You can close your eyes, and as soon as you hear this, you know who's playing. (You might think it could be Albert King, but not if you're sharp-eared.)
What that tells you is that this isn't the "best guitar player." It's a very one-dimensional guitar player, one who has basically one style, and one style only. A guitar player who's very overrated, by people who apparently don't know too much about guitars or guitar players.
Joris van Dijk
I don't think you know very much about guitars if you don't consider him as one of the best ever. He just liked one style most and mastered it like nobody could. If you watch his performances you'll see why people consider him as one of the best. I'm not saying that he is the best, but he sure is one of the best ever.
And further more I can also easily recognise Hendrix, B.B. King, Clapton, Guy, etc. with my eyes closed. And those weren't one-dimensional guitar players.
Panglos
Being limited and being recognizable aren't mutually exclusive. In your list, some of those artists are unidimensional (I love the guy, but exactly how many styles does B.B. have?), and some are multidimensional. Having worked with some of them, I have a pretty good handle on that.
deathtokoalas
your error is trying to rank guitarists in the first place. there is no total ordering on the set of all guitarists. how does one compare srv to al di meola? one was a self-taught prodigy working entirely on intuition, the other was a berklee academic. the guitar is a completely different instrument to these people.
rather, the question - in this case the definition of the set - needs to be restricted to something more specific. srv was a self-taught, "feel" guitarist that focused purely on raw emotion. the question you need to ask is not "how diverse was srv in comparison to other players"; that would be as silly as asking "how punk rock was al di meola?". the question you need to ask is "how real, powerful and fucking gut-wrenchingly emotional was srv in comparison to other players?".
i hesitate to place him at the top. i think dislodging hendrix from his acknowledged place of righteousness is very difficult. i'll throw the curve ball of a young billy corgan (90-95) in there that most people would probably think is pretty left field, but i'll argue the point. check out 'starla' or 'drown'. yet, the number of 'feel' players that can overpower srv is very small indeed. no more than can be counted on one hand.
....even if he'd tell you that you're speaking greek if you brought up the concept of modes.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos You can't say that when somebody prefers one style above the others he's an unidmimensional guitarist. The thing is that he was a blues man and didn't feel like doing another style. His blues are unparalleled by anyone else. I'm sure Stevie could have mastered Rock or something like that, but why should he? He is one of the best blues men ever. Stevie is not unidimensional, but he had his own style he prefered. Those are two different things.
Panglos
+deathtokoalas It wasn't me who said "best guitar player;" I responded to the claim, and denied it. So "my error" is your error. I agree that it's ridiculous to rank artists as if art is competitive. The great thing about art is that, unlike sports, it's all positive and not a zero-sum game: you get A and B, not A or B.
But I have to differ about the point about SRV being self taught (as if that makes him unique) and a "feel" guitarist. The ability to emote is IMO the best attribute of a guitarist. I think we agree on that. But there gets to be a point at which it's too much, where the player represents the out-of-control sort. The type of trailer-dwelling person who loses his cool and beats his wife/girlfriend--sure he's unusually expressive, but we don't count that as being expressive in a way that we admire. And that's the kind of person SRV and his music remind me of.
There are lots of guitarists who have so much "feel" they can--and do--bring tears to my eyes. For the right reasons. I can do without SRV.
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos But even if you keep the "feel" (From which I think SRV has the best blues feeling, but that's an opinion matter) aspect out of sight and just take a pure look at his technics, you can't deny that SRV was technically one of the best, he always hit the right notes at the right time, he has extremely quick hands and the songs are greatly constructed. Even if you put the "feel" away you can say is one of the best.
Panglos
+Joris van Dijk Using the video here as an example (and it's one of many), it sounds really sloppy to me. Not tight at all, hardly "hitting the right notes at the right time."
There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I love Albert Collins' style, for example, even as I refer to his playing as "bad hair day guitar." Mistakes—and recovery from them—are sometimes my absolute favorite parts of blues solos (witness Johnny Winter at about 4:44 in Third Degree). It's like the charred bits in a plate of barbecue.
But somehow SRV just doesn't do it for me. It's more like meat that's not cooked exactly to my liking, and prepared much the same way every time.
I'm going to have to get off this topic. It's not my purpose to denigrate someone on a site/video dedicated to him. I only wanted to offer a differing opinion to a specific post. I'm happy for you that you get enjoyment from SRV that I don't get. Fortunately for me (and all of us), there are plenty of other places to get pleasure from blues players, and music in general!
Joris van Dijk
+Panglos Well after all music is all about opinions, so I respect yours, evenhough I don't agree with you. And just as you say there a plenty of other nice blues players and some of them we probably like both, was a nice discussion and enjoy the blues!
deathtokoalas
yeah. srv was not a technically gifted guitar player. that's why i brought in the di meola example. if you want to judge guitarists on that scale, you need to be looking into jazz and prog (and, to a much lesser extent, metal). srv sounds like an amateur in comparison to zappa, keneally, mclaughlin, holdsworth, etc. but it's a meaningless comparison to make because they're not playing the same instrument.
that being said, i don't understand how somebody could deny the raw emotional power of his playing and still manage to breathe on a regular basis.
Joris van Dijk
+deathtokoalas I don't entirely agree with you, SRV was also technically a good musician.
deathtokoalas
+Joris van Dijk stevie only really knew how to play pentatonic blues. he then got really good at it by practicing playing the same patterns over and over. so, he sounds fast, but there's no technical understanding of music underlying the sound. if you take him out of that context, he's entirely lost. he made the most of it, though - in the same way that a one-note solo can often be more powerful than a barrage of notes. really, i'd argue that it's his slower pieces where he really wails.
