B.B. King

(Mississipi, USA 1925 ) B.B. King grew up picking cotton and singing gospel. Impressed by artists like T-Bone Walker, Lonnie Johnson and Django Reindhardt, he discovered the world of the blues and decided to make a living out of playing the guitar. With his expressive and rather simple style and his ‘less is more’ playing approach he conquered the world, becoming one of the most respected artists of the last century. With a 60 year old career and more than 10 000 live shows, he is still at age 82, the King of the blues.

And for sure, he has been one the most influential guitarists of all times. Afer 60 yeras of playing the blues everyone from Buddy Guy to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray had looked up to him. And that is because he left his heart on stage every time he played, for him it has never been about the fame and the money, but the feeling of the music. When an artist gets this honest people just feel it, they feel that this fat old man is talking to them and comunicating something that can´t be said with just words. When he is singing it feels like all the people that developed the blues in those cotton fields are talking thorugh his voice. He also proved to the world that you don't need to know all the scales and play as fast as 'speed racer' to make a good guitar solo, it's just that bending, those 5 or 6 notes he uses, but they are always put in a way that anyone can understand.

Django Reinhardt

(Belgium, 1910 - 1953) Born in a Gypsy family, he started to play banjo, violin and guitar when he was just a child. He grew up playing in different gypsy camps all along Paris. When he was 18 years old he had a fire accident that burned two of his right hand fingers. He then developed his own technique to keep on playing the guitar with only two fingers. His style was a unique fusion of jazz with gypsy music. Because of his sense of phrasing, originality and versatility he is rated on the top ten guitar players of the twentieth century.

Thanks to my friend Arcabuz I can have all these caricatures of the great guitarists of history, don't forget to take a look at his blog.

Lesson 6: The first right hand exercise

Try those combinations, after a while you will notice the improvements very clear. Be patient, some of the combinations may give you a hard time. Always play slowly first.

So here is my list

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Django Reinhardt
3. Randy Rhoads
4. Paco de Lucía
5. Stevie Ray Vaughan
6. Andrés Segovia
7. Wes Montgomery
8. Eddie Van Halen
9. Eric Clapton
10. Jimmy Page
11. Steve Vai
12. Robert Johnson
13. B.B. King
14. David Gilmour
15. Chuck Berry
16. Al Di Meola
17. John McLaughlin
18. Carlos Santana
19. Buddy Guy
20. Charlie Christian
21. Heitor Villalobos
22. Tony Iommi
23. Eric Johnson
24. Jeff Beck
25. George Harrison
26. Keith Richards
27. Richie Blackmore
28. Kirk Hammett
29. Joe Satriani
30. Slash
31. Albert King
32. Tom Morello
33. Zakk Wylde
34. Brian May
35. Dimebag Darrell
36. Mark Knopfler
37. Sabicas
38. Duane Allman
39. Bryan Setzer
40. Niño Ricardo
41. Angus Young
42. Tomatito
43. George Benson
44. John Lee Hooker
45. Raimundo Amador
46. Les Paul
47. Leo Brouwer
48. Pat Metheny
49. Freddie King
50. Joe Pass
51. Robert Fripp
52. Frank Zappa
53. Richie Sambora
54. Andy Summers
55. Pete Townshend
56. Billy Gibbons
57. Joe Walsh & Don Felder (The Eagles)
58. Allan Holdsworth
59. Albert Collins
60. John Petrucci
61. T-Bone Walker
62. Gary Moore
63. Antonio Lauro
64. K.K. Downing & Glen Tipton (Judas Priest)
65. Yngwie Malmsteen
66. Steve Howe
67. Nuno Bettencourt
68. Vito Bratta
69. Chet Atkins
70. John Williams
71. Steve Hacket
72. Gustavo Cerati
73. Dave Murray & Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden)
74. Kenny Wayne Shepherd
75. Loonie Johnson
76. Peter Green
77. Ry Cooder
78. Jake E. Lee
79. Johnny Winter
80. Jerry Cantrell
81. Joe Perry
82. Muddy Waters
83. George Lynch
84. Richie Kotzen
85. Jonny Lang
86. Henry Garza
87. Bonnie Raitt
88. Walter Giardino
89. Kim Thayil
90. Mike McReady
91. Sharon Isbin
92. Johnny “Guitar” Watson
93. Ariel Rot
94. Derek Trucks
95. Alejandro Marcovich
96. John Meyer
97. Robby Krieger
98. Kurt Cobain
99. Frank Gambale
100. Juanes

Well, I'm sure not everybody will agree with this list, but I hope that it gets a little closer. Besides, this list is made after my own musical taste and I'm trying also to put a lot of the names that most people can agree with. The first 20 guitarists are in order of importance, the rest of them can be put in any order, it depends on you.

About Rolling Stone's 100 best guitarists of all time list!

Well, I was reading one of those lists in the Rolling Stone website and let me tell you: they are so screwed, it just sucks!! I think is it very difficult to compare artists in the first place because they come from different times and places and their cultures and social environments were different too. If you are gonna make a list you have to think about the importance and contribution to the guitar that each player has given to the world. So anyway, I'm sure everybody has a different opinion about this and probabaly we are not going to agree in the order we put some guitarists and everything, but that list has things like: Johnny Ramone number 16?? Randy Rhoads 85??? what the hell are they thinking?? as far as I'm concerned punk gutarists can deserve respect for their attitude and the movement was so strong when the world of rock was full of pretentius musicians that came up with this prog rock and things like that, it was so complex that lost all rock spirit and was totally dull, but as musicians or real players punk guitarists are not much better than a kid playing guitar hero on his xbox!!

Don't get me wrong, I really respect them but playing three barre chords comparing to what Randy Rhoads did is just not fair, it is so out of everything that this people deserve to lose their ears! or at least they should really listen to the music leaving their taste for punk rock out. The worst thing about this is that people take seriously this kind of lists and suddenly it appears to be true that some guy like Ron Asheton, Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore or Ike Turner are better guitarists than Randy Rhoads, Tony Iommy or Angus Young. You can even find in wikipedia when they talk about each one the position they have in this stupid list as if it is something believable. I've read a lot of comments about this in some forums and I can tell that a lot of people would agree with me. And by the way who the hell is Robert Randolph ? So I'm gonna go against my speech about not doing lists and stuff and I am going to make one according to ME. Yeah I know it sounds selfish but this is my blog in it is only my opinion, you can take it or leave it, I just feel a need of straighting things up with this insulting rollinstone list and I am gonna include guitarists from other genres like flamenco and classical, rock is great but it is not everything, so wacth this.

Lesson 3: working on your right hand

I think it is very important to learn how to play guitar both with your fingers and with a pick, that way it will be easier for you to become a versatile guitarist. I've seen many classical trained guitar players that just can´t play with an attack similar to the one you get with a pick, the sound is just different. On the other hand, I've also seen people who are so used to the pick that just can't play a fast arpeggio. Unless you are Al Di Meola, that is a problem because you are not gonna be able to play a lot of music that need some fast arpeggios. Besides, it is virtually impossible to play with a pick when the bass lines are different from the melody ones, this is very easy to find in classical guitar and jazz (try to play Joe Pass). Anyway, I will always insist in the fact that you need to have as many skills in guitar as possible, that way you won't feel out of side when someone asks you to play something difficult. I would like you to listen to Paco de Lucía and Al Di Meola playing Mediterranean Sundance in the album Friday Night in San Francisco, notice the difference between the fingerpicked notes by de Lucia and the picked ones by Di Meola, it is really amazing the speed Paco de Lucía can reach with his fingers, I don't think there is any other guitarist in the world that can top him with that.