ribl@hou4b.UUCP (08/22/84)
[lend me your ears] I've seen a lot of postings of "great" guitarists. For those that are genuinely interested in such individuals, I suggest that they check out some of Rory Gallagher's material. Having just recently been exposed to his work myself, i've found that his work encompasses most of the styles that the traditional "greats" and he has been a major influence to them. He (at least at one time) was considered to be the guitarist's guitarist. He's been around for *years*; it seems that no one ever pushed his material enough for him to get the recognition he so much deserves by the general population (whoever *they* are). I must say that i do have to be in the mood for his material (it's often blues oriented). But here i am making a distiction here between great *guitarists* and great *songwriters*. I think some of the submissions (calm your flames, i said *some*) neglect to make this distiction. In the jazz genre i'd recommend lending an ear to the works of Pat Metheny, Al diMeola, and (traditionally speaking) Joe Pass. The fact is that there are many guitarists that people consider to be great nowadays. The question is... with so many "great" guitarists, can they all *really* (honestly) be considered great? In closing, I'd like to say that I'm really not interested in hearing people quote lists of great guitarists that i've already heard of (for those all i need to do is look to the spray painted sides of bridges and bathroom walls). My apologies to those already enlightened. Lets hear about those hardly known greats okay? "...And today is only yesterday's tomorrow" [Uriah Heep] Ron Blechman