Essential Music Every Aspiring Guitarist Needs To Hear

Welcome to the fourth in a series of articles: listening to other music for inspiration and motivation! A very very neglected part of the learning process. Today a person I have performed on stage with many times, so over to you Matt.

Obviously nothing can compete with the banjo, but Dave hasn’t asked me to talk about the 5 most important recordings on the Banjo. If any readers are interested in the 5 most important recordings to feature the Banjo, please do get in touch with Dave and ask!

Of all the sounds a human being can make with the assistance of some wood, a bit of metal here and there, an occasional piece of modified animal content, some fur fabric, wire and wax, the simple beauty of a gently stroked G chord on a guitar is probably my third favourite.

So, I have been requisitioned to provide for you the 5 albums that I think every aspiring guitarist needs to hear. There are choices in this list that made me want to run and pick a guitar up the second I heard the first few notes.

Rather than opt for the pretentious, arty-farty obscurities that I would probably go for if this was going on Facebook, I have taken the bold move of choosing albums that, hand on heart, made me go “WHAT?” the first time I heard it.

Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps – Blue Jean Bop

• Rockabilly

This is actually two albums and a bunch of singles that often get packaged together but basically, find a disc with Gene Vincent featuring Cliff Gallup on Guitar.

See above, this was the 50’s albums didn’t really get going till the end of the decade and so a compilation of the Gallup era stuff is what you need. Loads of the good stuff isn’t on the “Albums”. If you’re local to Preston Speak with Gordon at Action and he’ll sort it for you.

The reason why on this is simple. Cliff Gallup invented being a Rock ‘n’ Roll guitar hero. Sure, you had the Jazz guys (we will get to that in a minute), old time country guys (and gals) but there is no way that even the best of them could have stood toe to toe with Gene Vincent. Cliff played on 9 session with the Caps and then walked – he returned to being a Policeman I once heard.

In those 9 sessions he defined a vocabulary still in use today, but in a boring “Alan Holdsworth was ahead of his time” kind of way. He rocked back then and everybody who heard him knew for sure.

Nothing in your world will ever be as exciting as the first time you hear Be Bop a Lula.

The Grateful Dead – Live Dead

• Psychadelicacidfolkbluesrock

I can’t really, honestly tell you what my favourite Grateful Dead album is. I could do a top 5 Grateful Dead studio albums that you need to hear, I could probably tell you my favourite 5 shows from 1972! I could certainly tell you the best version of Estimated Prophet you’re ever going to come across, but I’m getting carried away!

Drawn from a series of Filmore West dates in 1969, this was the first official Live Grateful Dead record. A double album with beautiful art work and even more beautiful sounds contained within. This is the first classic line up arguably at their peak. This also contains the first available “proper” version of Dark Star. If you don’t know about Dark Star, ask your guitar teacher about it and then your LP/CD vendor.

It’s impossible to say where is the best place to start with Grateful Dead stuff. Studio, folky, funky, psychy, live wig outs – it’s all there for he who seeks. But as this is really about inspiration for guitarists I’ve gone for the one that hit me as an 18-year-old and let me know that Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and the like were all really just pretending to be Jerry – but without any of the class, vision, chops, wisdom or fearlessness. There are moments in the version of Dark Star that are so intense and yet so fragile that it is desperately difficult to ever really say your done listening to it.

Further (get it?) on you’ll find the majesty of this twin drummer line up making old RB tunes jump like hadn’t done before while Pigpen whips an acid fried audience to fever point.

Ry Cooder – Boomers Story

• Blues / Roots / Americana

Every single thing that Ry Cooder has been involved in, from Beefheart to the Stones to Little Feat to Paris Texas is brilliant, honest and informed music of the highest standard. The man is “The Man.”

Ry Cooders third album and one of a run of five studio and one live that define an era. Folk tunes, blues tunes, protest songs and the best guitar playing.

I would happily advise any guitarist to seek out the first 5 or 6 Cooder albums. Actually, everybody should have them, guitarist or otherwise. Boomer’s Story was the first I owned so I’m going with that as the choice. It’s heavy on the acoustic side but amazingly recorded. It might be the most honest sounding thing he made. It might be the most honest sounding album anybody ever made!

Django Reinhardt – Post War Recordings

• Jazz

In fact any of Django’s recordings after the second world war! Django was recorded a hell of a lot. A ton of things exist and pretty much all of it is available. The period after WWII was, in my opinion, an artistic output and development that few have equalled. I think JSP box sets are still available. These are chronological, cheap, and good sounding.

After the second world war, Django found a second level of celebrity due in part to a vast number of Americans living in Paris. Great quality recordings were made by the American Services radio. But in the clubs of Paris, Django seemed to get dark. His tone was much less aggressive, lines even more fluid, phrases started to display the influence of modern jazz and bebop.

He seemed happy playing in situations with different instruments. Piano and reeds become as popular as violins. Studio, Live and Radio recordings from 1946 through to 1953 are some of the most astounding and rewarding performances ever captured.

Many years ago, I bought an LP, simply called Django Reindhart et le Quintette du Hot Club de Paris on a market in Edinburgh. I’d heard Django before, owned a couple of tapes, it was £1 so I couldn’t really fail. When I played it, it changed my life.

Django was playing an electric guitar. The hot bits were brimming with late night abandon, the ballads were heart wrenching. Every emotion is contained within 16 tracks. I still own it, I still play, I’m looking at it now.

If Martians land and get to hear this, they will never believe some of the horrible stuff that humans are capable of.

Tony Rice  – Manzanita

• Bluegrass / Newgrass

Tony Rice is one of the bunch of people that gets labelled as a “Guitarist’s Guitarist”. That is unless you start looking into bluegrass guitar playing. In bluegrass he is just “The Guitarist”. A true innovator. To my ears, Tony brings traditionalism with great intelligence and an awareness of seemingly every nuance of the guys he is playing with.

Every group that I’ve heard Tony play in sounds instantly the same in some way. He holds a band together, drives it and slows at will. A troubadour, a session master and captivating player.

1979, album released as The Tony Rice Unit: This is the one that changes the way an ensemble approaches a traditional theme, with traditional and often period instruments but ear cast all the way into the future. Sidemen include Dave Grisman, Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush. Blistering yet soulful playing from everybody on this record.

Bluegrass music has always fascinated me. The sound of the instruments alone was something I found instantly brilliant. Fiddles screeching, the banjo just being the best thing ever invented, and a Dobro just peeking in every now and then. Magic stuff that thankfully refuses to die.

However, Tony, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and a cast of others had spent equal parts studying Bill Monroe, John Hartford, The Grateful Dead and Miles Davis. What came in a bunch of records that the same guys all appeared on. Manzanitta is one of these great records.

Magical songs and Tony at the peak of it.

So you got this now? You buy the stuff, you listen to it, you learn some stuff, you get better and then you make somebody go “WHAT?”