top ten guitar solos of the 20th century...

Move It on Over
Hank Williams

This ditty by Hank is a country 12 bar blues in the key of E without the usual turnaround and blues figures. It contains a full chorus solo that is more or less the template for the whole of popular music for ever afterwards. Everybody that covers a Buddy Holly song covers Buddies solos and  they are usually derived from this one. The predecessor of them all. One ring to bind them all! Parts of it show up in Rock Around the Clock for instance and if you listen closely to every other song based on the 12 bar form throughout the fifties and early sixties you can hear it everywhere even where the saxophone is the lead instrument. Peppermint twist anyone.

Red House
Jimi Hendrix

The intro to 'The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp' is Jimi Hendrix' piece de resistance but all round Red House is a mighty piece of work. Underpinned with the 'Octavia' which performs amazing octave leaps with no seams Red House has the standard 12 bar form which  is transformed with Jimis musicianship and interpretation. Most of Jimi's songs are complete compositions in themselves with unique harmonic structures and solos.  Blues does not have this option but it does not matter when the performer is such a virtuoso that their individuality is creating something that is nothing less than a mini masterpiece and completley overrides the structure to become something more and beyond.

Hideaway
Freddie King

Freddie had several record deals over his career. His first with Sid Nathan of King Records in Cincinatti cemented his reputation. Nathan was an unlikely music mogul.  he owned furniture stores and in one of those typical American economic success stories he vertically integrated to provide musical product for the record players he sold. His roster covered major country and western artists and people including  early James Brown and Joe Tex. His musical director was Sonny Thompson who played piano and arranged the music. Together he and Freddy produced an amazing array of shuffles and invented innovative riffs that still dazzle and delight. The big one was Hideaway where Freddie incorporated every riff he had ever copied from anyone into a magnificent whole. Every pretender in the British blues boom had to master this song or they were nowhere. Eric Claptons version may have the edge in tone but Freddies version is loaded with bravura and brio that has never been matched.

Really
Mike Bloomfield

Track five off the “Super Session” album with Al Kooper his partner in crime off “Highway 61 Revisited”. Along with track one, Alberts Shuffle, Bloomfield shows off all his talents in perhaps the two greatest blues instrumentals of all time. Bach and Mozart would weep if they were alive to hear him now. His playing has tone and lilt, attack, musicality and execution that all combine into breathtaking exhibitions of guitar playing that have never been equalled and probably never will.

Stormy Weather
Lonnie Johnson

Lonnie Johnson was the go to New Yorksession man in the 1920-30's right up to 1941. He put the filligree into such diverse artsists as Louis Armstrong and Jimme Rodgers. He did it all. Virtually retired after WWll he was recruited to cut some sides with his old friend Elmer Snowden that resulted in two albums entitled “Jazz, Blues and Ballads” with a selection of blues standards and jams. He makes two passes at Stormy Weather with the second a model of clarity and execution that any beginner has to attempt to prove to themselves that they can play a guitar.

Guitar Boogie
Arthur Smith
Another perfect gem in the key of E that galvanised a whole generation of bedroom pickers and professionals alike to get this one down and whip it out whenever they got the opportunity.

Have You Ever Loved A Woman
Eric Clapton

This blues in the key of C is off the all round stunning double album 'Layla And Other Love Songs' put out under Erics nom de guerre Derek and the Dominos. According to the legend the sessions weren't going anywhere till Eric went to see an Allman Brothers Concert and asked slide ace Duane 'Skydog' Allman to guest on the sessions. The resulting artistic tension produced a fantastic series of duets and call and response soloing that  thrill and raise the hair on the back of the neck. Erics finesse and confidence to play off the wall arpeggios and slashes like the honks from some be-bop saxophone player are wonders to be marvelled at and savoured for eternity.

I'm Not Angry

The Everly Brothers

This song is off the Warner Brothers Golden Hits of the Everly Brothers and the solo, which is by some unnamed session man brought in by the studio. possibly Tommy Tedesco. It is only 8 bars long and  every guitarist in the world who knew his onions knew about it and tried to copy its intensity and aptness in this little gem of teenage angst with comic book lyrics and solo to match.Name checked by noneother than Jimmy Page.

Whole Lotta Love
Led Zeppelin

Jimmy Page kicks this one off with a thunderous riff straight out of Valhalla, Plant wailing like a Valkyrie and then played a series of choruses that still echo in the night when mortals sing hymns to the Gods.

Sympathy For The Devil
The Rolling Stones

Keith Richards dialled in some tones that have never been heard since to put the gold into this smash hit from the Stones. Keith and Brian sat ina dingy falt in London and learned every

Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly solo they could cop and when it went into the mixer and came out Keith was a prodigious virtuoso and this one shows off a skill that was to power fifty years of music and hit making that is still unparalleled for longevity and inventiveness.

thats all she wrote...