Just wondered what inspired you all to play and then develop as guitarists. I started fairly late, I got my first guitar at 18 but I wanted one for a while before that.
The reason I picked up a guitar would have to be Hendrix, pure flamboyance and sexuality and oozed cool. I saw a clip of him on TV when I was about 15 playing in blackpool, England which was stunning. I started saving the next week.
Once there were loads of paradigm shifts but the obvious ones were (in chronilogical order of my development, rather than release order):
Steve Vai - outlandish playing and awesome technique. After 2 years of struggling to play sub standard hendrix style lead I got given a copy of Eat 'em And Smile. Someone had just raised the bar so high, it was tempting to quit. But Instead I spent about a year struggling to play substandard Vai riffs.
Joe Satriani - this chap seemed to be themissing link between Vai and Hendrix. Superb technique but also able to demonstrate restraint and seemed to be biased towards bluesy playing. I seem to remember trying to put "Lizard Down the Throat" Trem Tricks in every tune I played for over a year.
RUSH. I got a copy of moving pictures and ended up buying everything they ever did after that. Lifeson is superb and a major influence, but rush where the first band that I admired more for the Bass and Drums than the guitar playing.
It Bites/Francis Dunnery - took the Rush gig one stage further with timings and gave me an appreciation, for the first and possibly only time, of prog rock.
Fripp (on Bowies Scary Monsters) - the frighteningly fast arpeggio trills on Teenage Wildlife still astound me.
Clapton - I never subscribed to the "why do it with a 1000 notes when one note will suffice" school of thought. But after seeing Clapton on a Carl Perkins TV special - he actually wiped out all the other guitarists (and me) with just one note and the most amazing off the neck vibrato I have ever seen or heard.
Then there were many more but the above were the ones tat stood out for me.
Anyone else care to list theirs?
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