God Bless Marine World, No Exceptions
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Originally uploaded by Ghostly Penguin Display. Last Thursday I went on a whirlwind two-day road trip down to LA to play a record release show with Allen Clapp & His Orchestra at the Silverlake Lounge. There were warnings of crazy hurricane-force winds, but it turned out to be perfectly fine; not even a slight breeze, really. The show went well and the San Francisco show the next day was even better, but you know all of that. What I'm really here to talk about is our entertainment / outrage-inducement in the van on the way down, which was the latest Rolling Stone list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time. We played the standard ol' road trip game in which the rest of have to guess all 100 from clues given to us by Charlie. For instance: "#31 - This is the guy who when you see someone playing guitar in a movie, it's really him dubbed in". "Oh, Ry Cooder." Or "#81 - The most over-rated musician of all time in any genre". "Lou Reed?" "Yep."
You can probably guess where I'm going with this. Now that I'm once again a guitar player, I feel it's imperative to post my own top 10 list, updated for 2011 (I don't remember the last time I did a top 10 guitarists list, which means it was probably at least a month ago.) For those on my list who also made the Rolling Stone list I will include their rankings as comparison.
1. Richard Thompson (#69 in RS) - My #1 hasn't changed in almost 20 years. (Bonus: I just discovered that he's a birdwatcher.)
Click to view2. Brian May (#26 in RS) - Not only can he make his guitar sound like an entire Dixieland jazz band, he's an astrophysicist and he has a charity that helps British wildlife. How cool is that?
3. Robyn Hitchcock - In terms of influence, he's probably #1 since I can actually (almost) play most of his parts, which I don't think I could say for anyone else on this list.
4. Nick Drake - Surprised he's not on the RS list, to tell you the truth. He's white, male, British, from the 70s and dead. Seems like just their type.
5. Maybelle Carter - Not on the RS list because, of course of 98% of the greatest guitarists of all time were male. Oh wait, she's better than all of their top 10 combined, which seemed to be chosen by a 15 year-old kid in the 80s.
6. Mark Knopfler (#44 in RS) - My favorite during my formative guitar years.
7. Donovan - He'll surprise you.
8. Abby DeWald (Ditty Bops) - Even though my list is 10 times smaller than RS's, it manages to include 50% more women.
9. Andy Partridge
10. Erin McKeown
If my top 10 were restricted to guitarists from the RS 100, I would include the above 3 with RS #s and the following 7 in this order:
RS #51) Johnny Marr (Smiths)
RS #93) Paul Simon
RS #91) Dave Davies (Kinks)
RS #75) Joni Mitchell
RS #95) Roger McGuinn (Byrds)
RS# 71) Robert Johnson
RS# 38) The Edge (U2)