JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Guitars and Guitarist Forum Best "GUITAR" albums you (might not) have (really) known about.

Okay, it's not as complicated as it might seem. Often albums have great guitar on them but they are not a "Guitar" album...not mainstream....some great guitar has been overlooked for one reason or another, like failure of the record company to adequately market it. Perhaps they just haven't "made it" yet......or some "star" buried it in their mix....For whatever reason, great guitar work has been left out of the mainstream guitar talk and albums with great guitar have been abandoned or just forgotten about.

Let's remind JPFers of those FORGOTTEN albums that you feel didn't get the recognition for the awesome fretwork that it revealed. What's the best "guitar" laden album YOU think people need to take another listen to?

I'll start us off....off the top of my head and in no particular order....

Tommy Bolin- Teaser
Scorpions- (with Uli Jon Roth)-In Trance
Riverdogs- (Vivian Campbell) Riverdogs
Anything by Tommy Emmanuel

Well, outside of indie geek/punk guitar players, I don't think that many people really think of The Smiths as a "guitar band." Thing is that they were proudly anti-synth; even going so far as to put a disclaimer on their records that "There were no synthesizers used in the making of this record."
Johnny Marr is not a flashy solo kinda player, but the way that he layers and arranges the guitars; the way that he uses effects is really remarkable.
Also: you go in and try to cover a Smiths song: to do it right... it's pretty damn difficult. So:
The Smiths - The Smiths
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come

All remarkable guitar records.
You probably know the records already, but as far as listening to the guitar...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMY4W0l4peY

Anything by JJ Cale or Roy Buchanan.

Also highly overlooked is Leslie West in any of his band incarnations.

Super Session with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and others
The Hellecasters
Early Ten Years After
Anything by the Heartbreakers, the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac (not exactly forgotten!)
Anything by Danny Gatton
Anything by Richard Thompson

Television - Marquee Moon
Not just one, but TWO outstanding guitar players, weaving their parts in and around each other instead of playing the traditional lead/rhythm role.
This 10-minute epic is just remarkable. The individual parts are really not that difficult on this song, but the way it's arranged is brilliant. And the solos, both here and on other songs on the record, are breathtaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlbunmCbTBA

Two you might look up are Speedy West/Jimmy Bryant also Duane Eddy. Chet Atkins also.

Television as a whole are way underrated, great band.

Maybe the reason albums don't get marketed as guitar albums is because it eliminates alot of the audience, women, and young people especially.

I think Ritchie Blackmores work with rainbow was pretty amazing, and he was sort of under the radar as a guitar legend, although he is certainly.

Boston's debut album was fantastic.

VanHalen are nothing without guitar, yet the girls were interested anyway.

YES Pop...thanks for Marquee Moon by Television.....sweet, post alt punk guitar craziness!!!

Try these

Peter Frampton- Fingerprints 2006
Steve Morse- High Tension Wires 1991
K.D. Lang Ingenue (Ben Minks guitar)
The Aristocrats- Both CD's
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones- Live Art
BuddaHeads- Howlin at the Moon

AMEN ON THE HELLECASTERS!!! Phenomenal!!

Got to be Guthrie Govans Erotic cakes album. He is in my humble opion the best all round guitar player out there. Plus he's from the UK :-)

Interesting, I dig this idea. ok let's see here

How about big brother and holding company, I know everyone always thinks of Janis Joplin but the sounds they got back then were so heavy and the guitar just wailed, heck most people probably don't know who Sam Andrew and Peter Albin are, but the sounds they produced on cheap thrills were amazing, they had some awesome blues chops, but with Jazz Technicalities. Just think of the beginning of Take another piece of my heart, brings chills just thinking about it Big brother and Holding company

And then of course here is something obscure (Pop Todd might like this band) Swerve Driver Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, One of particular interest is their album Mezcal Head and a song called duel
Duel by Swervedriver

Great guitar layering and effects, heck the band was pretty much just these two guys and some effects pedals for this album, but there is some amazing stuff going on here. Hey Andy Kemp can even like them as they are from the UK lol

Oh yeah, I know Swervedriver.
Haven't heard much of their stuff, though. I do remember that what I did hear was a bit spacey for my tastes at the time. But that was a long while ago. I should go back and give them another shot. Thanks for the reminder!

Jeff Beck- "Blow By Blow"

Anything by Leo Kottke. The same about Doc Watson.

The Creation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVU7M36Jxyo

"Making Time" is one of the 5 or so greatest riffs in the history of rock.
Just awesome.

And then there was Buddy Merrill.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJXjV6UY9lc&feature=youtu.be

Tilt- Richie Kotzen and Greg Howe
My Name is Deke- Deke Dickerson
Sorry Hangover- Me First
Jeff Loomis- Zero Phase Order
Night of the Living Dregs- Dixie Dregs
Road Games- Allen Holdsworth
I Advance Masked/Bewitched-Summers/Fripp
Diamond Head-Phil Manzanera
Thunder in the East-Loudness
Maragold-Maragold (Greg Howe)
Everything by Greg Howe
Transition-Steve Lukather

What?No Frank Zappa!

Right, Mike...good call!

Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura
Contains what may be my favorite guitar solo of all time, on a song called "Pablo and Andrea."
Now, the solo is all that crazily technically accomplished (it's just good in that way, not great), but it does exactly what a guitar solo is SUPPOSED to do: bring the song to another place, emotionally.
The guitar on the rest of the album is wonderful, too. But this solo is just something else.

"Pablo and Andrea"

It's not the slide solo, but the second solo of the song (around 2:40): the one where the distortion kicks in.
Transcendental.

Zappa's "Hot Rats" is an instrumental album with just a few lines of vocal in "Willie The Pimp" provided by Captain Beefheart.
Great music with long never ending guitar solos. None of the avante garde Zappa style, just pure music.

It's bubble gum pop rock from 1980, but the guitar work is kick ass and tasteful......the producers (debut album and "you make the heat").

the first five records by alice cooper (the band), Glen Buxton/Michael Bruce plucking the strings.

ditto on the hellecasters.

Junior Brown....uh huh.....check out "hung it up".

ditto on Guthrie Govan also.

anything by Tommy Emanuel.

man, the list could be huge.

hey Mac,that Alice Cooper line up was the best ever!Love It To Death up to Muscle Of Love had me crazy in school.I also had Easy Action and Pretties For You on 8 track,LOL.Mike

pretty much anything by Jimi Hendrix is a descent guitar album.

Michael,

yeah, the band was/is awesome......really took you somewhere with a beginning/middle and end......Vince's solo stuff never turned my crank at all.

more guitar records that kill (IMHO):

the grays.....ro sham bo
storyville....a piece of your soul
xtc......black sea
freedy johnston.....can you fly
early Robin Trower
circa zero.....debut

on and on.....

I actually prefer the producers debut album. When I was in grammar school MTV was big, and their song Whats HE Got was a popular video.

I had forgotten all about that song and them, until I got spotify and I kept asking what the hell is the name of that group again, eventually got it.

That album, that band, is FANTASTIC, surprsing how they didnt get bigger than they were. I read where one of the former members now drives a cab, hard to believe.

Bubble gum pop, but not corny, and it was great writing for the genre, that debut is one of my favorites now of all time.

She Shiela as a cool tune too from the second album.

Bubble Gum Pop dont get much better than this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLdj1myZCis

ok maybe this is, but it's close

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbB9x_N1ZQ

the keyboardist, Wayne is a cab driver.......they still tour the east/southeast.Van has a solo record in the can that hasn't seen the light of day, Kyle has a blues rock outfit and Brian is a busy session guy.

don't know who that second band is, but.......well......ahem.......*facepalm*....just a tad too pedestrian for me.

The rasberries were not good but great, especially live, so I hear, I mean they were before my time.

The song always makes me feel good, I like it for that alone. Great singer too. Twist and shout and I wanna hold your hand were just as pedestrian, but look how long they have lasted

from wiki
The Raspberries were an American power pop/pop rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. They had a run of success in the early 1970s music scene with their crisp pop sound, which Allmusic later described as featuring "exquisitely crafted melodies and achingly gorgeous harmonies."[1] The members were known for their clean-cut public image, with short-hair and matching suits, which brought them teenybopper attention as well as scorn from some mainstream media outlets as 'uncool'.[2] The group drew influence from the British Invasion era—especially The Beatles, The Who, The Hollies, and Small Faces—and its mod sensibility.[1] In both the U.S. and the UK, the Raspberries helped pioneer the power pop music style that took off after the group disbanded.[3] They also have a following among professional musicians such as Jack Bruce, Ringo Starr,[4] and Courtney Love.[5]

Disagree on early Beatles, there was a tense,energetic magic that happened with them....Eric Carmen did some okay stuff later, the rasberries were too bland and sloppy sounding for me.

No soloing to speak of, and I'm not really that into metal-ish bands...but I love these guys, and their "tone".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNaT0t67E14

The Beatles didnt become great until later on, they were basicly a boy band that took off. Twist and Shout had a vibrance about it, but that wasnt their tune.

I still love all that stuff, but they didnt become the legends they are with those songs.

* some of the best rock bands of all time were sloppy, including the who and led zeppelin. Page was a very sloppy player, a genius nonetheless

Don't like the who, don't like led blimp either......zep especially, the term "genius" is a bit lofty in regards to all the artists they ripped off to create their overwrought brand of open shirted, sausage fest.

"the beatles didn't become great until later on"......highly subjective.

oh, and Page?....genius?.......that depends on your age I guess, I can think of five guys off the top of my head, within a five mile radius of where I now sit on my porch in this beautiful, backwoods, scenic burg who could all play circles around that guy..................................sorry, gotta hold back a bit.....ahem.

I have to add that townsend can actually play, there.....I said it.

Post deleted by Bugsey

Meh..

are you one of them? genius is not simply playing chops, where he excels is his composition and riffing skills.

I dont know that any rock musician is a world class musician like say a jazz cat might be, but you are really missing something to say Page is not a genius.

But you dont like the who and led zepplin, I mean what else is there?

Check Please!

am I one of them....heh,heh...you mean one of those who see the emperor is truly naked?...yes, yes I am. this is power pop to my ears.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f34u8EZNQLg


as I said, composition?, zep ripped every blues artist that came before them off, blatantly......research, my friend.

your talking to a guy who wore led zepplin and who shirts during the hairband days, when others were digging whitesnake and poison. i know all about it.

You dont steal from the blues, the blues is open book, what zeplin did was pay homage to the bluesmen that inspired them.

I mean they didnt steal Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band,
they borrowed blues ideology and slogans and even riffs, thats what the blues is about, putting your stamp on it.

There is no band that fused rock and blues better than led zepplin plain and simple.

Page, Keith Richards, Townshend, i consider them all geniuses, there simply arent many people on this earth that created the music they came up with, is it high art? No, but they wont be duplicated, you still cant find bands like that anymore, long gone.

But these days im more into singer songwriters, have been for quite a while, Springsteen, Neil young, tom petty, them guys.

Still scratchin my head though, shrugs

The key here, is that YOU consider them genius.....I don't.

Further more, I don't recall saying led zep ripped the blues off, I said they ripped blues ARTISTS off "blatantly"......like....as in....songs.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2010/12/rock-history-101-the-truth-about-led-zeppelin/

Page:

"As far as my end of it goes, I always tried to bring something fresh to anything that I used. I always made sure to come up with some variation. In fact, I think in most cases, you would never know what the original source could be. Maybe not in every case — but in most cases. So most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics. And Robert was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn’t always do that — which is what brought on most of the grief. They couldn’t get us on the guitar parts of the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics. We did, however, take some liberties, I must say [laughs]. But never mind; we did try to do the right thing.”

by the way, I'm sorry.

No the key is I consider them geniuses YOU dont!

Ripping off the blues, and blues artists is nearly the same thing, every blues guitarist out there has stolen from the three kings, including Stevie Ray.

I dont know of any copyright infringement cases involving blues artists, they know better.

I never said Plant was a great lyricist, he's not. They were a blues band who made the blues rock n roll. it's ALL borrowed, but
if you listen to stairway to heaven, or kashmir, or song remains the same, and not credit him as being a genius, I gotta pull the plug, just have to.

by the way, that should have looked more like this:....."...the key here is you DON'T".......see what I did there?


anyway, the truth can be a terrible thing when intertwined with the cognitive dissonance of good memories,like wearing their logo'd t-shirts amongst whatever "current" trend is happening.

again.....I'm sorry.

Genius

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Z4atC9Atc

Genius

I mean who the hell plays the bass like this? Even today?

WHO get it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRflGVcRxCI

Hard to believe, I know...................the rythm sections were fine.

I've a buddy whose tried working on me about this for 30 years, and he knows all there is to know about Led plagiarism....uh, I mean zeppelin...and those other classic rawk gangs........not so much as a crack in my wall, sorry.

once you've seen the emperor's naked ass, you can't "un" see it.

Europe- Out of this World

Oh and i almost forgot Peter Frampton-Frampton Comes Alive

Anyone of John Mayalls albums of the 1960s and 70s