Great musicians of the 20th century

[malvai]

May is May and bettencort is himself...

no point comparing.... Bettencourt scores if wizardry... May in pure feel!

and BOTH are incomparably good.

also add on to the list Randy Rhodes who (despite his short live career) gave some beauties...

Or for that matter The Edge.... the list is endless... My current fav is Jack White... he's more than a guitarist... he's a genre bending, musician... guitars, keyboards, vocals.... man o man... he's something else...

 

[moktan]

of all the modern axe wielders i am prone to put stevie ray vaugham and richard thomson..as being at the very top of their game..richard thomson of course does it in a very understated kind of a way....

 

[metalmickey]

darn how did i forget this guy/band!!!!!!!!!!!

YouTube - The Doors - Break On Through (To the Other Side) HD

 

[metalmickey]

if its about technicallity in guitar i prefer the german uli roth to hendrix and eddie van halen to any one else!!! love the schenker brothers too and wow mathias jabs plays good melodic lead solo's!!!!!!!!if its trashin guitars i love james hetfield/kirk hammet duo from their ride the lightning days!!!!!!!love steve vai's axing in his short lived time with whitesnake!....randy rhaods was awesome time...inspired me a lot to the extent of me buying his signature series axe from jackson!!!!

 

[shredder]

On the topic of country music. Has anyone heard our very own Bobby Cash??
This guy is too good. Famous even in Australia.

 

[moktan]

i don't mean this in an offensive sense...
i find an analogy with football quite useful when talking about guitarists...
in the circus you find some jugglers, doing stuff with the ball that most professional footballers would never even dream about..however do these jugglers come in the picture when we talk of the greatest of the game...even in the guitar, maybe we should be looking beyond 'mere' technical virtuosity...maybe we should appraise guitarists in terms of how they impact the overall sound of music..of course there will always be a hendrix or a tom morello who will force us to expand our vocabulary of our sounds and push the envelope as far as what can be called music..anyway these are just honest musings and don't mean to offend anyone....

 

[ajay124]

"maybe we should be looking beyond 'mere' technical virtuosity...maybe we should appraise guitarists in terms of how they impact the overall sound of music"
Dominic Frasca.
Technical Virtuosity!
YouTube - Impossible guitar
Julian Bream.
One of the three best guitarists of the last 200 years,The other two are Andre Segovia and Francisco Tarrega.
YouTube - Mallorca - Julian Bream

 

[shredder]

i don't mean this in an offensive sense...
i find an analogy with football quite useful when talking about guitarists...
in the circus you find some jugglers, doing stuff with the ball that most professional footballers would never even dream about..however do these jugglers come in the picture when we talk of the greatest of the game...even in the guitar, maybe we should be looking beyond 'mere' technical virtuosity...maybe we should appraise guitarists in terms of how they impact the overall sound of music..of course there will always be a hendrix or a tom morello who will force us to expand our vocabulary of our sounds and push the envelope as far as what can be called music..anyway these are just honest musings and don't mean to offend anyone....

Yes I quite agree with you here. Mastering the guitar is one thing but making music is another thing entirely. Since you brought up the topic of football let me take one example from this sport. If you have seen Britain's Got Talent, you would be familiar with one Jeremy Lynch. A former Arsenal youth player, he was dropped by the senior team. This guy can do with a football what no one else can do. He does things you never even thought were possible with a football. Check this out.
YouTube - Jeremy Lynch on Britain's Got Talent 2008

So point here is that 'mere' talent does not translate into real performance. On the topic of guitars, take the example of Steve Vai. He can make a guitar all but talk and do various sounds like a neighing horse, etc. He has so many albums to his credit in which he shows his technical mastery and dexterity. Yet only a few of his numbers are listen-able. Only a few actually sound pleasing to the ear. Michaelangelo Batio is one of the fastest players around, but he does not really innovate. He is just fast, that's about it.

Only point on which I disagree with you is regarding Hendrix. If you listen to his recorded tracks then you might go "What's so special about this guy anyway?" But if you watch him playing live than you realize what is so special about him. And regarding 'tricks', he popularized sounds like the dive bomb and experimented with various effects. And all of these without the benefit of a Floyd Rose. Regarding Hendrix, I think we should just follow the accolades of various contemporary musicians and the sternest music critics who regarded him as god then and since!

 

[shredder]

i heard manowar when i was at school...now i feel this kind of gothic rock (is it called that??) was a a very WASP (by the way there was an eponymous band too) phenomenon .. popular music that tried to shake off the Black (jazz, blues,r&b) influence and hearkened back to , for want of a better term, i will call the gothic roots....the patrons of this music too were overwhelmingly white...

You forget this kind of music has/had a huge fan following in the South Americas. Not to mention their popularity in Asia. Asian countries like Japan and S. Korea are huge fans of rock and metal. In fact, Japan has some of the finest luthiers in the whole world. Ibanez guitars, the type used by Satriani and Vai (= the ones costing thousands of dollars) are all made in Japan. (The rest of the Ibanez guitars we see in our Indian shores are all made by Cort).

 

[ajay124]

i heard manowar when i was at school...now i feel this kind of gothic rock (is it called that??) was a a very WASP (by the way there was an eponymous band too) phenomenon .. popular music that tried to shake off the Black (jazz, blues,r&b) influence and hearkened back to , for want of a better term, i will call the gothic roots....the patrons of this music too were overwhelmingly white...recently I heard Blind Guardian (Night At The Opera)..kind of felt like Manowar II....
technically these bands are very accomplished..but i somehow feel they lack the emotional energy of the blues (though most of their compositions are highly energetic..)..
but that's me..someone who prefers the guitar of T Bone Walker over the pyrotechnics Satriani or Vai or for that matter that unpronounceable Swede ....anyway this is just my two paise....

My personal perception is that white man's rock music is about noise and the black man's jazz/blues about silence,and as we grows older, we prefer silence to noise.

 

[harry123456]

I understand that you may not have been a fan of heavy metal but it is understandable since the metal scene in India is really sad and bleak. Things have improved slightly since the internet boom has enabled many to have (free??) access to music they would otherwise never be able to have. Here we should pay tribute to Moksha (Chennai) for popularizing metal in India.
Could you let us know what are the metal "tunes" you listened to in your adolescence? In all probability they would be something by Metallica which (in recent years) has become more of Hard Rock. In their last album I listened to, St. ANGER, Metallica sounded more like an angry Offspring. I prefer the Metallica of yesteryears which gave us classics like "Master of Puppets" and "Seek and Destroy".
And I wholeheartedly disagree with the implication that heavy metal (or any kind of music) is something you outgrow, a passing adolescent fad. Maybe music like G'n R is something you outgrow because you cannot be a rebel-without-a-cause all your life. I am sure, though, that music by Britney Spears, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, is something one SHOULD outgrow and in a hurry.
And the band you have suggested Dead Confederates is not at all metal. They don't sound like metal, they don't have that metal feel at all. The guitar effect they use is not used by any metal band to my knowledge. It's more like some heavy fuzz. At most this band are grunge like Nirvana. The particular number you have posted sounds something like The Cranberries' "Zombie" sung by Coldplay. If this song is metal then the Backstreet Boys' Quit Playing Games would be grunge. wrt this particular song I don't see any Southern Rock influence at all. This particular band was formed in 2006. No wonder they are little known. Bands like theirs are a dime-a-dozen.

Yes you are right about the HEAVY METAL scene being pretty much bleak in India during the early eighties. Small towns where i lived during my early years didn't have accessibility to good music off the shelf like in most metros where you still had decent music shops serving popular music. The bands i listened to were
1. Led Zeppelin
2. Mettalica
3. Deep Purple
4. Alice Cooper
5. Black Sabbath
6. Judas Priest
7.Kiss (known for their Striking face makeup)
8.Aerosmith
9.AC /DC
10.Europe
11.Scorpions
12. Rainbow
13.Poison

I dont profess to be an authority on heavy metal or any other kind of music.To be honest don't even know how many of the above listed bands qualify to be Heavy Metal bands but they seemed to have that heavy sound which in my opinion makes them heavy metal to my ears.

I didn't say that one outgrows good music, but with age sustained listening to high dBs of sound is a little hard on the system. I do crank up the volume once in a while when in the mood to listen to some raw energetic guitar riffs and staccato attacks accompanied with gruff vocals and harsh growling and screaming, and with a little alcohol in the system also resort to an occasional headbanging while listening to this music with my kids.(The kids really cant understand what the fuss is all about but do get entertained with the headbanging and think "Dad is Funny":yahoo

@ajay read somewhere that you do like James Brown.Few people i know who really know about James Brown aka "The Godfather Of Soul" Blending soul with jazz and R & B gave rise to "Funk". I like the funk sound and have a couple of James brown CDs. Could you suggest some essential James Brown music. Which CDs do you have?

Heres someone you might enjoy listening to Ajay

"Bobby Rush" Creator of the sound called the Folk Funk.


YouTube - Bobby Rush "I ain't studdin' ya"



PS: Kids Should Not Watch This.(Parental Advisory : Suggestive lyrics)

 

[ajay124]

@harry123456
James Brown is indeed one of my favorites.Currently I have The 2CD Gold set,and it's really very good!
James Brown Gold CD

 

[S_Sridar]

Other greats worth mentioning in the Hindustani classical are musicians such as;
Ustaad Faiyaz Khan Sahib, Sooper Dooper
Pt Mallikarjun Mansur,
Ustaad Ahmedjan Thirakwa,
Ustaad Amir Ali Khan,
D V Paluskar Sooper Dooper

There are also other GREAT greats in the carnatic music;
Kittappa
KB Sundarambal
Chowdiah
Rajaratnam Pillai
Madurai mani
Ariyakudi Ramanujam

 

[S_Sridar]

I am from that era of the great greats like Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Elvis Preisley,

But Believe me, on once stars listening to Carnatic Classical, hindustani classical, and music such as Opera ( Pavarrotti, Andrea Bocelli, Paul Potts ), then one cannot go back to POP music.

 

[ajay124]

I am from that era of the great greats like Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Elvis Preisley,

But Believe me, on once stars listening to Carnatic Classical, hindustani classical, and music such as Opera ( Pavarrotti, Andrea Bocelli, Paul Potts ), then one cannot go back to POP music.

@S_Sridar
You are bang on target.I find classical music to be much better than even the best music from any popular genre.
Between L.Subramaniam,Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan on one hand and Jimi Hendrix,Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton on the other,I would say the Indian trio is far superior.
Jimi,Stevie,Eric would also lose out to the great jazz guitarists like Joe Pass,Django Reinhardt,Paco De Lucia.
Classical guitarists like Julian Bream and Andre Segovia are in a league of their own.I like them even more than Ravi Shankar,L.Subramaniam or Ali Akbar Khan.
I read somewhere,and agree with the opinion,that Julian Bream is the only guitarist of the 20th century who has created something original,something never achieved before,with the sound of a guitar.The spanish guitar in various forms,has been around for close to 400 years.What the rock guitarists have achieved since the 1960's,is a small blip in the long history of the guitar.
Depending upon my mood,I do listen to a fair amount of Jazz and Rock music.But I don't consider Jimi Hendrix a match for Joe Pass and I don't consider Joe Pass a match for Julian Bream.
Simply my preferences.Everyone else is welcome to their own

 

[S_Sridar]

I read somewhere,and agree with the opinion,that Julian Bream is the only guitarist of the 20th century who has created something original,something never achieved before,with the sound of a guitar.The spanish guitar in various forms,has been around for close to 400 years.What the rock guitarists have achieved since the 1960's,is a small blip in the long history of the guitar.
Depending upon my mood,I do listen to a fair amount of Jazz and Rock music.But I don't consider Jimi Hendrix a match for Joe Pass and I don't consider Joe Pass a match for Julian Bream.

Hey Ajay124,

Indeed nice to know that someone else too has multiple preferences.

Can You recommend some pieces of Julian Bream which, I should be listening to.
Also, Have you heard Ustaad Faiyaz Khan Sahib. Simply a unique great. He is one of those few musicians of he contemporary era who trace a direct Descent from Tansen.

 

[S_Sridar]

And, as one of my music friends sneered at me ..
" If you haven't heard opera, then you've heard Nuttin" .

There are some Opera singers who can even make a Teenage crowd go wild.

BTW, did you know that more people attended the Funeral of Pavarotti, than those who attended the funeral of the Prime Minister ?
pavarotti, was a more illustrious son of the soil than the prime Minister !!!!

 

[ajay124]

Hey Ajay124,

Indeed nice to know that someone else too has multiple preferences.

Can You recommend some pieces of Julian Bream which, I should be listening to.
Also, Have you heard Ustaad Faiyaz Khan Sahib. Simply a unique great. He is one of those few musicians of he contemporary era who trace a direct Descent from Tansen.

Rhythm House Search Results
Rhythm House recently got a whole lot of Bream CD's.They are all 'currently unavailable'.I bought 1,2 and 5 from that list
If you can find The Essential Julian Bream 2 cd set,then that would be a good place to begin.
I have not heard the musicians you are writing about.My knowledge of Indian Classical is limited to a few recordings of the better known 8-10 maestro's of the recent decades.

 

[ajay124]

Classic Rock.Two words which are used to describe every sort of music under the sun.But which were the true blue classic albums from the golden age of rock?Last night I pulled out one of those albums from the 'windmills of my mind/memory',dusted off the cobwebs,and sat down for a trip down memory lane.I was astonished that after all these years the music sounded as vital and good,as it did 3 decades ago to my (then)wet ears.Burnished classics,not one dud in the entire album.Gave me the idea of gradually posting what I feel are the best albums of classic rock.Only original studio and live recordings.No complilations.In no particular order.Merely the one that comes to mind.Starting with the one which set the tangled ball of memory rolling
DEJA VU
Crosby,Stils,Nash&Young
http://digitalseance.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/crosby_stills_nash___young_deja_vu.gif
Released in 1970,this CSN album reinforced by the presence of Neil Young,was studded with wonderful songs,my favorites being Helpless and Almost Cut My Hair.Rock music dosen't get much more hip(py) than this.
YouTube - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Helpless

 

[jls001]

if its about technicallity in guitar i prefer the german uli roth to hendrix and eddie van halen to any one else!!! love the schenker brothers too and wow mathias jabs plays good melodic lead solo's!!!!!!!!if its trashin guitars i love james hetfield/kirk hammet duo from their ride the lightning days!!!!!!!love steve vai's axing in his short lived time with whitesnake!....randy rhaods was awesome time...inspired me a lot to the extent of me buying his signature series axe from jackson!!!!

Please beg/borrow/steal/d******d Alcatrazz's Wire and Wood featuring Steve Vai. The liquid flow of his guitar which melds into a live wire solo and staccato inserts is the ultimate marriage of technicality and musicality (if there's such a thing). This was around '82, before his Frank Zappa days. By the way, this band was, as far as I know, Yngwie Malmsteen's first band, too. And that would have been post Vai.