Electric Guitarist

Lesle West Mountain Youtube

Anyone that was alive and really listening to rock guitar in the 1970′s would know of Leslie West from the band Mountain.  Leslie’s sound was second to none, he played a Les Paul junior and an interesting thing was he wasn’t really interested in using his little finger on his fretting hand, regardless of that his tone was sensational and sends chills down the spine.

For another great guitar video, check out Jeff Beck

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Michael Jackson Electric Guitar Tribute

Just saw a great post of some Guitar Players that Michaeol Jackson used on recordings

Go to GuitarNoize

Tags: Michael Jackson Great Guitar Moments

Joe Bonamassa Guitar Video

Here is Joe Bonamassa doing Walk in My Shadows on Electric guitar.

Check out Joe’s Bio at Joe Bonamassa

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Charlie Hunter Youtube – If Six Was Nine

This guy Charlie Hunter is a really serious guitar player;  there’s guys who just play, guys that shred and others that just copy.  Charlie Hunter is someone that thinks for himself, and he can play.  I’ve been aware of his playing for quite a few years now,  when I first heard him him doing Hendrix’s If six was Nine,  I  thought what is this? What the?  That sound… good heavens… he’s got it.  And I got what he’s doing and it sends chills through me.   Salutations to Charlie Hunter.

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Kenny Wayne Shepherd Youtube Voodoo Chile

Here’s a great electric guitar video on youtube of Kenny Wayne Shepherd performing at the Fender Frontline Live stage at the NAMM music show 2008, doing Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile.   This is awesome, if you haven’t seen it get ready for a treat.

Tags: Fender Stratocaster Youtube, Kenny Wayne Shepherd Youtube, Voodoo Chile utube

Jimi Hendrix Youtube – All Along the Watchtower

There are very few songs that stop me in my tracks and send a shiver down my spine when I hear it.  When I was in my teens I was a Hendrix fanatic.  I’m now 52 years old and although I dedicate most of my time to acoustic guitar when I hear All Along the Watchtower the song that Jimi Hendrix redefined I’m reminded why I spent years as an electric guitarist and how brilliant Jimi Hendrix was.
So here’s a Youtube Video of Jimi Hendrix live at the Isle of White.

Tags: Hendrix Video, Jimi Hendrix Youtube, utube All Along the Watchtower

Pachelbel Canon Youtube Electric Guitar

When I listen to some of the players out there now on electric guitar it shows me how far we have come in the last 30 years.  This guy is exceptional and his interpretation of Pacelbels Canon is a great lesson in being yourself, well at least taking the techniques that define your particular style and applying them to an already existing piece and giving it a new life.

Tags: Electric Guitar Pachelbel Canon, Pachabel Canon

Daryl Stuermer Youtube Interview

Daryl Stuermer is not a guitar player that many people will know of.  I first saw him with Jean Luc Ponty live playing the most incredible acoustic guitar in the seventies.   He’s also worked with Phil Collins and on many other projects, you may not know of him but I have no doubt you’ve heard him play.

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Creedence Clearwater Youtube

Here’s a great classic sounding youtube video of Creedence Clearwater Revival with John Fogarty’s incredibly swampy sound playing the soul hit Heard it through the Grapevine.

Tags: Creedence clearwater youtube, heard it through the grapevine video clip, john fogarty utube

The Byrds MCGuinn and Clarence White Youtube

A lot of guitarists may not know of Clarence White,  Roger McGuinn and the Byrds.  I’ve posted about this for historical reasons and also because I love McGuinns voice, (think Hey Mr Tambourine Man and the jangly Rickenbacker guitar sound), it also has Clarence White, the great guitar player who died in 73. Clarence White was one a very brilliant acoustic guitar player who had the perfect bluegrass acoustic sound that inspired thousands of players, many have copied him either consciously or unconsciously.  I also love the dancing in the clip.

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Steely Dan Youtube – Jeff Skunk Baxter – Denny Dias

Steely Dan has had some exceptional guitar players and this tune by the Dan is part of rock history.  I remember getting this album around about the time it was released and on the back of it had a great article and it jokingly said, what the world really needs is another rck and roll band.  Well in fact it did need Steely Dan and it gave us an introduction to Jeff Skunk Baxter and Denny Dias.  Denny Dias never quite got the acclaim that the Skunk has gotten but listen to his parts in this youtube video.  Unfortunately the cameraman that filmed this couldn’t work out who was soloing in the great guitar break, so we miss a little of the Skunks sollo at the beginning.  How good is that guitar riff? and then the harmony?

Tags: Denny Dias, Jeff Skunk Baxter, Steely Dan Youtube

Steve Vai Youtube Tender Surrender

When I first heard this youtube video of Steve Vai I  noticed how he’d drawn from three other great guitar players, all of which I’ve posted about recently.  Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s what I hear.  

The first guitarist that hear in this tune is Wes Montgomery  Wes was the master of playing octaves, e.g he’d play an E and then at the same time he’d play an E further up the scale, this was one of his distinguishable characteristics of his playing. 

The next player I hear in here is Hendrix, I’m thinking Little Wing and also the way Jimi would play a slow blues and use all those hammer-ons and pull=offs whilst holding down a chord.

The next player I here is Jeff Beck, the tone is so Beckonian to me.  Yes Steve Vai takes it and runs with it but I definitely hear Beck in there.  From there he starts to use more contemporay style of left hand technique.  And from there he reeps back into Hendrix. 

Now this is my opinion, you may hear other elements.

Tags: Guitar Masters, Steve Vai Youtube, Tender Surrender utube

Eric Clapton Youtube Cream Crossroads

Eric Clapton with Jack Bruce on Bass and Ginger Baker on guitar helped define British blues.  This recent recording of Crossroads the Robert Johnson traditional blues classic is an example of how musicians can take a musical idea and make it their own, in the same way that Hendrix redefined All Along the Watchtower.  Some may not know it but in the sixties people were calling Eric Clapton God.  In an Eastern mystical sense that is true and also if you say he’s a guitar God, yep I’ll back that one up for sure.   The control Clapton has is unbelievable, the way he can shift the dynamics of a song in a split second has always interested me; from screaming lead to sensible accompaniment without blinking.

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Carlos Santana Youtube – Samba Pa Ti

Carlos Santana is the guitar player that for me has the sweetest distortion I have ever heard.   There is a romantic side to every musician, some are a little afraid to admit it.  But when I was 14, and that’s 38 years ago I oddly enough had the intelligence (or testerone levels) to recognise the beauty of the song Samba Pa Ti.  I first heard it on the Abraxas album, with the Greg Rollie playing awesome keyboards.  I think that the Abraxas album was a milestone in contemporay music. From memory Santana as playing a Yamaha guitar here and I think at the time he was using Mesa Boogie amps.

Tags: Carlos Santana Youtube, Samba Pa Ti

Jeff Beck Youtube Nadia

If Jeff Beck’s  name that is mentioned amongst guitar players who have been around for years,  it generally creates a feeling of humility.  Regardless how good you be, it’s always hats off to Jeff Beck.   My first real awareness of Jeff Beck was on the Beck Bogart and Appice album in the early seventies, with tunes like Black Cat Moan and Superstion.  This led me to explore his earlier work like Rough and Ready with Bob Tench on vocals and Max Middleton on keys and introduced me to tunes such as Definitely Maybe.

I was fortunate to see Jeff Beck play live once with Jan Hammer, the keyboard player.  His tone is unmatchable by players, his technique unique because he plays fingerstyle, but it doesn’t sound like it.  His control of elecronics is so far ahead of most other players. 

The Jeff Beck Youtube video is called Nadia.  When I first heard it, my thoughts were that he had bridged the gap between Indian music and rock, and I don’t mean Bollyrock. I mean the deep transcendal side of Indian music that digs deep into the soul of each us.

And yes, as a guitar player, I am humbled when I hear this tune.

Tags: electric guitarist, Jeff Beck Youtube, utube electric guitar

Jimi Hendrix YouTube Voodoo Chile

Jimi Hendrix playing Voodoo Chile is the definitive guitar tune.  I still remember the day in 1970 when my friend told me that Hendrix had died, it was the 19th of September and the news came to me a day late. I was 14 years old and had already subconsciously decided that Jimi Hendrix was going to replace Jesus as my idol, so the news was frightening and for the next 10 years I had the opening line of All Along the Watchtower and the riff from Voodoo Chile running through my head at regular intervals, only to be replaced every now and then by the jazz legend Wes Montgomery playing his gorgeous octaves and Carlos Santana playing the outrageously romantic Samba Pa Ti.

So, seeing I was so addicted to the music of Jimi in my teens, I thought it only fitting to make my first youtube at the Electric Guitarist Blog Website, Hendrix doing one of the tunes that even to this day lturns my head inside out. 

Actually I got a spooked by Hendrix when I was 15, I heard a gutar player playing on the radio, and I thought “ohhrr Hendrix wasn’t that good”, and this is not a lie, a glass window smashed on my head.  It never did any damage but scarred the living daylights out of me.  Jimi Hendrix inspired me to follow through on the Rainbow Bridge and the song that came out of that movie and was also on the album called the Rainbow Bridge was Pali Gap, a beautiful haunting instrumental which few people ever mention.

Jimi Hendrix Youtube video of Voodoo Chile.

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