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Who is the most overated guitarist of the last 50 years ???


Dr. Scottie C

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No way it's Cobain, because I don't recall anyone ever saying, "Cobain's a really great guitar player."


I think if anything, people are calling him overrated because people tend to take his songwriting talent and project that onto his guitar playing, making his guitar playing seem better than it was.

 

 

I would tend to agree with this. I've never read where he was "great". The first and only thing I read about him was that he actually deserved a bit more credit than the diss'n his playing usually got. The article pointed out that most people just thought he was "plug and play grunge", but the article simply stated that he did deserve credit for creatively producing tones that were not common until then. That's the only accolade I ever saw thrown his way. Vintage guitars + an interest array of stomp box deployment & tweaking was the only kudo I've seen thrown his way.

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I personally think it's Slash. I know many will disagree, and that's fine. I just don't think he's in the rareified air with the all-time greats. He had some strong success in the past with GNR, but that was in his 20s.

 

What Slash brought to the table can be easily accounted for. It was TONE. One could not help being impressed by that badass vintage rock tone of his simple setup - and that against the backdrop of late 80's hair metal fizz and effete chorus... That, and a top hat.

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What Slash brought to the table can be easily accounted for. It was TONE. One could not help being impressed by that badass vintage rock tone of his simple setup - and that against the backdrop of late 80's hair metal fizz and effete chorus...
That, and a top hat.

 

 

Toan is in the chapeau!

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I've wasted time I'l never get back reading many of these post.....please post your credentials for your evaluations because some of these make me think many of you have never played guitar.......WOW! Some of the guys with the highest post counts are the most lost.....PLEASE....spend more time playing/listening/studying guitar....less time on this forum.....

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I've wasted time I'l never get back reading many of these post.....please post your credentials for your evaluations because some of these make me think many of you have never played guitar.......WOW! Some of the guys with the highest post counts are the most lost.....PLEASE....spend more time playing/listening/studying guitar....less time on this forum.....

 

 

Post your credentials for evaluating the evaluators?

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When I think of overrated, I think about guitarists who play scales at 240 bpm with little understanding of how the space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves. Les Paul was pretty outspoken about this lack of technique as well. We all know who they are, but listeners still often confuse speed with skill. Asian audiences particularly gravitate toward the speed demons for some reason.

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No. Just no. Almost inarguably the most influential guitarist in rock & blues behind Hendrix, and would be third most influential in the worst case scenario (behind either Page or Keef but not both).

 

 

Some people "get" Clapton and some people don't.

 

For those who do he was and is great and for those who don't he is overrated and redundant.

 

Personally I am moved by Clapton's playing. His work on the Beatles' White Album is what inspired me to play lead guitar. I read an interview with him early on where he said "why listen to me when you can listen to BB King?" so I started listening to BB along with Albert and Freddie.

 

I realized that Clapton was just playing what those guys were playing but he was adding some kind of fire to it. The notes became the vehicle for this fire. IMO, the people that hear (or feel) the fire are the people who get Clapton and for the others his playing is just regurgitated blues licks that he learned from the three Kings 50 years ago.

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Put me in the Clapton camp. He started/played in some great bands. Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, Bluesbreakers, Derek and the Dominios and has had a brilliant solo career as well. He was out helping invent rock guitar when a snot nosed Slash was still in dirty diapers. Slowhand may not be the best album ever but it kept me rocking during the disco era:thu: (Clapton did in general). I would say playing with Eric is a good enough thing that he has toured with Albert Lee, Mark Knopfler, Derek Trucks, Steve WInwood (just to name a few) in his band. To me he is not overrated at all.

Cobain:facepalm:. I didn

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Lotta hatin' goin' on in this thread. Especially for the fact that most musicians listed here work in a pop song format of 3-5 minute songs as their main output.

My input is probably going to be Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix just for the sheer fact that their influence has been so broad on future generations of electric music. The entire 70's and 80's echoed with their influence, so in some ways it might be said that you cannot overstate their influence on the instrument and popular music...but that's precisely why they are open to being "overrated" - there is a JImmy Page / Jimi Hendrix "ghetto" player's minds where they can't really see beyond that. Players like EVH, The Edge, Andy Summers, Kurt Cobain, and many others actually transcended that ghetto with innovative techniques or minimalist approaches. It's all good, but most of these players wouldn't be remembered as well as they are if it weren't for some decent songs that showcased their musicianship more than their guitar playing...

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Santana, yeah he
was
great circa 1970. since the 1980s hes been at best meh, at worst the most annoying tone ever.

I saw him live about two years ago and was really surprised how great he was. Not a big fan of his albums over the last couples decades, but live he totally brought it.

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I saw him live about two years ago and was really surprised how great he was. Not a big fan of his
albums
over the last couples decades, but live he totally brought it.

 

 

yeah I saw him live in the 1990s and he was great then too. great tone. also, he played for at least 2.5hours! still, his recorded stuff is not good at all IMO.

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I saw him live about two years ago and was really surprised how great he was. Not a big fan of his
albums
over the last couples decades, but live he totally brought it.

 

 

Watch the Santana / Shorter at Montreaux video on Netflix (I think it's even streaming); good good music. He's put out some questionable pop songs over the past decade (and I put at least half the blame for that on producers), but he still has the stuff and he displays it for all to see live.

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Watch the Santana / Shorter at Montreaux video on Netflix (I think it's even streaming); good good music. He's put out some questionable pop songs over the past decade (and I put at least half the blame for that on producers), but he still has stuff and displays it for all to see live.

 

 

is that with Wayne Shorter? havent seen that but I saw one recently of him live and I tried to like it but I got bored by the 3rd song. Ill check it out though , WS's All Seeing Eye is a great jazz CD.

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Eric Clapton by a wide margin. He just slipped in at the right time in the right country. His tone sucks too - always has. There are million guitar players out there in bars everywhere that are better players.

 

 

No, no, no.

 

And, by the way, no.

 

These "millions" of "better" "bar" players ... where the {censored} are they? If they're better than Clapton, we should have heard about them, right? These funking prodigies don't just play for themselves in their living rooms, right? They do play out, don't they?

 

Because here's the thing: I've seen bands in hundreds of Texas bars in my quest to have the toughest liver in the Southern US, and only very rarely have I come across anyone who could even approach Clapton. One of those guys (and he surpassed EC, even by EC's own admission) was Stevie Ray Vaughan, whom I've seen like 8 times, half of which included small clubs before he got famous outside of Texas; another is Doyle Bramhall II; and there's Chris Duarte; and Ian Moore; and Ronnie {censored}ing Earl. And I saw Johnny Winter tear it right the hell up a couple of times. And that's pretty much it.

 

So tell me: these "millions" of "better" "bar" players: where are they?

 

Up your ass, that's where, because they don't {censored}ing exist.

 

And let's even not get started on tone .....

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