Kevin Shields

Of course, most unique guitarists are only unique as long as they are unknown. Then a whole bunch of players jump on the bandwagon and poof - they are not unique any more (I remember when Vai, Malmsteen and Hedges were unique). The really unique players are often just so odd or advanced that others cannot easily (or in some cases want to) duplicate what they do.

Allan Holdsworth
Bumblefoot
Adrian Belew
Robert Fripp
Frank Zappa
Mike Kenealley
Mattias Eklundh
Trey Gunn
Jeff Healey
Barry Reynolds (Marianne Faithful)
Tom Verlaine
Link Wray
Michael Vick
Leo Kottke
Bill Frisell
Matt Bellamy
Mark Goffeney (the guy with no arms)
The Edge
Me (well, you did say unique, not good ?)

Alan, in the interests of exhaustiveness, I believe you left Jeff Beck off your list...

Actually, I think Bo Diddley is worth a mention here, too.

Tom Verlaine
Hendrix
Richard Thompson
Jeff Beck
Neil Young
Richard Lloyd
Davey Graham (though he's been so imitated now that if you didn't hear him first it's hard to convince yourself he's the original)

I don't think that Young is a great player, but he has great attitude in his playing. It sounds to me like when he takes off he doesn't necessarily know or even care how he's going to land again.

Stratisfear wrote: Alan, in the interests of exhaustiveness, I believe you left Jeff Beck off your list...

+1 haha

BTW... I have a ticket to go watch Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck live at the O2 in London in February 2010. Just to leave a few of you bitterly jealous... ?

I ran into this cool guitarist on Youtube the otherday, his name is Stefano Barone

I thought this was pretty unique and sounds way cool

Brent. Watch it. That's the kind of things people get "capped" for around here yo

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Of course, most unique guitarists are only unique as long as they are unknown. Then a whole bunch of players jump on the bandwagon and poof - they are not unique any more (I remember when Vai, Malmsteen and Hedges were unique). The really unique players are often just so odd or advanced that others cannot easily (or in some cases want to) duplicate what they do.

I find that the imitators always sound like imitators - the best guys always have something, some spark, that comes from within them and nobody else can capture that essence. I think this is the case even when the imitators are actually pretty good. None of the guys who are heavily influenced by an whose playing is indebted to Jimi Hendrix (EG Trower EG Vaughan) ever quite capture the Jimi-ness of it all.

I don't think I've ever heard anybody really sound exactly like Clapton either. What seems to make him inimitable is his vibrato. You can hear it a mile off, and nobody else does it the same.

Steve Morse - extremely unique, not just in his playing but in his compositions as well.

MikeM wrote: Brent. Watch it. That's the kind of things people get "capped" for around here yo

I have held back for two weeks already.. but all this Jeff Beck talk just made it slip... ?

Michael Hedges was pretty dam unique!!

Another guy I saw, but had to go search for it cause I forgot his name...

Pino Forastiere (Another Italian) Very much like Michael Hedges to me, with something special I can't point out.

Sorry for the OT. I proposed to a girl cause she's going to that concert dude. About a week ago I think it was. No I am not joking.

X-rated Bob wrote: I find that the imitators always sound like imitators - the best guys always have something, some spark, that comes from within them and nobody else can capture that essence. I think this is the case even when the imitators are actually pretty good. None of the guys who are heavily influenced by an whose playing is indebted to Jimi Hendrix (EG Trower EG Vaughan) ever quite capture the Jimi-ness of it all.

I think many players captured aspects of his playing, but most incorporated it in their own style - which is as it should be. Probably the closest I ever heard to Jimi himself was Frank Marino (Mahogany Rush), but no-one ever went out on a limb with sheer abandon the way Hendrix would.

I don't think I've ever heard anybody really sound exactly like Clapton either. What seems to make him inimitable is his vibrato. You can hear it a mile off, and nobody else does it the same.

If you ever get a chance to see Eric Johnson's video Total Electric Guitar, he discusses various techniques like bending, vibrato and phrasing and shows examples how each of the major players, from B.B. through Hendrix to Clapton would do it ...and absolutely nails every one of them.

Ahh, the B.B. King windmill vibrato technique - still amazes me. That guy must make a mean omelette.

Well, when thinking good guitarists, I often think unique. I actually have very few "favorite guitarists" - but those I like might not be technically superb, but innovative and groundbreaking. Some:

Adam Jones
Robert Fripp
Fredrik Thordendal (ah the jazz solos in metal!)
Tom Morello
Mikael Åkerfeldt
Frans B. Cocq

Oky...time for the newbie's 2cents...

Jack white...8)
and beck(as in beck,not jeff beck)...

right well heres my 5 cents

Adam Jones
Omar rodrigues lopez
Matthew Bellamy
Darryn Malakian
tom morello
shimon moore

not all totally unique but definately ground breakers in thier respective genres

I know some pretty darn good unique guitar players on the forum...guys like Bryson, Guy, Brent, Stratisfear, Squonk, Bob, Evolucian.

On an international level, i find guys like Morse, Bumblefoot, Andy Timmons, Govan & Tommy Emmanuel pretty unique.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Of course, most unique guitarists are only unique as long as they are unknown. Then a whole bunch of players jump on the bandwagon and poof - they are not unique any more (I remember when Vai, Malmsteen and Hedges were unique). The really unique players are often just so odd or advanced that others cannot easily (or in some cases want to) duplicate what they do.

Allan Holdsworth
Bumblefoot
Adrian Belew
Robert Fripp
Frank Zappa
Mike Kenealley
Mattias Eklundh
Trey Gunn
Jeff Healey
Barry Reynolds (Marianne Faithful)
Tom Verlaine
Link Wray
Michael Vick
Leo Kottke
Bill Frisell
Matt Bellamy
Mark Goffeney (the guy with no arms)
The Edge
Me (well, you did say unique, not good ?)

+1 on Link Wray.
Ali Farka Toure for nailing the crossover first.
And who's that guitarist from Botswana we saw on here recently?

One of those fine-line questions. I really like Alan's list. I think that it gets at what Mika's asking: guitarists who really don't sound like anyone else overall. I think most guitarists that are well loved have a unique aspect - like Clapton's vibrato and his early aggression and precision. But he still sounds (speaking as a huge fan) very similar to Freddie King in a lot of ways. It's the details that separate them.

But players like Zappa, Tom Verlaine, Hendrix (before half the world's guitar players learned their chops from him), "both dudes from Sonic Youth" do something that's out of place in the guitaring world. Where you couldn't put another player next to them and hear clear similarities. At least no one well known. A lot of times it's just that the influences of these people are obscure - like Glen Branca's influence on "both dudes from Sonic Youth" ?

singemonkey wrote: But players like Zappa, Tom Verlaine, Hendrix (before half the world's guitar players learned their chops from him),

That's a good point. Some players have been so influential that looking back it's hard to appreciate how unique and ground-breaking they were in their time. Hendrix is a pretty good example of that. On acoustic guitar you can start listening to Davy Graham now and think that well, he was pretty good but what was the fuss about? It's hard NOW to understand how he changed the game THEN.