Last great guitar hero

usedtobe

Nigel Tufnel.

Ramirez

Jack White perhaps?

ThePrettyDamned

Tom morello is an excellent choice, can't believe I didn't think of him!

Antoine dufour has changed how I think of acoustic, same with Andy mckee.

Bucket

Just a suggestion - might I put forward Guthrie Govan?

ThePrettyDamned

Bucket;143212" said:

Just a suggestion - might I put forward Guthrie Govan?

Hmm. Doesn't do much for me though he did widen my horizons in terms of listening... Not a bad one for sure!

DulcetJones

Jimi Hendrix, one of the first, if not the first rock guitarist that could meld rhythm and lead into one entity, all the while introducing an array of effects pedals to an unsuspecting public(and legions of teenage boys who wanted to know..."how did he do that???").  Not to mention the fact that he could really play the guitar, even without all the effects.  He never reached the "note per second" speed the metal freaks of the 80's aspired to but he made better music at the speed he did play at imho.

Setzer

A real guitar hero to me has to be known to the average Joe on the street, its all too easy to be known to guitar players but to actually cross over and be known to the general public is the sign of a real guitar hero so for that it has to be Slash without a doubt. Ask the girl/guy in the chip shop, corner shop, working in the local pub who Bonamassa/Satriani/Vai.Malmsteen/Petrucci are and they wont have a clue but Im sure they will know who Slash is!

Secondly he brought the Les Paul back into fashion, I remember before GnR hit nobody wanted a Les Paul and I saw them for a few hundred quid second hand in music shops because if you were seen playing one you would have been ridiculed but once GnR hit it big it was cool to have a LP.

As far as my personal guitar heroes go Slash wouldn't be amongst them but his influence has been massive and nobody has come close to the impact he has had since.

axisus

Like it or not, the last great guitar hero IS Slash. End of.

maltingsaudio

From my perspective its who ever encouraged youngsters to start using different tunings...... they're all fxxing do it now. Before that it was the loopbox

blueskunk

Billy Corgan

Bidley

Slash for inspiration, maybe Vai or Satch for ideas (if we're talking on a famous scale - I'm sure there are hundreds of lesser-known artists out there now with more ideas).

EdGrip

Seems like we've got two questions here: 

1. Who is the last Guitar Hero that someone in the chip shop might have heard of (most people, contrary to your assertion, won't have heard of Slash. My dad hasn't heard of Slash, nor has my mum, and nor - I suspect - has the woman in the chip shop.) The problem here is that the "probably heard of" threshold is a bit vague and subjective; I would *guess* that more people have heard of Brian May than have Slash, and that still more people have heard of Jimi Hendrix - though I suspect that only Jimi would make it over the "over 50% of people you ask" majority threshold. So I think that's asking the wrong question - I think a better one would be who among people who enjoy rock'n'roll music is the last Guitar Hero? Hmm.

Anyone in the 2000s? Jack White? Matt Bellamy, maybe, but I don't think so. Alex Turner probably did more to bring loud guitar back into the mainstream after its little holiday, even make it cool again, but I don't think anyone would call him a Guitar Hero. Popular appetite was huge for nu-metal at the start of the 2000s, but I don't think the kids buying those albums were particularly interested in who was playing what on the guitar - they were there for the music and the pain.

Anyone in the 1990s? A few - Morello, Armstrong, Homme, Greenwood. Cobain. These are people where I think that listeners and fans of the band who were non-guitarists would nonetheless have appreciated the guitar playing of these guys in itself, in addition to the music. I can imagine non-guitarists playing air guitar to these tracks. There are plenty of people playing guitar now because of each one of them.

And so, to the 80s. Where, let's face it, it's Slash. It just is. 

The other question is, who was the last guitarist who influenced you? Surprised you, inspired you, made you want to be able to play like they do?

For me, lately, this has been Russell Marsden, of Band of Skulls, and the guitarists in CAKE (there have been two, Greg Brown and Xan McCurdy). But the two players who have been there or thereabouts throughout my time playing guitar are Brian May, Jonny Greenwood, and The Crocketts' guitarist Dan Harris (who is now living in Ibiza or something, not being a guitarist). If I could ever hope to play guitar in a way that was somehow a sum of these guys... that would be me well and truly chuffed for ever.

streethawk

Marr, Mascis, Navarro, Frusciante, Buckingham and Richard Thompson for me. 

Handsome_Chris

I'd have to agree with @axisus about Slash being the last great guitar hero, if there were not all so many others still alive, one of which is Glenn Tipton.

Actually, it has to be Floyd Rose or Gary Kahler (dive bombs aren't the same on a sync trem), or those chaps working for Roland who came up with the whole guitar synth thing.  Then again there are the Gibson bods who sorted out the whole auto tuning thing which is pretty cool.

mike_l

digitalscream said:

Annoyingly, that would most likely be Slash.

Or possibly Kirk.

 

I'd also throw Eddie Van Halen in to the mix.

And David Gilmour.

And on a more personal level Dave Murray and Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden as, without them, I doubt I'd play guitar.

p90fool

koneguitarist said:

Is that what makes a guitar hero, sales ?

Yep.

The23rdman

John Butler.

TheOtherDennis

Not a fan personally, but I think John Squire of the Stone Roses did an awful lot to change guitar music in this country, anyway - before him, everything had gone electric and even Johnny Marr had become a session musician.

Squire influenced the first wave of guitar bands to come along in the 90s. He not only got Gallagher playing, but also to a lesser extent Graham Coxon and Brett Butler and all the other guys, who it must be admitted brought us the horrors that became BritPop, but at least they made guitars cool again.

Other than that, I'd like to say Johnny Greenwod because he's done some eye-popping things with his guitars, but I don't see many trying to copy him.

Having said that, Matt Bellamy wants to be Thom Yorke so much it hurts. *









*May not actually be true, but that's what it looks like to me. <innocently sweet, butter-wouldn't-melt smiley>

RocknRollDave

Can't see the Tom Morello thing, myself, can someone explain?

mike_l

RocknRollDave said:

Can't see the Tom Morello thing, myself, can someone explain?

One of the first to cross between rock/rap/hip-hop

used his guitar like a DJ scratches records etc