features the most savage strong-bending of them all. Jack White takes three solos on this seven-minute track, each one more furious than the last. Garage-band players who couldn’t master the solo could take solace in the fact that Steely Dan’s regular guitarists couldn’t either.ģ8: The White Stripes: Ball and Biscuit (Solo: Jack White) New York hotshot Elliott Randall’s solo is arguably the catchiest thing in the song, and it really swings (note the variations he throws on the lick every time it comes around). This was arguably one of the first songs to become a hit single specifically because of the guitar solo. 39: Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years (Solo: Elliott Randall) The famous story is that Jimmy Page was looking on while Barre recorded this Barre’s confirmed that he wanted to wrap the solo so he could wave hello. For this one, he and Ian Anderson came up with a structural device – playing the verse chords in half-time, then speeding them back up – that worked. Martin Barre always got his big moments in a way that enhanced the structure of Jethro Tull’s pieces.
His best moments were chordal solos that amplified the aggression in the song – the second guitar solo in “Anarchy in the UK” was a prime example, and he pulls the same trick to even greater effect on “EMI.”Ħ0: Jethro Tull: Aqualung (Solo: Martin Barre) The secret weapon in the Sex Pistols was the fact that Steve Jones was a seriously great lead guitarist, even though showing off was the last thing he wanted to do. 61: The Sex Pistols: EMI (Solo: Steve Jones)