The players that never made it into the limelight

Byron

Hi Guys,

Ive been wondering about this for a bit now and its crossed my mind a couple of times.

We all know and have heard of the great guitar gods etc etc. A lot of you guys know many less famous guitarist who are at least on par with the guys who are at the top. Do you reckon there are absolute greats out there who have given up the life of the guitar for , say , a normal job or normal lifestyle? Ive also wondered if there were perhaps musicians better than some-one like Jimmi Hendrix but were just never discovered.

Its kind of a horrible thing to think that there could be a guy out there right now that will never become known and he might be better than a Vai or whoever else. Perhaps they just prefer not to play in front of people or whatnot?

Just had to share ?

Manfred-Klose

might be better than a Vai or whoever else

Well this is where youtube comes in. A way to promote yourself.

Some shredders just do it for fun and some want to achieve something out of it.
Besides if you want to stand out you have to be unique, do something that has not been done before!!!
kind how gustav guevera got famous.

Bob-Dubery

Byron wrote: Hi Guys,

Ive been wondering about this for a bit now and its crossed my mind a couple of times.

We all know and have heard of the great guitar gods etc etc. A lot of you guys know many less famous guitarist who are at least on par with the guys who are at the top. Do you reckon there are absolute greats out there who have given up the life of the guitar for , say , a normal job or normal lifestyle? Ive also wondered if there were perhaps musicians better than some-one like Jimmi Hendrix but were just never discovered.

Well I certainly don't believe that artistic greatness correlates with fame and commercial success. Not that I have a clue as to how "artistic greatness" is measured.

I am also not a believer in the primacy of Jimi Hendrix. I think he was a fantastic player and a very important player, but if he is and always will be unsurpassable then that means that music and guitar playing has a fixed limit. Which is not a thought I want to have.

In the 40-odd years that have passed somebody must have gone past Hendrix by now. Though I am fairly sure that the time of big jumps forward has gone. Hendrix represented a huge advance, and he changed the game and raised the bar. I don't think those kinds of giant leaps have occurred since. Vai or Satriani or di Meola or whoever it is you are thinking of are more like incremental advances (which is fine, and they are fantastic players, and I am certainly not trying to diss them) rather than the massive "one giant leap for mankind" that was Hendrix.

Besides, Hendrix is meaningful and gigantic only in the worlds (or overlapping worlds) of blues, rock and some provinces of jazz. There are huge chunks of humanity who have no idea who Hendrix is, couldn't care less and probably don't know or need to know much about "rock 'n roll". But there will be virtuoso musicians operating in whatever genre those people do listen to.

Finally I don't believe that there is a "best". Nobody does it all and does it all better than anybody else. I hear Richard Thompson doing things that I have not heard other players doing. But then I hear Martin Carthy doing things that Thompson seemingly can't do (and the two of them are this huge mutual admiration club anyway). And etc etc. There are great players, but no single supreme player. And life would be boring if there were one supreme guitar player.

I certainly do believe that there are amazing players who for whatever reason have never entered into the mass consciousness. I don't pretend to know who they are, but I know they're out there.

Which means that there are, for all of us, great players and great music waiting to be discovered.

AlanRatcliffe

Hendrix represented a huge advance, and he changed the game and raised the bar. I don't think those kinds of giant leaps have occurred since. Vai or Satriani or di Meola or whoever it is you are thinking of are more like incremental advances (which is fine, and they are fantastic players, and I am certainly not trying to diss them) rather than the massive "one giant leap for mankind" that was Hendrix.

I agree revolutionary leaps in playing like Hendrix (and people like Django Rheinhard and Charlie Christian before him) are unlikely to happen again - mainly due to the fragmented nature of popular music and popular culture these days, making it impossible to reach such a huge audience and have such a huge effect. However, in the guitar-centric world there have been players who were just as revolutionary - Eddie van Halen, Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, etc.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I agree revolutionary leaps in playing like Hendrix (and people like Django Rheinhard and Charlie Christian before him) are unlikely to happen again - mainly due to the fragmented nature of popular music and popular culture these days, making it impossible to reach such a huge audience and have such a huge effect. However, in the guitar-centric world there have been players who were just as revolutionary - Eddie van Halen, Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, etc.

Yes. I forgot (don't ask - I can't offer a good explanation) about Eddie. He definitely was massively influential and definitely advanced the possibilities of the electric guitar.

Charlie and Django are interesting cases. Who came first there? I've read that Charlie Christian virtually invented the guitar solo - moving the guitar from a role where it was strictly part of the rhythm section to a legitimate solo voice. But then how does one account for Django Reinhardt? Unless Reinhardt was a generation later than Christian - which would surprise me.

Now I think about it, Lonnie Johnson must predate both Reinhardt and Christian.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I agree revolutionary leaps in playing like Hendrix (and people like Django Rheinhard and Charlie Christian before him) are unlikely to happen again - mainly due to the fragmented nature of popular music and popular culture these days, making it impossible to reach such a huge audience and have such a huge effect.

And because of the 60s. Rock (if it even existed) was a green field at the start of the 60s. By 1970 with (amongst others, and the order implies no ranking) Dylan, Cohen, Mitchell, Hendrix, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Cream the green field was mostly ploughed, large chunks of previously uncharted, even unimagined territory were mapped out. That was an era of big jumps, and I think it was an era where the audience was not fragmented, where labels were not being applied and people had "big ears", would listen across a broad spectrum and absorb from all kinds of sources.

Lethe

Bob Dubery wrote:
Well I certainly don't believe that artistic greatness correlates with fame and commercial success. Not that I have a clue as to how "artistic greatness" is measured.

Finally I don't believe that there is a "best".

Well said. My thoughts exactly.

AlanRatcliffe

Lonnie Johnson is credited as the first guitarist to use single note lines and solos. Not wildly popular or influential though, as he had to contend with other, much louder instruments like trumpet.

Django and Christian were contemporaries, but in different settings. Django was playing in an acoustic setting without drums or brass to contend with. He peaked in the prewar years ('34 - '39), but his career was curtailed during WWII - he was lucky to survive the war as the German occupiers didn't like jazz and had a nasty habit of sending gypsys to the concentration camps. After the war he released a few good albums, but never really regained the momentum he had before the war.

Christian was the first guitarist to adopt electric guitar, with the extra volume allowing him to play single note runs like Django, but in a big band setting with drums and brass section. His peak years were 1939 onwards with Benny Goodman and his exposure with that band led to him being hugely influential.

AlanRatcliffe

Bob Dubery wrote: I think it was an era where the audience was not fragmented, where labels were not being applied and people had "big ears", would listen across a broad spectrum and absorb from all kinds of sources.

Absolutely. It helped that the Beatles had thrown a huge spanner into the popular music machine so that the established music industry had absolutely no idea what would sell, so simply signed anyone with a guitar. Dylan, Zappa, Beefheart and many other visionaries "slipped in" during this period.

Stages would commonly mix styles - you might end up seeing: the folky players like Dylan and Baez; heavier bands like Santana, Hendrix, The Who and Cream; country players like Country Joe and the Fish; "World" music like Ravi Shankar; and the avant garde and Dada influenced Zappa and Beefheart For their part, the audiences were more receptive, and the large-scale use of hallucinogenics opened them up to absolutely anything.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Lonnie Johnson is credited as the first guitarist to use single note lines and solos. Not wildly popular or influential though, as he had to contend with other, much louder instruments like trumpet.

Johnson's story is interesting in light of the original topic. He was the first act that Joe Boyd promoted.

What happened was that a teenage Joe Boyd and his brother Warwick heard on some radio station that Johnson (whose playing they adored) was still alive and living not far from them. So they got out the phone book and called up all the L Johnson's in Philadelphia until they got hold of the guitarist. He hadn't played professionally for some years and had a menial job somewhere. They asked him if he wanted to do a solo show in Boston. He asked them if they had 50 dollars. They said yes.

They then commandeered a friend's father's front room, let all the jazz nerds and intellectuals in the area know and sold the "show" out in no time. They took in so much money that they were able to double his fee and put gas in a borrowed car so that they could pick him up (he was so happy with the doubled fee that he told them to save their money and took a train home).

The show was brilliant, and opened up the white university student coffee house audience for Johnson who started picking up work, got a new record deal and eventually was reunited with Duke Ellington.