Ten Eternally Fresh Rock Guitar Solos

JasO

Ever notice how certain guitar solos are so emotionally charged and brilliantly played that they still sound fresh and exhilarating every time you hear them? Ever since my decades on staff at Guitar Player magazine, I've been asked to name my favorite solos. With this in mind, I've created a list of ten solos that "get me where I live," as B.B. King used to say, every time I hear them. I'm not saying these are the "best rock solos ever," but to me they stand the test of time:

Jimi Hendrix, "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock
Duane Allman, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" on Fillmore East
Rory Gallagher, "Living Like a Trucker" 
Allan Holdsworth, UK's "In the Dead of Night" 
Eddie Van Halen, "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" 
Andy Summers, The Police's "Driven to Tears"
Phil Keaggy, "Sounds" 
Steve Vai, "Blue Powder" 
Richard Thompson, live "Can't Win" on Watching the Dark
Eric Johnson, "East Wes"

You can hear all of these records and read my reasons for choosing them in this post on my "Talking Guitar" blog: 
https://jasobrecht.substack.com/p/10-eternally-fresh-rock-guitar-solos

If you'd care to share some of yours, I'm happy to listen! 

Funkfingers

Shouldn't this really be in the Plug My Stuff section?

Winny_Pooh

Allan Holdsworth is just mind blowing....

Interesting EJ choice, not EJ at all haha, it would be Desert Rose for me. 

EricTheWeary

Some of these I know and some I don't (see, I know how to contribute...) but I'll work my way through them. That Rory Gallagher one is great, he knew how to attack the instrument yet in a musical way and has those phrases that are more out of a jig or reel than the blues rock vocabulary. Nice example.