Guitarists From The United States

"Chet Atkins was the man. Beloved of the generation of guitarists that went on to be the generation of the ‘60s, Chet was the titan of country music whose flatpickin’, acoustic-ripping playing would give anyone pause to stop, listen and admire. Responsible for creating the Nashville sound and bringing country into pop, as a guitarist his influence was felt far and wide. Solid as a rock, technically perfect, and an all-time great without compare."

"One of the special characters in music history. Collins got his first real shot at stardom while a member of James Brown’s famous backing band. He contributed to such Brown classics as "Sex Machine" and "Super Bad." From there, Collins took that soul background and his "space bass" with a funk vibe over to George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. In addition to playing with those two juggernauts of sound, the Hall of Famer has collaborated with the likes of Talking Heads and Keith Richards. Collins has also taught the bass and has been featured in music videos and on television sitcoms."

"It was famously observed that, though Duke Ellington played piano, his real instrument was his orchestra. Similarly, while Eddie Condon was a useful rhythm guitarist, he was a virtuoso of the spirit of Chicago jazz. Organiser, promoter, impresario, publican and publicist, he symbolised its carefree pleasures until his death in 1973. [...] If Chicago jazz epitomised the devil-may-care mood of the 1920s, it also looked forward to the ’30s: Chicago stars such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa spearheaded the age of the big bands. But Condon kept faith with his original passion, espousing both small-group spontaneity and the fun-loving, hard-drinking ethos that went with it. Leading groups in clubs, arranging record dates and concerts, he became a one-man mission for Chicago jazz and was rewarded in the ’40s when public interest revived in Dixieland. Condon was the music’s embodiment. A dapper figure with slicked-back hair, he was a celebrated wit, typically addressing a sparse audience as ‘Lady and gentleman’. The music itself was first class, as you can hear in Eddie Condon: Windy City Jazz.[...] In later years, the Condon style was often barbarised by amateurs, giving Dixieland a bad name. But he would be pleased with a record that so appealingly distils the best of his life’s work."

"With traditional clean Telecaster tone typically running straight into the amp (usually a Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb) and often drenched in shimmering reverb, country hit-maker Marty Stuart deftly rolls Don Rich, Ralph Mooney and Clarence White all into one and makes it look easy. Stuart is the prime exponent in modern country of the sinuous pedal steel sound of the B-Bender Telecaster."

"[Rhodes left] behind a legacy as one of Nashville's most influential players."

"As the co-host of Hee Haw and a mainstay on broadcast television for years, Roy Clark was an extremely visible ambassador of country music in the '60s and '70s. And while many know Clark for his TV work first, that shouldn't diminish his very real abilities as a guitarist."

"[Carter's] influence on the development of country music really can't be overstated."

"Kaye’s stellar professional music career began with the sounds of jazz and big band before becoming one of the most sought-after pop/rock session bassists and guitarists, beginning in the late 1950s. During a career that covered over a half-century, Kaye’s bass work was featured alongside music giants like Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and Quincy Jones. A long-time teacher of the electric bass, Kaye played on Nancy Sinatra’s classic "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and contributed to the famed Mission: Impossible theme. How's that for a legacy?"

"There are only a few immediately recognizable electric guitarists and Albert King is one of them. [...] Perhaps the main ingredient in his uniqueness is his sense of dynamics."

"Wielding an instantly recognizable Mosrite double-neck, Maphis dazzled audiences with tunes like "Flying Fingers" that showcased his prodigious fingerboard dexterity. While not as famous as Chet Atkins, Maphis was still a widely known musical personality in the '50s, owing to his presence on a television broadcast called Town Hall Party. Performing with his wife Rose and a rotating lineup of musicians and special guests, Maphis' guitar trickery was an inspiration to a generation of young country pickers."

"Way ahead of his time, and the forerunner of every top-tapping, open-tuning, harmonic-loving acoustic warrior out there, Michael Hedges was a trailblazer. Close your eyes and you could be listening to three guitarists. Open them, and it’s just Hedges, dancing his way across the fretboard, breaking boundaries for fun. A great talent taken far too soon."

"Albert King is the Muhammad Ali of blues guitar -- a heavyweight with finesse, a bruiser with grace. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

"[George Van Eps] was such an accomplished musician, he wanted to be able to accompany himself on bass as he played the guitar. Toward this end, he designed a seven-string guitar in the late 1930s. The seventh string allowed him to get bass tones lower than the open E-string on the conventional six-string guitar, and thus provide himself with a walking bassline as he played. It also opened up all kinds of opportunities for new chord voicings on guitar."

"Today, the artistry of George Barnes isn't well-known outside of a small circle of jazz guitarists and aficionados. But his influence runs through the history of electric jazz guitar. Some claim he was the first jazz artist to record with an electric guitar. Barnes was also one of the first guitarists to use the instrument as the only melody instrument in a small group format, accompanied by a rhythm section of bass, drums and rhythm guitar."

"When I was growing up people would always say, and it was meant in the kindest possible way, ‘You’re really good for a girl,’ because there weren’t a lot of girls or women playing. Out of this small pond of people, it was surprising to them. In my opinion, you’d have to be pretty unworldly to make a comment like that anymore. Nobody had the success that Alison Krauss had. So, when that happened, I think it started to make it difficult for people to look at women in bluegrass as some kind of exceptional thing. Here was a woman who really blew out the boundaries for the music and really expanded the potential for the music and brought in new listeners."

"I started playing bluegrass music at such an early age that it never really dawned on me that I was the only female around at times. I think that was one of the reasons that I fell in love with Alison Krauss so early on. I was nine years old when I got my first Alison Krauss recording and she really became a big hero to me. I remember getting my first Rhonda Vincent album, too. I didn’t know anything about her music, yet, but I thought it was so cool to see a woman holding a mandolin on the album cover. I remember being about nine or 10 and thinking, ‘that will be me someday—a woman mandolin player!"

"I think we have, just like in society, a way to go for everybody to be recognized equally. [...] But I think women have learned business and honed their craft. They’re great musicians. I think that’s been a very important point for women growing in bluegrass.” For Bradley, Emmylou Harris was one of her first inspirations in music. “When Emmylou came out with ‘Roses in the Snow,’ I was a teenager and that absolutely, that was just it, that was the first real representation of the female artist making one of the best records that ever been in bluegrass, acoustic and roots music."

"Born and raised in the coalfields of Appalachia, Dale Ann Bradley today is one of the most respected bluegrass vocalists, with five IBMA Vocalist of the Year Awards under her belt. She’s got the kind of hard twang of the best Appalachian bluegrass singers, and she’s always one with a kind word and helping hand for new musicians."

"Much of the session work [Atkins] recorded and/or produced in Nashville with artists like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers laid the foundation for early rock and roll."

"Another member of the "A-Team," Hank Garland ranks right up there in the list of prolific Nashville studio players. Tragically, Garland was in a horrific car accident in 1961 and sustained injuries that robbed him of most of his playing skill. While the incident effectively ended his recording career at the age of 31, his influence on countless players since continues to this day."

"To any new country fans who think Chris Stapleton is forging new ground by bringing that much soul into country music … where have y’all been?"

"As one of the most respected and consistent country artists of all time, Strait ranks right up there with Cash and Haggard. His list of awards is staggering and stretches from the mid 1980s all the way to 2015."

"Merle Haggard’s band had a roll call of great players over the years, but perhaps nobody brought more Telecaster magic to the Strangers than Arizona guitarist Roy Nichols, whose deft chicken pickin’, pedal steel-like bends and jazz-inflected chromatic tonality made him a sophisticated musical foil for Haggard’s own hard-edged Telecaster chops."

"While players like Travis and Maphis certainly had a definitive style, Grady Martin—considered by many of his peers to be the finest Nashville guitarist of his day—was defined by his versatility. [...] He was an arranger and producer, and, according to some, deserves a similar standing to Chet Atkins as one of the key forces in the development of the Nashville Sound."

"The speed and aggression [in Slayer's music] came from Hanneman’s love for hardcore punk such as Minor Threat, TSOL, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Germs and more. This influence had an impact on [the band's] primitive sound which was the blueprint for all thrash metal bands to follow. Hanneman played and wrote music on every single Slayer album and is responsible for so many classic hits."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"Even though [Hanneman] was at the heart of the [Slayer's] creative force musically and lyrically, he shed away from the public eye mostly and usually avoided interviews, leaving the talking to Kerry King of Tom Araya."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"Look, I can get into anything I write about. I can write about serial killers; I can be a fucking Satanist. I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best satanic lyrics on the fucking planet. And it’s great entertainment. And religion is the funnest thing to make fun of. [...] I remember back in 1990 during the Clash Of The Titans tour [with Anthrax, Megadeth and an unknown Alice In Chains], we had this religious talk-show guy Bob Larson out doing a special story on us for Spin magazine. Me and Jeff [Hanneman, fellow Slayer guitarist] have always been very similar in how we think about religion and atheism. So we’d listen to this guy – as I believe you should; you should always hear people out. But whenever I tried to question his beliefs, he’d go on the defensive and say: ‘It’s because the Bible says so.’ So then I’d ask: ‘Who the fuck wrote the Bible?’ Because to me it’s like a fairy tale that has been translated many times. And that’s when I realised these people are just fanatics. That’s when the seed got planted in my head to write about them. Because they really are out of their fucking minds."

"Love is all around, no need to waste it You can have the town, why don't you take it? You might just make it after all."

"For an album with a photo of a guitar on its cover, My Bloody Valentine’s signature opus Loveless is what happens when Kevin Shields puts his mind to making that instrument sound like anything but. Thanks to some skillful, ingenious tremolo abuse, the opening siren of “Only Shallow” the moose call of “Touched,” and the woozy haze of “I Only Said” are as dramatic and jarring and alien and deeply influential musical moments as anything to come out of the eventful early ’90s — and it’s telling that Shields has never attempted to top it."

"A-breakin' rocks in the hot sun I fought the law and the law won I fought the law and the law won I miss my baby and the good fun I fought the law and the law won I fought the law and the law won."

"Tonight I am going to defecate on stage because I think that is the only way to express the nature of my soul according to rock and roll."

"When you tuned a guitar a new way you were a beginner all over again and you could discover all sorts of new things...It allowed us to throw out a whole broad body of knowledge about how to play the guitar."

"BB King is one of the most influential guitarists in history and can be credited with inventing guitar soling using string bends and vibrato."

"Every guitarist who bends or vibratoes a string to make it sing owes a debt to B.B. King. With influences as diverse as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, the late guitarist turned the blues world upside down in 1952 with “3 O’Clock Blues.” Almost overnight, the harmonica was supplanted as the primary solo instrument in blues, as guitarists scrambled to imitate B.B.’s soloing style, especially in Chicago."

"Like Joni [Mitchell], Fahey explored a vast array of tunings in his career, and this embrace of new approaches provided the backbone for this whole school of playing. If you have to choose one essential Fahey tuning, look for his particular open C, tuned low to high as CGCGCE."

"When you're playing in standard tuning all the time, you're sounding pretty...standard."

"As hardcore inflicted grievous bodily harm upon land speed records and societal norms, early harDCore heroes Bad Brains stood out. They were not only the earliest of thrash outfits, but they were likely the best musicians to tackle the form. Guitarist Dr. Know is especially adept, spewing volleys of 16th notes like some people yawn. This American Rasta was like one of the earliest metal guitarists working within a punk format. Then, like the rest of his brethren, he could stop on a dime and downshift into the slowest, deepest dub reggae. It’s truly astonishing."

"Bad Brains and Dr. Know hold impressive credentials. Not only have they blended and bended several genres throughout their career, but they were vital to the development of hardcore punk and thrash metal subgenres. He can do reggae, funk, punk, metal, and hip hop. Dr. Know is probably your favorite punk guitarist's favorite guitarist. Both of those subgenres would flourish in the years after Dr. Know unleashed his guitar skills on the world. And we're all better for it."

"The Big V has been making weird guitar noises since his infancy—when Frank Zappa’s wolf pack adopted and raised him."

"Michael Anthony’s minimalist bass style - for the most part root notes played in steady eighths - leaves plenty of sonic space for Eddie to experiment with."

"There's a reason why Steve Vai was cast as the Devil's champion in the guitar standoff scene of "The Crossroads" movie, and a ridiculously long list of mind-blowing guitar effects he could produce certainly added to his reputation of an established guitar wizard. His pick squeals are top-notch, especially when he lays on a note so hard that it makes your brain melt, or when he combines it with a whammy effect, making his guitar sound like a racehorse dying in horrible agony."

"You want there to be moments [in a song] where something unexpected hits you. They’ve done studies on this. What is it in a song that makes people cry? What is it that moves you? It’s something unexpected."

"If you haven’t played the songs for ten or fifteen years it’s very tingly, it’s exciting. I enjoy playing them. This promoter in Spain — he asked us to do the show in Spain in January and it was really fun and then the records were all coming out. It just seemed like a good time. I thought I should do more of these."

"Although he started out on acoustic, it was with Muddy’s transition onto the electric that captivated the music world, with the hulking bluesman using a slide alongside open G tuning on many of his greatest tracks, including ‘Mannish Boy’ and ‘Honey Bee’. Waters was also noted for his immense vibrato, and was famous for rolling up the volume knob prior to his solos to create eardrum shattering levels of distortion to cut through the mix and write himself into history."

"My advice for creating instrumental music would depend on what kind of tune you are making. Having a strong melody is a good starting point. If you find something that sounds nice, put all of your heart and soul into it. Try to do something that makes it unique to you. Think creatively. I try to make each of my songs special in its own way. I like to have different moods and flavors in one song. I never got off on having every song sound the same, with only one type of energy. Really, anything creative and different is cool."

"The founder and leader of Bay Area thrash stalwarts Exodus, Holt isn't always listed among the metal greats. Perhaps because Exodus never enjoyed the consistent mainstream success like other bands of its ilk -- notably its buddies from Metallica. Still, Holt is one of the most severe metal guitarists around (especially when it comes to his solo work)."

"I‘ve been doing it longer than I would have guessed. I didn’t think when I started Galaxie 500 I’d still be making music in twenty years. Longer than I’d dared to hope, I suppose. Being in an indie band back then, you weren’t allowed to have dreams of being huge. None of the major labels have touched anything that’s remotely left of field since the punk movement. It was all Huey Lewis. That changed with Sonic Youth and then Nirvana signing to Geffen. Alternative became this huge business, and now Arcade Fire or Vampire Weekend can be No. 1."

"When you mention Guns N' Roses, most people think of Axl Rose or Slash. Meanwhile, it's sad how they all forget about Izzy Stradlin as he was one of the key components of the band's sound."