Posts Tagged The Best Guitarist In The World
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April 4, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 13 – Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch died in October 2011. He was one of my favourite guitarists; one of my favourite acoustic players. He opened up a whole new world of music to me. Jansch was a leading figure in the British folk boom of the 1960s, a revivalist and innovator. He was a pioneer and a guitar prophet […]Archive
May 11, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 698
Los Lobos, How Will The Wolf Survive? (1984) I was having the conversation I feel like I so often have – once again just recently – where I defend Los Lobos and point out they were (and still are) more than the La Bamba soundtrack (not that there was anything wrong with that). A friend asked […]Archive
December 29, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
Off The Tracks’ (Belated) Christmas Message: Year in Review 2015
Last year I was a day late, even slacker this year, sorry… but I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and thanks for reading Off The Tracks. Three full years we’ve been operating now – I say ‘we’ because it’s due to you and me. I had a week off in Hawke’s Bay where […]Archive
November 29, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
Steve Vai: Stillness in Motion – Vai Live in LA
Steve Vai Stillness in Motion: Vai Live in LA Legacy It’s a double-live album, a new release, but the show is from 2012. And that’s probably all you really need to know, you’re now at one end of the other: the very prospect of this is simply far too much Steve Vai for you to […]Archive
August 6, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 12 – Stevie Ray Vaughan
We’re less than a month away from it being 25 years since Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed. But I’m talking to you about this now because, well, I wanted to include him in this series… It’s easy – now – to see Steve Ray Vaughan as some bogan rock-as-blues/blues-as-rock guy, because of the influence, his […]Archive
August 6, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 11 – Lindsey Buckingham
You never even used to see this guy considered for The Best Guitarist lists…and, actually, maybe you still don’t, come to think of it…but I reckon something changed when the core version of Fleetwood Mac, the classic FM-music version of the group, reformed for Bill Clinton’s inauguration and started a victory-lap tour of sorts. (One […]Archive
August 5, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 10 – David Hidalgo
A few years ago I was interviewing Mitchell Froom. In the 1990s Froom was one of those Everywhere Producers. He was married to Suzanne Vega and helped with her records, he produced Crowded House – and played the beautiful organ solo for Don’t Dream It’s Over. He had mega-hits with The Corrs and Sheryl Crow […]Archive
August 4, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 9 – Django Reinhardt
He died right around the time my mother was born – and I read all about him in a guitar magazine when I was 13. He was my hero. I bought tapes and listened to anything I could find – it was Django Reinhardt in between Beastie Boys and Deep Purple and Dire Straits and […]Archive
August 3, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 8 – Mark Knopfler
I remember one time at school some guy told me “the best guitarist in the world is Mark Knopfler”. I laughed at him. Not entirely sure why – I’ve always been a fan. But it just didn’t sit with me – and to give this full context, this was way back – mid-80s, when Knopfler […]Archive
August 2, 2015 by Simon Sweetman
The Best Guitarist in The World: # 7 – Duane Allman
When I was about 14 – and at the peak of my guitar-loving “discovery” years, a devotee of Guitar Player magazine, as open to (and obsessed with) Sonic Youth and The Velvet Underground as Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson – I remember watching a History of Rock doc which had a featurette around rock’n’roll guitar […]Archive
August 2, 2015 by Simon Sweetman