Jan 312010
What is the greatest instrumental guitar album of all time?
Don’t feel confined to just site one choice.
What is the greatest instrumental guitar album of all time?
Don’t feel confined to just site one choice.
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Jason Becker – Perpetual Burn
Regards
Stratosphere Boogie, Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant
Rising Force, Yngwie J. Malmsteen (Well, there are some vocal tracks on there, but mostly instrumental)
The Best of Dick Dale
Paganini’s 24 Caprices, Eliot Fisk
33 Acoustic Guitar Instrumentals, Clarence White (if you’ll accept a full bluegrass band, I’ll swap for Appalachian Swing)
And I should put a Ventures recording in here, but I don’t know which one.
Sans Direction´s last blog ..Songquest 2010: Cocaine and Ashes
Uh … Geezer-ness? HEY, I resemble that remark. You asked about guitar instrumental?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-66uz725Dzk
Thank goodness for youTube gray market of old ‘uns… If you say instrumental and guitar in same sentence you are referring to Classic Guitar tone and purpose. Not splitting hairs now… but is it not so? As in this Reussner\Segovia ‘65 ::
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0FWjo36g30
“Electric guitar Instrumentals” is a different tone and purpose. And that is why I point you in the direction of the Sitar of Ravi Shankar, with our best buddy Geo Harrison: circa 1970 – ish and a similar circumstances surrounding Guitar Aficionado and Maestros.
However to make it worse yet I am satisfied with instrumentals on “Trouble Ain’t Over,” not for prejudice, rather for purpose and flavor. Steve Vai [God Love him] has what I will say :: “If you shred iceberg lettuce it is still iceberg lettuce.”
Pat Darnell and Friends´s last blog ..Sunday 10:28 AM :: "I Feel Your Pain"
Many of my favorite guitar albums have vocals too. But if it’s gotta be completely instrumental my choice is Steve Morse’s STRUCTURAL DAMAGE.
Like every SM or Dregs album, many genres are always brought to the table and served in high style. Not many guitar players are as eclectic, as versatile and as consistent at a high level across the board as Morse.
Stratoblogster´s last blog ..Abalone Stratocaster, Custom Shop #1 of 25 Pieces
Sans brings up an interesting point. There wa a time when pretty girls in shorts skirts who shook it on the dance floor bought guitar records instead of guys who spend big $ on gizmos. To that end Link Wray should be mentioned. But, most of those guys weren’t recording in the album format either.
Pat’s Segovia take is pretty salient as well.
Other than the handful I mentioned on the Vai post yesterday….I will add Dregs Of The Earth (JP, that was the first one I had in my hands, on vinyl, in the 70s and it was life changing),,,Joe Pass Virtuoso Live…Terje Rypdal’s Blue…The George Benson Cookbook…Pat Martino’s East….
Cute girls in short skirts still dance to music without words. Thing is, these days, it comes without guitars. Or really, any instruments that actually exist.
Sans Direction´s last blog ..Somewhere There’s Heaven
A nod to Sans, I also have Bryant & West’s Stratosphere Boogie– amazing stuff! Those guys were “banned” from Nashville, and created their own West Coast scene.
Check out this cool clip someone made with a Jimmy & Speedy soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M_XES449-M
Stratoblogster´s last blog ..Abalone Stratocaster, Custom Shop #1 of 25 Pieces
Speedy and Jimmy were members of the house band at the Ozarks Jubilee for a time. Check out this amazing track where Thumbs Carlisle emulates a list of some of the incredible players that also did stints at the Jubilee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6t-Gq0u508
Also…made me think of “Jazz Winds” by Hank Garland
Again, you know my answer to this one. For all things included like composition, musicianship, production quality, etc. it would be “Passion and Warfare” by Steve Vai hands down. He blends the perfect amount of shred in with it and the perfect amount of good songs and musicianship.
Now, I did give some more thought to this and I might also have to give another one of my fav’s in this discussion as well. Marty Friedman’s “Dragon’s Kiss” is an amazing shred record, better than Becker’s “Perpetual Burn” in my opinion because the songs are more cohesive and less blind arpeggios all over the place.
One of the best all out shred songs I have EVER heard would have to be “Centrifugal Funk” with Bret Garsed and Shawn Lane TEARING the ever loving shit out of the guitars in moments of guitar fury that spark my memory back to the movie “Amadeus” when the kind tells Mozart that his opera simply had “too many notes for one person to comprehend in the allotted time.” HA! Bullshit. This song blasts you from beginning to end with fusion metal shred like no other. I had heard this song long before I ever even knew who Shawn Lane was, much less that he was from my own home town. Either way, check it out, it will not dissappoint.
Please excuse me. I am in error in my previous statment regarding “Centrifugal Funk”. That was the name of the album by the Mike Varney Project (MVP) which included Shawn Lane, Brett Garsed, and Frank Gambale. The song I was thinking of is actually two songs called “Hey Tee Bone” and “So What”. I am listening to them right now. I don’t know that there is an equal to these songs in their utter shredtastic bliss. Both can be found in their original recorded form on Youtube in good audio quality. Sorry for my mistake.
R
Clearly you’ve missed the obvious one… Kind Of Blue.
Okay, so it’s not actually guitar, but, when the great guitar players are asked about their influences they often cite horn players, so…
I tend not to buy guitar instrumental albums… too depressing!
There’s the Derek Trucks Band’s Soul Serenade, but, whilst I like it, it’s not their best work in my opinion.
I also have a load of stuff by Struntz & Farah which is, well, unplayable for the average axe slinger.
Jack: That Thumbs Carlisle tune is awesome! What a great era for guitar! It should never be forgotten.
Stratoblogster´s last blog ..Abalone Stratocaster, Custom Shop #1 of 25 Pieces
Ditto on that Mr Strato… Hear ye, Hear ye !!
Pat Darnell and Friends´s last blog ..Sunday 10:28 AM :: "I Feel Your Pain"
Is this Ray Charles’s ‘What I say’ an instrumental or not?? [no guitar here so you will not prejudice your vote] Instrumental or Other???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15QXQ_TB1Cc
… and this is the point I am trying to make here — voice or no voice does not an “instrumental” make. But the horns don’t come in till 1:49, along with back up singers. [A very rare 1963 performance by Ray Charles in São Paulo, Brazil] … I don’t think that studio was ever the same after that… eh?
Also, “What I Say” was a major Prom and Sadie Hawkins’ Dances number for the Living Ends and every Combo that came along in the old’en days. You would get the girls pulling their boys onto the floor and doing the Alligator, Frug [froog], Shimmy and Surfer Stomp Dirty Dancing … a heart-rate elevator for the adults present as Chaperon’s trying to keep the “children” rectos …
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Swing — thanks to Mr Strato for this one above: pure joy.
JIMMY BRYANT: lead guitar SPEEDY WEST: pedal steel guitar
JIMMIE WIDENER: rhythm guitar
CLIFFIE STONE: bass BILLIE LIEBERT: piano PEE WEE ADAMS: drums
from the Jimmy Bryant LP ‘COUNTRY CABIN JAZZ’ Capitol single 3635 master 16070
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Guitar Instrumentals
Ventures :: here is a look at all the albums that my brother and his friend George Adams collected back in 65 – 70’s and tried to emulate in their “COMBO” The Living Ends … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7py6S5avF8
… while my sister was a Dancer at Swayze Studio’s and now I think my brothers’s buddies, they liked watching her dance to Ventures…
however, as it is with Mr Direction, it is difficult to pick which performance album might transcend… to “BEST”
And for modern sans voice compositions — I have this new Category: “INSTRU-METAL” maybe too limiting…
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But here is the real deal — my fellow cut-throats, curmudgeons, new comers and Judy — as I see it the “voice intermittent” in a “mostly instrumental melody” is no less an “instrumental composition..”
Why you may ask?
Point is that a voice added is no less an instrument in the combination, complementing the instrumental rant… like Zappa is sometimes just putting his voice in as a sound along with his compositions. But I cannot point to the song I am thinking about because it is mostly instrumental…
Songwriters who are mostly Studio musicians might have a difficulty with singing on their albums, so they enlist a style … like session musician Leon Russell… funny voice tactic. Again I can’t remember the name of the song Leon does instrumentals only.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUmfjwi8LOM — rare find of session guitarist Al Casey supposedly with Leon on keyboards… maybe Mr Dees knows something about this one.
Some will point to jazz and stage band instrumental compositions, but those have a voice in them, maybe it is a woodwind, or a trumpet… if so I think Doc Severinsen is the King of that … maybe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ewGQx4Vfo
And the drums for the love of GOD can be a Voice too…!!
So my vote is tethered with doubt — Best Guitar Instrumental Ever: ???? [don't have a clue]
Pat Darnell and Friends´s last blog ..Sunday 10:28 AM :: "I Feel Your Pain"
Back in the day, on the circuit, it was commonplace to have a “break tune”. Some type of boogie thing, usually in A that could be ended at any given time. See, a lot of the clubs had strict rules regarding set lengths. If you had 1:38 ’til break time, you bust out the trusty boogie and cut it at 1:38.
One band I was in had some hot players and we took a little more pride in our break tune choices. The steel guitar player Beef (girls used to ask “Why do they call you Beef? He would reply…”You’d have to see my baby pictures.”); anyway Beef worked up a bitchin’ version of “Bud’s Bounce” and played like a demon through hyper speed, be-bop changes. Not something any swinging Richard with a pedal steel can do.
Anyway, one night in Sierra Vista AZ, we had about 3:30 left to fill the set. We decided to do a full version of “Bounce” to get some ya yas out.
The woman club owner, an ill-tempered, foul mouthed, gin soaked, used, spent piece of jet trash, called me over and said “Instrumentals went out 25 years ago, if you ever play that song in here again you’ll be fired and never asked back.”
People are Cruel, Cruel, Cruel, AND Cold Cold Cold …. that t’ weren’t no woman — t’at t’were a Serpent.
Pat Darnell and Friends´s last blog ..Sunday 10:28 AM :: "I Feel Your Pain"
Yeah, I may have been a little too kind in my description of the broad but, I like to try and see the good in people ya’ know?
Yes, old Palikir, I know that.
I may be a bit amateur in this league, but I’m really digging “Hocus Pocus Live” by Gary Hoey… lots of riffs that are sweet, with a dash of some Eric Johnson tone… What I really love about it is the fact that its all done live, and not crazy compressed in some studio with thousands of dollars of programs… Check it… http://bit.ly/aXjddC