Jimi Was The Best Bar None!

Best guitar solos ever?
Rock fans, especially those of the male persuasion, love to obsess about the greatest guitar solos. (It's kind of the musical equivalent of baseball fans' endless debates over who was the greatest home run hitter.) There have been lists galore, as critics and fans try to somehow rank the best solos, and now there's another one. The current issue of Guitar One magazine features a staff-assembled list of 101 all-time rock solos (jazz, country and blues were omitted in an attempt to make an impossible task a little more conceivable).

I'll give you the top 50, then come back in a separate post with what I feel are 10 glaring omissions. You're cordially invited to do the same.

1. Jimi Hendrix/Machine Gun

2. Pink Floyd/Comfortably Numb (David Gilmour, axemeister)

3. Dire Straits/Sultans of Swing (Mark Knopfler)

4. Led Zeppelin/Stairway to Heaven (Jimmy Page)

5. Jimi Hendrix/All Along the Watchtower

6. Lynyrd Skynyrd/Free Bird (Allen Collins, Gary Rossington)

7. Eagles/Hotel California (Don Felder, Joe Walsh)

8. Ozzy Osbourne/Crazy Train (Randy Rhoads)

9. Stevie Ray Vaughan/Texas Flood

10. Van Halen/Hot for Teacher (Eddie Van Halen)

11. Cream/Crossroads (Eric Clapton)

12. Jeff Beck/Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

13. Steve Vai/For the Love of God

14. Guns N' Roses/November Rain (Slash)

15. Pink Floyd/Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (David Gilmour)

16. Deep Purple/Highway Star (Ritchie Blackmore)

17. AC/DC/You Shook Me All Night Long (Angus Young)

18. Van Halen/Jump (Eddie Van Halen)

19. Eric Johnson/Cliffs of Dover

20. Jimi Hendrix/Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

21. Led Zeppelin/Heartbreaker (Jimmy Page)

22. Allman Bros. Band/Statesboro Blues (Duane Allman)

23. Beatles/Something (George Harrison)

24. Pantera/Cemetery Gates (Dimebag Darrell)

25. Jeff Beck/'Cause We've Ended as Lovers

26. Allman Bros. Band/Jessica (Dickey Betts)

27. Bill Haley & The Comets/Rock Around the Clock (Danny Cedrone)

28. White Lion/Wait (Vito Bratta)

29. Metallica/Fade to Black (Kirk Hammett)

30. Joe Satriani/Satch Boogie

31. Beatles/While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Eric Clapton)

32. Yes/I've Seen All Good People (Steve Howe)

33. Guns N' Roses/Sweet Child o' Mine (Slash)

34. Steely Dan/Reelin' in the Years (Elliot Randall)

35. Yngwie Malmsteen/Black Star

36. Michael Jackson/Beat It (Eddie Van Halen)

37. Living Colour/Cult of Personality (Vernon Reid)

38. Doors/Light My Fire (Robby Krieger)

39. Aerosmith/Walk This Way (Joe Perry)

40. Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps/Race With the Devil (Cliff Gallup)

41. Queen/Bohemian Rhapsody (Brian May)

42. Stevie Ray Vaughan/Crossfire

43. Free/All Right Now (Paul Kossoff)

44. Heart/Magic Man (Roger Fisher)

45. Led Zeppelin/Since I've Been Loving You (Jimmy Page)

46. Boston/Hitch a Ride (Tom Scholz)

47. Gary Moore/Shapes of Things

48. Ozzy Osbourne/Mr. Crowley (Randy Rhoads)

49. Ozzy Osbourne/No More Tears (Zakk Wylde)

50. Chuck Berry/Too Much Monkey Business

 

My top ten:
1. Johnny B. Goode/Chuck Berry
2. Stairway to Heaven/Led Zep (Jimmy Page)
3. All Along the Watchtower/Hendrix
4. Jumpin' Jack Flash/Johnny Winter And Live (Johnny Winter)
5. Goin' Home/Ten Years After/Alvin Lee
6. Layla/Derek & the Dominos/Duane Allman (slide)
7. Going Down/Jeff Beck
8. Midnight at the Oasis/Maria Muldaur (Amos Garrett)
9. La Grange/ZZTop (Billy Gibbons)
10. Mississippi Queen/Mountain (Leslie West)

Not necessarily the greatest guitarists or technically the greatest solos, but the solos that made everyone stop what they were doing and play air guitar.

 

My next ten:
11. Hot Rails to Hell/Blue Oyster Cult (Buck Dharma)
12. Can't Get Enough/Bad Co. (Mick Ralphs)
13. Sunshine of your Love/Cream (Clapton)
14. One Way Out/Allman Bros. Band (Betts/Allman)
15. Honky Tonk Woman/Rolling Stones-Get Yer Ya Ya's Out version (Keith Richards)
16. Rocky Mountain Way/Joe Walsh
17. When Will I be Loved/Linda Ronstadt (Andrew Gold)
18. Day of the Eagle/Robin Trower
19. Take it Easy/Eagles (Glen Frey)
20. The Thrill is Gone/B. B. King

 

Too many to choose from.

 

The best soundtrack I've ever heard was or the movie from the 80s called Crossroads-It was Rye Cooder and Steve Vai doing all the music and they were smokin!

 

I noticed you guys didn't inlude Al Dimeola or Eric Johnson-but to be fair those guys are Julliard graduates which actually gives them a huge advantage or guys like Hendrix-They are classically trained but I just liked the raw power of Hendrix. Sometimes just being fast isn't enough-ie. BB KING-

 

Jimi hendrix was good but he covered up with alota distortion i think any of iron maidons guitar players could play circles around him but 2 different sounds and different opinions

 

I'm just listening to him right now! He's great!

 

In the 60s the players had nothing but raw talent and maybe a wa-wa pedal. Today' players have a huge choice of toys to influence their sounds.The recordings then were done on 4 and 8 tracks not 32 and 64 tracks and the sound today is so much cleaner but how much of what we here is real talent and how much is overdubbed and multilayers of track on track?-Hendrix' Clapton' Beck' Cippolina' Stevie Ray' they worked real hard to develop their own sounds and they all came away with their own styles.If you want to hear some real good raw playing' listen to the Cream Live From Royal Albert Hall-2005-the re-united tour.Remember these guys are all in their 60s now!-You can imagine how good they were 35 years ago!-I had the pleasure of seeing them in S.F.-way back when.

 

EEE!
Blue Oyster Cult!

 

Dude, there is no beating jimi, in any manifestation whatsoever.

He also taught me a lesson. SLEEPING PILLS SUCK!

 

Hendrix is the rock guitarist bar none. Has a guitarist myself I find his riff aren't overly technically difficult, he just knew how to write a song and put the music together. Even the rhythm guitar he played on his albums was very well done, not just strumming in the background. Jeff Beck and few others are technically better, but they don't have the style that Hendrix played with.

 

Of course there really is no way to say who is the best at any instrument. How do we judge what "best" means?-Does it mean the fastest with the least amount of errors or does it mean the best sounding no matter how difficult the arrangement is?
Does it mean the best at improvising solos?-
When I began this thread' I should have said that this is my opinion only as there is no way to measure the difference in the guitar players as they all have different styles and rock and roll covers many different sounds and styles. Some is slow and bluesy and others fast and furious.
Having seen nearly all the best rated players of the day-60s and 70s' Hendrix impressed me the most because of his style and the way he made it look so easy. He enjoyed playing and he had such a mastery of control on his instrument. He had complete confidence up there and did not show arrogance or ego but had fun just whaling on the guitar.
The tapes and recordings done live just don't do him justice. He was so far ahead of and beyond his peers that they were actually afraid to go on before or after his set-Ask Pete Townsend.-Today-Clapton will say Hendrix was the best' so I say he's right but you really had to hear this guy live to appreciate his talent. It was like controlled chaos on stage.He could go from completely flying up and down the neck and using the wa-wa to doing Red House slow and smooth. Just a great musician-covered all bases. I think it would have been great to hear him and Janis together. They could have written some fantastic stuff together. We'll never know.

 

Hendrix was incredible. I obviously wasn't there but I'm sure his impact was MASSIVE. Jimi inspired me to pick up guitar when I was 14, so I am a fan of the guy. In my opinion Hendrix is kinda overrated in terms of technical ability. Guys like McLaughlin, Lenny Breau, Carlos Santana, Paco De Lucia etc. developed/had better technique and could individually express themselves as well as Hendrix could. That isn't everything though. Hendrix was a true innovator which is the most important thing one can achieve as a musician. The same thing can/could be said about those four guys I mentioned though and a good number of others. I don't think that Hendrix was the best ever.I agree that there isn't a best ever.

 

The reason Clapton' Beck' Santana and all the other greats back then rated Jimi so high is mainly because of the brilliance and his style. He was like nobody before him. Not only was he super fast but he had a total control over the feedback and wa-wa sounds. The total end result in person was unbelievable to hear.

Knowing what few toys he had on stage you then could see that he was making all those great sounds using mainly his hands. No army of gadgets to change the sound with.No tricks-he was for real and his sound was just hard to descibe. It went from bluesy and mellow to fast and loud.
And he sang at the same time he was playing lead and rhythm guitar. The songs on his first album were also done nearly note for note on stage-Electric Ladyland would be near impossible for one guitar player to duplicate live' so I don't think he played much from that one on stage-The last time I saw him was near the end of his life at the Isle Of Wight concert in England in 1970-I first saw him in 67 in San Francisco-by 70' he was getting a little tired-He should have taken a year off but didn't-unfortunately.

Today its really hard to say how good any musician really is ' until you see them live and even then they have a whole bunch of tricks and gadgets to fill the sound in. In the 60s those toys weren't available' in the studio yes' but not on stage.

 

The simple fact is that Jimi Hendrix was the best guitarist in history. He was so good, he was bored doing most of His stuff. Poor guy, exhausted himself.

 

Well'he was the best I ever heard live-and I heard most all the best in the 60s and 70s-Clapton with Cream and Eric Johnston.Jimmy Page' Pete Townsend' Al Dimeola' and on and on- Beck'Richards'Nobody had those hands like he did-They were basketball player hands-they covered the axe like a b-ball-he played the lead and rythem and sung all at one-try it sometime while blasted on mind goggling' wall bending' ground pounding Owsly acid-lol-Did ya ever see em?-Great photo by the way-how did ya get it in there?-

 

he's the best psychedelic guitarist, i agree-but overall i say pagey.

 

side note- i saw them open for cheap trick in july.
their guitarist slayed me.<3!!!

 

Robspace2,
What's happening brother? Thanks for the statement about the picture. Thats a scene at Monument Valley Arizona, Navajo Nation, some where I hang out at when I can. I don't know, it just fit.
Hendrix was in a league alone, and this may not have ben apparent everytime He played. As his later videos and concerts revealed to me at least, like I said originally, he was getting pretty bored with what he could do with the guitar. Its actually obvious.And like you said, he could do it all while tripping his freaking brains out on some serious LSD. That my man, takes some heavy duty maintaining, if you know what I mean. As far as I'm concerned, with the historical statements of co-performers of the same era, coupled with what He actually did, if you can't give James Marshall Hendrix the homage, you either weren't around then, or weren't tripping or both.
On the Vh-1program Monterey 40 that aired this past summer, listen to Grace Slick describe what everyone else thought about him.
Hendrix cracked the lead guitar thing in half, and its been cracked ever since.
I saw him play in Baton Rouge in 68'. But to really appreciate what he did, listen very careful to his studio stuff. Mitch Mitchell was no slouch either.Every one of his original four albums are unprecedented, with Electric Ladyland being a freaking masterpiece. Enough said.