Guitar Heroes

by Robin Bell

I was sitting at home the other day, watching the sunshine reflecting off the snow covered fields outside, when I started thinking about the great guitarists. I suppose everyone has their own favourites, their own top ten of musical greats who can inspire them, but for what it’s worth, these are my top ten all-time great guitar players.

There’s no particular order in this list and there is no reflection on their relative abilities whether they are mentioned first or last. What they all have in common is a unique ability to be “recognised” – to cause that instant reaction whenever their music is played, “Oh yeah, that’s Eric, Carlos, Bert or whoever”. So let’s go back to the beginning and see where we end up!

My first guitar influence, like so many others of my vintage, was Bert Weedon. Bert of the “Play in a Day” guitar instruction book, cost 6 shillings, that I still own, somewhat faded and a bit creased from where I struggled with “When The Saints Come Marching In” all those years ago. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I still get a kick out of listening to Bert play “Guitar Boogie Shuffle” or “Poor Robbie”

Following on from Bert, my next major influence just had to be Hank Marvin, from The Shadows. I still have my copy of The Shad’s first vinyl LP, with liner notes by Cliff Richard, which contains to my mind the definitive Hank tune, “Nivram” (reverse the letters and you’ll get it). The tone that Hank got, and still gets, from a Fender Stratocaster is uniquely his own and it’s great to see that he’s still going strong some 40 years later. One of his solo albums, aptly called “Hank Marvin – Guitar Player” is never far away from the CD player.

On the country music scene, one of the most influential guitarists has to have been Chester “Chet” Atkins. He is another who had that special style that allowed him to be identified almost instantly. His picking style of playing, perhaps influenced more than a little by Merle Travis, says “Nashville” to everyone who hears his records.

Chet Atkins was well known for his Gretsch guitar and another Gretsch player produced the “twang” sound in rock ‘n’ roll. Playing mainly the bass strings on his Gretsch 6120 hollow-body Chet Atkins model guitar, Duane Eddy managed to feed the sound through a primitive echo chamber to produce such all-time classic records as Peter Gunn Theme, Rebel Rouser and Forty Miles of Bad Road.

As a teenager in London in the 60’s I would have had to be deaf and blind not to have noticed the great eruption of guitar heroes around then. Eric Clapton, with The Yardbirds and John Mayall, was for me and so many others, almost a god. Indeed, you could read “Clapton is God” on the graffiti on many walls around London in those days. Eric left The Yardbirds after a disagreement over the musical direction of the group away from his “pure” blues and joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for a spell.

One of Eric Clapton’s great influences was Elmore James, and I have to place him in my list as well. Elmore was a great slide guitar player and his famous guitar riff on “Dust My Broom” has been copied by just about everyone, including Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones, when for a while he called himself Elmo Lewis. Although Elmore James died in 1963, I can still enjoy his playing, thanks to some of his greatest recordings from the 1950’s.

When Eric Clapton left John Mayall, his replacement was Peter Green, who later founded Fleetwood Mac with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (both of these also played at various times with John Mayall). Peter has such a fine touch on the blues and I get shivers when I listen to his classic blues statements from those days, such as “Man of the World” and “Need Your Love So Bad”. Although he left the music business at the height of Fleetwood Mac’s popularity in controversial circumstances, and remained hidden from the world for many years, he emerged again in the middle of the 1990’s and has recorded some fine albums lately.

Who can forget those magnificent, grumbling, roaring riffs that marked The Rolling Stone’s hits? Just a few notes from Keith Richards’ guitar and you know that rock ‘n’ roll is still alive and as fire breathing as ever. Satisfaction? You’d better believe it! There is and can be only one Keith and thank heavens he’s a survivor. One of my greatest memories is seeing The Stones in concert at Ipswich Gaumont Theatre in England in 1964 and yes, I still have the souvenir programme (cost 2 shillings!).

Many people have said that the birth of rock ‘n’ roll happened with the release in 1955 of Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” and the distinctive Chuck Berry introduction to songs like “Johnny B. Goode” has been the bread and butter for so many would be guitar heroes. His style of playing just says “let’s party!”

At the same time that Chuck Berry was belting out his riffs, a young Elvis Presley was also causing a bit of a sensation. But listen carefully to those early Elvis classics and you’ll hear the very distinctive style of Scotty Moore in action. To my mind Scotty is a very under-rated component of the whole Elvis phenomena. Imagine “Heartbreak Hotel” without that clanging Scotty Moore instrumental break.

So there you have them, my favourite 10 guitarists. But then I think of all those I’ve omitted! How could I have gone past Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Pete Townshend, Carlos Santana … Maybe I should make a second list… Feel free to disagree or add your own personal favourites

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