h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The question (such as it is) is "what is a guitar hero?" I wasn't really expecting there to be a definitive answer. There's the obvious answer, which is what you'd probably get if you stopped someone in the street and said 'name a guitar hero' - the Hendrixes, Mays, Gilmours, Claptons etc. of this world. Then there are all the other (perhaps more interesting) answers to the question.

So, I think we could be up to four categories now:

- Universal guitar heroes
- Guitarists' guitar heroes
- Generational guitar heroes
- Specialist guitar heroes - i.e. the country, classical, blues players who are heroes to those in the know, but may never have been heard of outside their field

There are certain aspects that seem to apply to all those categories, though:

Technique/talent, personality, popularity (possibly within a specific field), showmanship (for some, extravagant gimmicks, but for some an ability to entertain that is 'simply' a result of virtuosity itself)

I can see an Entry taking shape, anyway..!

Glad to hear it, Danny!
And I have been pondering over Marcus Miller, who I s'pose would be in the specialist category, although many people will have heard him in the background of ,say, a Luther Vandross track and not known it was him. I don't think I was aware of hearing his bass guitar playing so much as felt it through the soles of my feet at a party and had to go and ask the dj who it was!
When he brought out a solo album and I first heard those soaring lyrical improvisations above a bass-line percussion that hit me in the solar plexus, I realised I hadn't heard anything like it before. Sorry about the purple prose but you did ask.
Incidentally I think it was Vandross who asked MM if he could make a bass effect that sounded like a fridge door slamming shut...he did, of course...

Elf

Nothing wrong with purple prose Don't be surprised if I quote you wholesale in the Entry. "In the words of one Researcher..."

Hi again, Danny,

One of the names I tried to remember for the last note was Chet Atkins. Certainly he would deserve mention if the entry is not restricted to Rock 'n' Roll; not that you couldn't construct a worthwhile entry if you were to so constrict your focus.

I read your potential groupings:
- Universal guitar heroes
- Guitarists' guitar heroes
- Generational guitar heroes
- Specialist guitar heroes

The only one with which I would have a problem is the 'Universal', if by universal you mean Rock and/or Heavy Metal exclusively. I've known stone Country Music fans and Celtic Music fans who've never heard of Jimmy Paige or Steve Vai. They probably wouldn't have heard of Hendrix without all the hype surrounding his early death.

There is no way I can imagine to justify 'Universal' unless you want to intentionally show a strong (and unnecessary) bias for one or two genres. Perhaps just a break down like (in alphabetical order):

American Country and Bluegrass
Blues
Classical
Crossover
Heavy Metal
Jazz and Swing
Pop and Bubblegum
Rock 'n' Roll
Spanish (like Jose Feliciano)

Or maybe just use categories that the record clubs use.

It would be more inclusive, and probably more interesting than a top ten list of popular rock guitarists of the last twenty years.

Yours for better entries,

Hmm... maybe 'Universal' is the wrong word.

I'd like to include as many 'types' of guitar hero as possible, but I still think that there is an *almost* 'universal' character that many people think of when you say 'guitar hero', and this corresponds to Hendrix et al.

I'd rather not break it down by muscial genre, as some of the things that make a 'guitar hero' are appropriate to all genres - a guy who can't play for toffee is no more going to become a bluegrass hero than he is a rock legend...

And don't worry - this was never intended to be a 'top ten' list of anything! I'd far rather it went:

The things important for a guitar hero are:

1. Technique - some examples of guitarists with fantastic technique are Derek Rockgod, who plays incredibly fast solos, Chet Country, who practically invented modern fingerpicking style, Django Jazz who... etc.

2. Personality - and so on...

I can see I shall need to think carefully about this...

True! True!

Perhaps you should consider including Charisma in your requirements!? It seems to be what most guitar heroes generate even better than riffs.

Danny!
I might add a bit more then after further pondering

Elf

"Following this differentiation, I think, then, that the phenomenon of 'non-guitarist's' guitar heroes is probably restricted to a time in which one could actually hear guitars and solos on the mainstream radio. And that's mainly the 70's and 80's."

Sorry to skip so much of the backlog, but we have to deal with a couple of facts:

1. A true "guitar hero" is someone that makes people want to go buy a guitar and learn to play. Air guitar does not count.

2. The first true "guitar heros", outside of people like Eddie Lang and (damn, forgot his name. Had a hit with "Teasing the Frets"... back in '21!), were the Hawaiian Guitar players of the twenties. They were followed by the singing cowboys, not strictly country, per se, and then commercial country. Charlie Christian was perhaps the first Electric Guitar hero, and he was well-known, playing with Benny Goodman of all people, in addition to Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.
Merle Travis and Joe Maphis influenced an entire generation of guitar players, including Scotty Moore, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Reed.
Oddly enough Bo Diddley was one of the first flash guitar heroes who didn't really "play" his instrument.
Burl Ives was an early folkie who could not only play his instrument, but whose voice was of a high order.
Lonnie Donnegan helped bring about the skiffle craze with his rendition of "Sixteen Tons" and many of the current senior citizens of rock first learned their chords while playing skiffle.
The Ventures and The Shadows influenced a lot of young guitar buyers.
Duane Eddy was responsible for many guitar books being sold.
And just the photo of Buddy Holly with his guitar and glasses is supposed to have lit a light bulb in two generations of geeky twangers.

When you got into the sixties it was too close to call. Practically every vocalist had a guitar or a guitarist close by.
At one point, Japan and Italy were selling more guitars than America.

Jazz had a hundred virtuosos, commercial rock had four dozen session musicians working overtime in the studios, and country had four hundred and seventy odd guitar pickers just in Nashville alone (according to John Sebastian)!

But I dare say the Beatles helped sell a lot of guitars and books. I wouldn't say the same about the Stones.

I think Led Zep and Sabbath were the first bands where the guitar was so omnipresent a sound and an image that you couldn't think of them without seeing an SG or a Les Paul clutched in the hands of the lead player. It was all downhill from there until Mark Knofler.

Robert Fripp, for all his abilities, doesn't really count. The various versions of Crimson, even the ones with Adrian Belew, don't really register in the hoi and polloi's mind as guitar bands. Those of us guitar geeks are willing to give him his due, but mostly for his solo projects, none of which charted as far as I know.

"A true "guitar hero" is someone that makes people want to go buy a guitar and learn to play..."

Elvis? (Not IMO)

There's some truth in what you say TR, but a lot of guys have been motivated to buy and play a guitar 'to score with chicks' - and not necessarily for the instrument's sake. - That doesn't mean, however, that one thing might not lead to the other... errr... Like the initial motovation mutating into real love for the instrument... Anyways.

HELL

Further thoughts for the Entry...

Don't give negative examples, like 'Hendrix is a guitar hero but Robby Krieger isn't.'

The guitar hero phenomenon had such an impact that virtually every song of every band until the mid 90's *had* to have a guitar solo. A typical band *had* to include: A crazy dancing frontman, strange clothes, and at least guitar-hero-surrogate (in case they hadn't gotten a real one). Even those bands who didn't have guitar based sounds had those (ouch!) pink new-wave keyboards with necks. Keyboardists in guitar hero looks!

You feel someone is a real guitar hero when you see him/her play. I don't think you could listen to a solo and figure out it's a hero playing or not. The guitar-hero thing is connected to the person, to the player of the instrument. You have to see/feel the performance. If you see a guitar hero playing you will notice this person enjoys playing and also has talent to do so. It will give you pleasure to watch him/her play the instrument. This includes the stunts and faces.

'Guitar-hero-imitations' might be very skilled musicians and do bitchen stunts, but in the long run, you'll figure out if it all came from the heart or not. Thus, IMO, a guitar hero is something eternal, not just for a year or two.

HELL

PS: Honest music, hot riffs and a helluva lot of attitude: Billy Gibbons!

Like Focus or the Cars, or even Lynyrd Skynrd, I tend to think of ZZ TOP as a unit.

I'm surprised people are saying that people like Vai and Satriani aren't regarded as guitar heroes. I speak to many people who are in awe of them - one time I was coming home from a gig and bumped into a group of Kevs...I thought they was going to be some confrontation, but I ended up chatting to one of them about Steve Vai! Incredible!

As far as drum legends go, they do exist, along with vocal legends. Maybe not as much in the limelight as their guitar playing counterparts, but definately out there.

And I will share some words od wisdom that I always tell my friends -_- :
"Part of being a great guitarist is making people THINK you're a great guitarist. Part of making people think you're a great guitarist is LOOKING like a great guitarist!"

And so we come back to image and gimmicks

I'm hoping to start writing some of this up later this week, so please keep your thoughts and comments coming

Hope you're having a very happy festive time Look forward to more music in the New Year

Elf

I am indeed, Elf!

And I have spent so much time running around the country visiting assorted relatives that I haven't had chance to do anything with this.

Any day now, though...

Happy New Year to all you guitar-fans (and to anyone else who happens to be listening...)

Hello again Hope 2005"s going well so far...
Just a thought about Marcus Miller: he turns the bass from a guitar usually heard in instrumental solos into a solo instrument (I *think* I said that first )
You can hear what I mean at http://www.vervemusicgroup.com
Look for MM's 1998 album 'Live & More' where there's an excerpt from 'Panther'.


Elf

Oops! Does that URL count as advertising?
Top Secret..burn before reading

Thanks, Elf

I've actually made a start on translating some of these threads into an article, so hopefully it won't be too long before I've got something worth reading..!

Hello everyone

The Entry is now in Peer Review (F48874?thread=576550), so if you think I've missed anything, or I've misrepresented what you said, let me know!

And thanks for all your contributions

Well if you're looking at guitar heroes everyone's definition will be different and equally valid from personal perceptions E.g. I know there will be people out there who believe that bloke out of Oasis is a guitar hero, I disagree strongly with that point of view because that's not my idea of a guitar hero, I prefer the music of Robert Fripp & John McLaughlin for pyrotechnic skills (and quite a degree of tunefulness), however there is also a place in my life for the playing of David Gilmour, Andy Summers, Martin Allcock, Stone Gossard & Mike McCready, Slash, hell this list could go on for months the facts as I see them are there can never be a single guitarist capable of pleasing every audient all the time (hell I can't please myself most of the time and I know exactly what I want to hear most of the time!).

T.B.C.

Hi Bassmike, don't be surprised to find this thread is dead... The Entry has already been written and included in the edited guide. A lot of the people who posted here probably unsubscribed.

HELL

PS: By the way shouldn't this thread be removed from CWW?