norman brain wrote:Mug, you're the queen! I was wondering who would be the first to include Richard Thompson!
smm may indeed be the queen, but her status doesn't rely upon having been the first to mention the very wonderful Richard Thompson in this thread. It was in fact bobster who did so (unless tricky editing has been done), and I for one don't think bobster's a queen.
kudos to this board for most of their choices. I'm very impressed that Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Django Reinhardt and Sonny Landreth have all been mentioned, as they are geniuses at the instrument, each in his own way.
I'll just mention a few who haven't made anyone's list so far, not necessarily because they're actual Top 5, but because they certainly deserve consideration:
Jorma Kaukonen - original and inventive, not in a particularly flashy way and in a variety of styles; also, as adept at acoustic as electric, which Jerry Garcia said was difficult, so it's worth noting
Phil Manzanera - he caught my attention with Roxy Music, but with John Cale or Eno, his original band Quiet Sun or 801, or as a solo artist, he displays great fluidity and a unique musical vision
Chris Spedding - the king of the 70's and 80's session, in the UK at least, and frequent sideman to Robert Gordon and Bryan Ferry
David Byrne - with Talking Heads he didn't play many solos, but when he did, they were brilliant; his playing was always in service of the songs, and particularly before Jerry Harrison joined, the importance of that was plainly evident; still an artist to watch
Adrian Belew - amazingly adept and completely original, and with Robert Fripp in King Crimson, he's half of the only lasting guitar duo I know of in the same class with Verlaine and Lloyd; a partial list of his many credits tells a lot of the story: Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel
PS A general spelling tip that might help my pals remember. Take that "h" that people keep trying to add to "Entwistle" and give it to "Townshend" instead.