I came across this mini-rant earlier today, and it reminded me a bit of the debate about Sheryl Crow being the bass player in that BBC advert which we had here a couple of months ago.
A quick warning: don’t read any further if you have a mouthful of drink. I will not be held responsible for any keyboards or monitors ruined by sprays of tea when anyone does the legendary comedy spit-of-shock.
Anyway, thre was an auction on eBay of an electric guitar signed by “the world’s ten greatest guitarists”. The signatures were from: BB King, Joe Perry, Jimmy Page, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, Pete Townsend, Eddie Van Halen, and… Sting.
So Sting (primarily known as a bass player) is one of the 10 greatest guitarists and Dave Gilmour isn’t. Nor is Julian Bream or Robert Johnson or Kirk Hammett or Tony Iommi or Lindsey Buckingham or Mike Oldfield or Gary Moore or Rory Gallagher… I could go on; I am tempted to.
It must be a wind-up surely.
Errm… Jimi, anyone?
JEFF BECK, john mcgluaghlin (sp?), hendrix, stevie ray vaughan, stepan rak, debbie davies, jonny lang, me (hey, I’m miles better than sting), peter green, were all missing from your list. and theirs too. not to mention others.
Errm, possibly Jimi couldn’t sign. Being dead and all?
What… and Robert Johnson and Rory Gallagher could?
I don’t know what the argument’s about. The greatest rock guitarist of all time is, of course, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page – backed by the greatest rock drummer of all time; need I say more : the late, great John Bonham.
Good point J. I went off on thinking about the best guitarists without thinking about how being dead might make it hard to get their autograph.
I suppose that the person hawking the guitar on eBay would have found a title like “signed by the 10 greatest guitarists in the world who aren’t dead yet’ would be less snappy – a truer description would be less snappy still:
“signed by the 10 greatest guitarists in the world who were available to sign the guitar”
or
“signed by the 9 greatest guitarists in the world who were available to sign the guitar. And Sting.”