The Ten Most Underrated Guitarists in the History of Rock
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2014/11/underrated_guitarists_all_time_video.php
To me, being underrated doesn't mean that a musician has missed out on accolades and commercial success. It means that, for whatever reason, millions of music lovers probably haven't been exposed to a certain musician's talents and thus haven't had the chance to enjoy him or her. So here -- up for potential enjoyment and probably heated discussion -- are ten guitarists I believe are history's most underrated.
10. Frank Zappa
That Zappa, arguably king of the iconoclasts of popular music, is virtually never listed among even the top twenty greatest guitarists in the history of rock is due mostly to the fact - unfortunate or amusing, depending on your point of view - that many of his transcendent solos occurred in songs like "Conehead" and "The Muffin Man." It often seems like 45% of music fans won't listen to Zappa because they don't want their rock 'n' roll with a touch of satire and 45% won't listen to Frank Zappa because, in the words of my first music editor, "It was all downhill once Zappa realized how good a guitar player he was." The lucky ten percent of us who are open to it all - from the blazing extended Gibson SG workout on "Willie the Pimp," which is my favorite guitar solo of all time, to the absolute shred-fest that is "Rat Tomago" - get to enjoy a bona fide guitar god who not only makes us bow down Wayne's World style but also laugh and think. ...
8. Joni Mitchell
Listen to Joni Mitchell's unique guitar work carrying a song like "The Dawntreader," or her brash, tasteful jamming with Jaco Pastorius on the experimental 1977 album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Not all guitar gods are what you'd call lead guitarists. Sure, Mitchell's phenomenally original rhythm-guitar prowess inspired a lot of annoying '90s imitators, but she's the real deal.
7. East Bay Ray
The polarizing Jello Biafra, with his funhouse voice, is a great spoken-word artist, and a great lyricist. Back in the day, he also had some of the best stage presence in punk rock. But for me, the Dead Kennedys are all about the vastly underrated East Bay Ray. Some people's go-to guitar-god tracks are "Layla," "Dark Star" or even "Sister Ray," but I could listen to about a hundred live versions of "Holiday in Cambodia" (the studio version is great too) with East Bay Ray's guitar isolated (like Freddie Mercury's "Under Pressure" vocals famously were last year) and never lose my sense of awe. The truly progressive and exciting music of the Dead Kennedys - often lumped in with straight-ahead three-chord punkers - is systematically overlooked because of Biafra's unforgettable eccentricity and political obsessions, but East Bay Ray's intermittently fluid and explosive lines on tracks like "Moon Over Marin" make him, to me, the quintessential lead-guitar voice of punk.
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