Title: 1500 words on my favourite guitar players
Im going to dive straight in talking about the most stylistically intense player in Blues. Stevie Ray Vaughan. I remember hearing him for the 1st time when a mate of mine was playing ‘Pride and joy’ in the morning whilst we were getting ready for school, in just 2 weeks later i was addicted and casted into the world of blues for the 1st time. His own brother was a big fan having been quoted by Reuben Cross from the Far Out magazine to say: “He’s like Goliath with the guitar. He’s the meanest, baddest guitar player you’ve ever heard of.” (Cross, 2025)
Today people may hear Stevie’s style through players like John Mayer and Philip Sayce. His voice on guitar would sway from extremes of weighty vibrato, heavy picking attack giving the guitar a snapping bite with occasional slides from the top to bottom and completely unique extended licks. To then extremely quiet, soft, solo improvisation with his unique double picking stutters, glassy pick scrapes, occasionally his tremolo arm too which is used often in his song ‘Lenny’.
Lenny was a beautiful song written for his at the time girlfriend Lenny after she and his friends bought him a guitar for $80 and on the same night wrote Lenny. Lenny was inspired by Little Wing – Jimmy Hendrix Which was one of Stevie’s hero’s along side with Albert king, Bb king, Buddy guy and Muddy waters. Stevie’s career rocketed when David bowie saw him live in awe and asked him to play on his track ‘Lets dance’ which became one of Bowies most successful song which helped bring Stevie into the light. David Bowie was quoted to say “He completely floored me. I hadn’t been so gung-ho about a guitar player since Jeff Beck.” (Damian Fanelli, 2023) – showing how impressed he was after seeing Vaughan perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982.
Stevie was Important because blues was a dying genre “Stevie Ray Vaughan didn’t just play the blues; he brought it back to life” – John Mayer. His passion and intensity reinvigorated the genre and inspired a whole new generation of guitarists.”and he helped bring it back with his cover of ‘Voodoo child’ ‘Texas flood’ and ‘Couldn’t stand the weather’. And his iconic tones, yes he had multiple tones using a Vibratone, Octavia and fuzz. After a famous and legendary performance with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Vaughan (his brother), Buddy Guy, Robert Cray he then got into a helicopter which tragically hit a side of a mountain because of flying in fog. It was at Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin – 26th August 199
Stevie Ray Vaughan will always have a place in my career and playing style, i learnt his amazing cover of Little wing and played thousands of hours of his song Texas flood, and in the future was always be inspired to be as precise and heart felt with as he was with his playing. People inspired by him today Are famously John Mayer and Philip Sayce but as Stevie has only just got the recognition her deserves they will be plenty out there. Eric Clapton – “The worst thing for me was that Stevie Ray had been sober for three years and was at his peak. When he played that night, he had all of us standing mere with our jaws dropped. I mean, Robert Cray and Jimmie Vaughan and Buddy Guy were just watching in awe. There was no one better than him on this planet2. Really unbelievable.” 2020, Rafael polcaro
The original Jimmy Hendrix. A special cocktail of psychedelic blues and rock. His style was very vocal sounding, implementing chord stabs and syncopated rhythms and then adding little lead guitar parts in the middle of all that, he would often match his guitar to a vocal line which would harmonise Jimmy and his guitar. He had many amazing songs but his best for to me was Little Wing, voodoo child slight return, Hey joe, Manic depression and All along the watch tower. David Bowie: The Bowie Bible: An article detailing Bowie’s experience of seeing Hendrix perform live at the Saville Theatre in London on May 7, 1967. Bowie was deeply impressed by Hendrix’s performance and the innovative way he played the guitar1.
Jimmy Hendrix is the guitarist. He was the very 1st person to get on stage, crack an amp to max, use max gain and using the feedback to crate noises nobody has heard before that sound like he’s opening a portal with his psychedelic guitar sounds, whilst being a great stage man using tricks like playing with his tongue, teeth, behind his head, his back, on the floor, you name it he’s probably done it. On top of that he was an incredible Music producer using multiple track layering which was just been done by the Beetles.
Jimmy was pretty much a star that came out of no where, He got his 1st guitar at 13 learning to play it by listening to songs on the radio, He was then forced to go to the army after stealing a car which he served for a year after meeting the bassist of The animals Chas Chandler he asked if he could meet Eric Clapton as he knew the bassist had close contact with him, eventually they met and Eric Clapton was so blown away that he helped jimmy get a band .They stared playing in half filled clubs to very quickly clubs jam packed with people like The Beatles coming to watch the new guy in town. Very quickly he was an over night success because of how different his music was.
Ive implemented jimmy techniques like using a wah wah, fuzz and chorus combined to make awesome whaling effects, i love using his rhythmical chord stabs and his amazing way of structuring solos. I’ll always be learning something from the master. Your Guitar Academy: They offer a comprehensive Jimi Hendrix Guitar Course with 25 lessons that cover his chords, licks, and lead techniques. The course includes downloadable HD video files, a complete workbook, and online streaming access
Jimmy is in a part of every guitar players playing at this point but as people today love expressing with feed back, using special effects, and shredding their guitar. the biggest names he influenced were Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, Prince, Jeff Beck. Slash, John Mayer, and probably a million more.
Possibly Jimmy Hendrix in a disguise, But Eddie Van Halen is my 2nd favourite guitarist, Stevie 1st. Eddie was crafted a Blend of hard rock, metal and blues.. all the genres i love the most. A lot of people think he invented tapping which he didn’t but he defiantly evolved it into what everyone is doing today, nobody was doing his high Harmonic squeals, tap harmonic, extreme high fast picking and shredding the way he did it with his use of modulation effects too.{quote of him being first}
Eddie featured on ‘Beat it’ created one of the best guitar solos ever in just 20 mins and his creation of ‘Eruption’ blew every guitarists mind and re defined what a guitar could do and sound. But everyone has heard tracks like ‘jump’ ‘Aint talkin bout love’ and ‘Panama’.
Eddies influence was immeasurable. After blowing the competition with his creation of ‘Eruption without a net’ a longer version of eruption thats a 11min solo showing more tricks under his belt. Eddie also helped designed the d tuner with Floyd rose and even invented his own tremolo called the fulcrum Tremelo which allowed you to drop the e string 3 tunings down. He invented his own tone called the brown sound which isn’t related to anything brown but is a completely unique tone which has piercing highs but an extreme thickness but somehow a scooped sound too not forgetting his legendary guitar ‘The franken strat’ which was made with b stock parts and vintage guitars.
EVH was boring in Amsterdam but moved around a lot and ended up at Pasadena. Because of racism abuse in the Netherlands we moved to America from Holland on a boat- EVH. EVH 1st gig was on that boat to America which helped pay off their ticket as they were very poor. EVH was actually a drummer at 1st but quickly his brother Alex realised Eddie was better than him at guitar and Eddie realised Alex was better than him at drums so they swapped. Quickly they were in a band together winning school competitions and battle of the band shows, playing litterly everywhere at House party and schools 24/7. Gene Simons of kiss saw them at an empty club and got them some recording sessions. After their recording of Van Halen 1 it was an slow success but eventually it kicked off after their A side track single cover of the kinks ‘You really got me’ reached 38 of top 100 tracks in 1978.
Ive learnt many skills like pinch harmonics, tap harmonics, tapping and massive finger stretches from learning songs like Beat it and You really got me. EVH inspired some of my heros Like Rhandy Rhodes, Dimebag Darrel, Steve Vai.
Joshua Homme, a more controversial take but at least he’s alive. Josh was a desert rock, heavy rock guitarist with bluesy style solos and dabbled in psychedelic tracks too.
Joshes style is named by himself ‘Robot rock’ but to describe its a very rocky sounding but posh and cablare sounding and a erratic solo style. He implements a impressive soling structure. His style is extremely tight, present and feels evil to listen to.
When ‘songs for the death’ was released it was one of the best albums released in the 2000’s and revived rock and changed how rock could sound completely and the drums were played by Dave Grohl.
Josh was playing guitar at 9 after his parents denying him a drum kit, being born in palm springs California he was very influenced by the desert rock scene and what ever he could hear on the radio. He joined the screaming trees, Kyuss, and then left kyuss to form his own band.
Ive learnt go with the flow, Little sister, and make it wit chu. His jittery solo style is something i’ve implemented and Joshes style has greatly help me understand how to have great thythmn with chords and solos.
A band Thorn has said that Josh is one of his musical influences, along with Dave Grohl who’s toured with him before and Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails. And personally think josh and his band deserves more recognition.
Conclusion:
Stevie Ray Vaughan helped revive blues with this rocky infused blues sound and inspired people like John Mayer to revive the blues after Stevie died. Jimmy Hendrix re invented the guitar and guitar player with his use of gain, effects, stage presence and shredding. EVH re invented the guitar again with his His tapping, Brown sound, cool stripey guitar, and delay. Josh Homme helped revive the rock scene with ‘songs for the deaf’ with a whole new sound and unique guitar solos.
Bibliography:
Cross, R. (2025). The time Stevie Ray Vaughan first played with Albert King. [online] Far Out Magazine. Available at: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/stevie-ray-vaughan-went-toe-to-toe-with-albert-king/ [Accessed 6 Feb. 2025].
Fanelli, D. (2023). ‘He completely floored me. I hadn’t been so gung-ho about a guitar player since Jeff Beck’: How David Bowie helped launch Stevie Ray Vaughan’s career – and why their joint tour was canceled at the last minute. [online] guitarworld. Available at: https://www.guitarworld.com/features/how-david-bowie-launched-stevie-ray-vaughans-career [Accessed 7 Feb. 2025].
SRV Archive (2024). Stevie Ray Vaughan – Sweet Home Chicago – Last Show – Alpine Valley. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rom4c1DKPvc [Accessed 7 Feb. 2025].
SRV Archive (2024). Stevie Ray Vaughan – Sweet Home Chicago – Last Show – Alpine Valley. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rom4c1DKPvc [Accessed 7 Feb. 2025].
Joe (1967). David Bowie sees Jimi Hendrix live | May 1967 | The Bowie Bible. [online] The Bowie Bible | David Bowie songs, albums, history, features, photos and more…. Available at: https://www.bowiebible.com/1967/05/07/david-bowie-sees-jimi-hendrix-live/ [Accessed 7 Feb. 2025].