We had our own macho music thing when I was in high school (74 - 78). ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, The Outlaws. The bands that made it okay to be different for me were Queen (baroque, over the top music with a flamboyantly gay front man) and Steely Dan (two brainiacs surrounded by the hottest players in the business). It was hard to maintain my teenage facade when confronted with such brilliant music.
I can relate to being the "odd man out" when in comes to listening habits. I became infatuated with classical guitar my freshman year of high school, and outside of what was on the radio and MTV, I listened to/studied classical music for the next 20 years. This was followed by a 15-year obsession with jazz of the 1930s-1960s. Only now, in my mid-50s, am I getting into current music and the music of "my" generation. Sometimes it feels like I was in a coma...
Agree almost 100%, especially on EVH and SRV. It's almost like I was saying exactly what you would say only a second later. And I'm guilty of trying to cop SRV's stuff, it made me consciously steer away from it, play more Teles and Gibsons.
That nonsensical "Macho" music thing seemed very important in high school; we guys were idiots! I would have Slipknot blasting in the car, but The Cure on my headphones. Such a weird time.
As you can see by the comments Jack you felt alone but weren’t 😉. Neil Diamond -Jazz Singer was my first album 😁, this was during a time with the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Queen etc.
I truly believe Slash is probably the most recent to influence gear purchases. I have to agree about SRV. If you go and listen to his catalog, it’s the same small repertoire of licks over and over again. I quickly grew tired as well. Now, that aside, if you listen to bluesville on satellite radio, you can hear a lot of original artists that influenced modern players. I truly believe you will discover a lot you didn’t know.
Eddie’s musicality was absolutely incredible! Totally agree - the generation/s of shredders he inspired don’t appeal much to me. Ed was as much about rhythm and inventiveness as speed 🎸
You nailed this! As a frequent blues jam attendee, I see this so much. So much so I won’t play a strat or a tube screamer because I don’t want to get looped in as a copy cat. Plus I’m not fan of that style. On another note, the hats. I think they look incredibly tacky and tell me everything I need to know about how you are going to play or sound. Great video!
Jerry Garcia was always a favorite of mine but I grew tired of GD songs and guitarist who wanted to emulate him so I understand what you are saying regarding SRV. Mayer did refresh and expand that for me with Dead and Company and made me appreciate his talent as a guitarist. I think we borrow and build from our favorite artist and as you mentioned use what we learned to find our own voice.
Stevie and Eddie exemplify the kind of playing that somehow comes into existence where certain players simply crack the code of guitar while putting their personalities into the music. Another one is Yngwie, he single-handedly brought in his genre and ruined it by spawning only copycats that did not exist prior to his cheat codes being on display.
Now this is totally subjective and personal, but Yngwie does nothing to me. Zilch, squat, f- all. But I love Eddie's playing. Yeah, Eddie _could_ play really fast, but that's never the feature that stood out to me. It wasn't about that. He was still always serving the song in my experience. But again, just my opinion / taste.
I never noticed things like that among guitar players (although now that you point it out I completely agree) but I've noticed it a lot in movies. Stuff like people who think if their movie has a private detective, a saxophone in the background and the main character narrating the movie they have suddenly achieved film noir when in reality they've just made a pretentious movie that looks like it was made by a film school nerd who watched The Big Combo about 15 years ago. If you take influence from anything and miss the point of what made it good in the first place you'd be better off just not being influenced by that thing.
Dime! I love me some dime bag and his thing worked for him but so many people fall into that mid scoop tone trap that is not right for let’s say a Beatles song or a Fleetwood Mack or Heart song but there they are plucking it out on a mid scooped to much gain sound anyway. It feels like it is in insult to a great innovation of the time to me.
Jack, I know this will be an unpopular opinion. I remember being a teenager in the 80s loving all the hard rock and Metal genres - my group of friends thought Stevie Ray Vaughn was a stain on the history of rock and roll, along with Bowie. It has fascinated me how much younger generations have really latched onto his music. I think if you were a teenager in the 80s in the northeast and you liked SRV - you probably would have gotten your ass kicked in the parking lot after school. LOL.
I'm a diehard JM fanboy and have had many GAS episodes. However, the gear obsession with JM is almost manic at this point. I love his playing and love his sound. However, I also stopped trying to sound exactly like him. I love his tone, and I can replicate it. However, there's something to be said about finding your own voice. The same is true of SRV and me. I am a Stratocaster/S-type guitar guy through and through. I can also play with heavy gauge strings and emulate his tone. However, I tend to prefer the more mainstream string gauges nowadays. Sure, it can be cool to brag that you can play in Eb using 12s and 11s, but when you want to play something that isn't Texas Blues, it's a gargantuan pain in the ass, and it becomes impractical quickly. Likewise, I love low action. Can I play a guitar with high action? Sure. Do I like playing a guitar with high action? Hell no. It's cute for the first song or two of a setlist, but when you have to play an entire show, and you have heavy gauge strings and action higher than an NYC skyrise? It gets old real quick, especially once sweat, fatigue, and even nervousness come into play.
Being influential is one of the greatest accolades a player can receive. Hendrix, SRV, EVH, Page, Clapton. I want to say Beck but I have never heard anyone play his music. He is influential tho. I love Hendrix but I get so sick of people playing his stuff on gear reviews. Also hands play a big part. Hendrix, SRV and EVH all had meaty veiny hands. Great hands. The Velvet Bulldozer had great hands.
I used to hear SRV live in all of his group iterations at the Back Room, Rome Inn , Steamboat Springs and Antones in Austin many many times. I think Albert Kings best stuff was what he played at the fadeouts of some songs or improvising in recording sessions.I first heard Stevie playing a Les Paul thru a Marshall 50 watt combo in he best cover band that the city ever had called KrackerJack that featured great guitarists like Leonard Arnold, Gary Myrick, and John Stahley.
Personally I’d replace EVH with Malmsteen in that category. Van Halen shook everyone with tapping, but once everyone figured it out it was old hat. Van Halen is remembered for great riffs, songs, and solos. But Malmsteen was where the technique became so demanding that people could realistically spend so much time practising just to play like that that they’d forget to work on songwriting. Definitely agree on SRV though, thanks to him every boomer thinks only 13 gauge strings sound good and that everything else is “cheating” even though SRV glued his fingertips from his terrible setup shredding them and was a raging crackhead who couldn’t feel the pain.
I speak for Europe. I think the name Gary Moore should be mentioned. He changed the blues into a new era. Joe Bonamassa uses him is his biggest example. And from the old days.. Hank Marvin from the Shadows. Even Mark Knopfler wanted a red Strat. Maybe David Gilmour. He was also so influential!!
Another European guitarist of note is Michael Schenker. I think he's every bit as important as Eddie Van Halen in terms of advancing rock guitar in the 1970s.
The Edge is one who I feel like people have copied far too much. Nothing against The Edge, I love some U2 songs, but every church band in America sounds like they're replaying "The Joshua Tree" album. It's a great sound, but we've been there and done that for 30+ years now, it's time to go somewhere else.
9:33 I really wish I had not been such a stupid music snob during the 80's and 90's. There was some really decent music put out, but I just lumped all the hair bands into poser status. However there was a LOT of terrible music put out
The main reason I can’t stand Lindsey Buckingham. His opinion of EVH proves to me he simply didn’t understand anything other than pop and folk music. Screw you Lindsey.
Van Halen’s guitar playing had a sense of humour. Such a rarity.
So did Danny Gatton.
Great job on this Jack! I would love to hear you talk more about things like this!
We had our own macho music thing when I was in high school (74 - 78). ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, The Outlaws. The bands that made it okay to be different for me were Queen (baroque, over the top music with a flamboyantly gay front man) and Steely Dan (two brainiacs surrounded by the hottest players in the business). It was hard to maintain my teenage facade when confronted with such brilliant music.
Dang, I used to listen to my dads best of Lovin Spoonful album in the 70s. Also best of Gary Lewis and the Playboys
I had that! I was into The Beach Boys, Beatles, Lovin Spoonful, Tommy James and the Shondells, the Animals and Three Dog Night.
What a fantastic video have a wonderful day Jack ❤😊 also I have to say Eric clapton ❤❤😊😊
I can relate to being the "odd man out" when in comes to listening habits. I became infatuated with classical guitar my freshman year of high school, and outside of what was on the radio and MTV, I listened to/studied classical music for the next 20 years. This was followed by a 15-year obsession with jazz of the 1930s-1960s. Only now, in my mid-50s, am I getting into current music and the music of "my" generation. Sometimes it feels like I was in a coma...
Jack! Excellent video and great insight. Glad to be a subscriber. 🎸
"You're playing a Stratocaster de-tuned a half step with a cowboy hat and you're playing his licks note-for-note" made me laugh out loud.
Agree almost 100%, especially on EVH and SRV. It's almost like I was saying exactly what you would say only a second later. And I'm guilty of trying to cop SRV's stuff, it made me consciously steer away from it, play more Teles and Gibsons.
That nonsensical "Macho" music thing seemed very important in high school; we guys were idiots! I would have Slipknot blasting in the car, but The Cure on my headphones. Such a weird time.
As you can see by the comments Jack you felt alone but weren’t 😉. Neil Diamond -Jazz Singer was my first album 😁, this was during a time with the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Queen etc.
I played sax and was reading some Tony Rice solo transcriptions. He was flat picking John Coltrane solos but playing bluegrass.
Very interesting topic. I’d love hear more stuff like this.
Very interesting and thoughtful idea for a video.
Thanks, Jack. 😊
I truly believe Slash is probably the most recent to influence gear purchases. I have to agree about SRV. If you go and listen to his catalog, it’s the same small repertoire of licks over and over again. I quickly grew tired as well. Now, that aside, if you listen to bluesville on satellite radio, you can hear a lot of original artists that influenced modern players. I truly believe you will discover a lot you didn’t know.
Eddie’s musicality was absolutely incredible! Totally agree - the generation/s of shredders he inspired don’t appeal much to me. Ed was as much about rhythm and inventiveness as speed 🎸
You nailed this! As a frequent blues jam attendee, I see this so much. So much so I won’t play a strat or a tube screamer because I don’t want to get looped in as a copy cat. Plus I’m not fan of that style. On another note, the hats. I think they look incredibly tacky and tell me everything I need to know about how you are going to play or sound. Great video!
Jerry Garcia was always a favorite of mine but I grew tired of GD songs and guitarist who wanted to emulate him so I understand what you are saying regarding SRV. Mayer did refresh and expand that for me with Dead and Company and made me appreciate his talent as a guitarist. I think we borrow and build from our favorite artist and as you mentioned use what we learned to find our own voice.
Stevie and Eddie exemplify the kind of playing that somehow comes into existence where certain players simply crack the code of guitar while putting their personalities into the music. Another one is Yngwie, he single-handedly brought in his genre and ruined it by spawning only copycats that did not exist prior to his cheat codes being on display.
Now this is totally subjective and personal, but Yngwie does nothing to me. Zilch, squat, f- all. But I love Eddie's playing. Yeah, Eddie _could_ play really fast, but that's never the feature that stood out to me. It wasn't about that. He was still always serving the song in my experience. But again, just my opinion / taste.
@@bakkels very true, doesn’t matter if somebody has no response to the playing, just how the player has affected the entire genre globally.
I never noticed things like that among guitar players (although now that you point it out I completely agree) but I've noticed it a lot in movies. Stuff like people who think if their movie has a private detective, a saxophone in the background and the main character narrating the movie they have suddenly achieved film noir when in reality they've just made a pretentious movie that looks like it was made by a film school nerd who watched The Big Combo about 15 years ago. If you take influence from anything and miss the point of what made it good in the first place you'd be better off just not being influenced by that thing.
Dime! I love me some dime bag and his thing worked for him but so many people fall into that mid scoop tone trap that is not right for let’s say a Beatles song or a Fleetwood Mack or Heart song but there they are plucking it out on a mid scooped to much gain sound anyway. It feels like it is in insult to a great innovation of the time to me.
Jack, I know this will be an unpopular opinion. I remember being a teenager in the 80s loving all the hard rock and Metal genres - my group of friends thought Stevie Ray Vaughn was a stain on the history of rock and roll, along with Bowie. It has fascinated me how much younger generations have really latched onto his music. I think if you were a teenager in the 80s in the northeast and you liked SRV - you probably would have gotten your ass kicked in the parking lot after school. LOL.
If you have a need for speed check out Steve Morse playing a tune from an old solo album-called Tumeni Notes
I wonder if the gear obsession fad might not be on the wane. Either that, or everyone's broke!
Perhaps a bit of both.
You left of probably the best one, and not just guitar but also recording techniques: Les Paul
I'm a diehard JM fanboy and have had many GAS episodes. However, the gear obsession with JM is almost manic at this point. I love his playing and love his sound. However, I also stopped trying to sound exactly like him. I love his tone, and I can replicate it. However, there's something to be said about finding your own voice.
The same is true of SRV and me. I am a Stratocaster/S-type guitar guy through and through. I can also play with heavy gauge strings and emulate his tone. However, I tend to prefer the more mainstream string gauges nowadays. Sure, it can be cool to brag that you can play in Eb using 12s and 11s, but when you want to play something that isn't Texas Blues, it's a gargantuan pain in the ass, and it becomes impractical quickly. Likewise, I love low action. Can I play a guitar with high action? Sure. Do I like playing a guitar with high action? Hell no. It's cute for the first song or two of a setlist, but when you have to play an entire show, and you have heavy gauge strings and action higher than an NYC skyrise? It gets old real quick, especially once sweat, fatigue, and even nervousness come into play.
Great points. In contrast, imitating Clapton and Knopfler was harder to do with cheap, simple tricks. You really had to get good.
Being influential is one of the greatest accolades a player can receive. Hendrix, SRV, EVH, Page, Clapton. I want to say Beck but I have never heard anyone play his music. He is influential tho. I love Hendrix but I get so sick of people playing his stuff on gear reviews. Also hands play a big part. Hendrix, SRV and EVH all had meaty veiny hands. Great hands. The Velvet Bulldozer had great hands.
I used to hear SRV live in all of his group iterations at the Back Room, Rome Inn , Steamboat Springs and Antones in Austin many many times. I think Albert Kings best stuff was what he played at the fadeouts of some songs or improvising in recording sessions.I first heard Stevie playing a Les Paul thru a Marshall 50 watt combo in he best cover band that the city ever had called KrackerJack that featured great guitarists like Leonard Arnold, Gary Myrick, and John Stahley.
"subsided a little bit" Well, that was a very polite euphemism 😉
I love John Mayer's tone. But I cannot love Strats. What's the point of trying to nail someone's tone if you're not enjoying playing the guitar?
Personally I’d replace EVH with Malmsteen in that category. Van Halen shook everyone with tapping, but once everyone figured it out it was old hat. Van Halen is remembered for great riffs, songs, and solos. But Malmsteen was where the technique became so demanding that people could realistically spend so much time practising just to play like that that they’d forget to work on songwriting. Definitely agree on SRV though, thanks to him every boomer thinks only 13 gauge strings sound good and that everything else is “cheating” even though SRV glued his fingertips from his terrible setup shredding them and was a raging crackhead who couldn’t feel the pain.
Surely if you're going to say Mayer for that reason, Joe-Bone warrants a mention too.
I actually wouldn’t say so - because no one can afford anything he plays. Certainly a big uptick in the use of Les Pauls by Bluesrock players though.
EVH, Frank Zappa, David Gilmour (double compressor) were groundbraking in terms of sound.
Interesting Jack. The SRV thing is may be a good part of the reason I just don't want to hear strats anymore.
I speak for Europe. I think the name Gary Moore should be mentioned. He changed the blues into a new era. Joe Bonamassa uses him is his biggest example. And from the old days.. Hank Marvin from the Shadows. Even Mark Knopfler wanted a red Strat. Maybe David Gilmour. He was also so influential!!
Another European guitarist of note is Michael Schenker. I think he's every bit as important as Eddie Van Halen in terms of advancing rock guitar in the 1970s.
The Edge is one who I feel like people have copied far too much. Nothing against The Edge, I love some U2 songs, but every church band in America sounds like they're replaying "The Joshua Tree" album. It's a great sound, but we've been there and done that for 30+ years now, it's time to go somewhere else.
Don’t dismiss how the Holy Spirit surges through a slow 1-4 crescendo that last for half an hour.
9:33 I really wish I had not been such a stupid music snob during the 80's and 90's. There was some really decent music put out, but I just lumped all the hair bands into poser status. However there was a LOT of terrible music put out
Hello, how can I get in touch with you?
You can't, I'm very exclusive.
@@JackFossett I would like to discuss a potential video collaboration with you.
@@JackFossettBut she's so set on that very real video collaboration haha
@@grawman67 definitely points for persistence
Brad Paisley is another one.
While everyone is trying to sound like John Mayer, he is working on sounding like Jerry Garcia. 😅
Do you realize that you named 3 dead guitarists? Two physically and one emotionally.🤣🤣
LOL
The main reason I can’t stand Lindsey Buckingham. His opinion of EVH proves to me he simply didn’t understand anything other than pop and folk music. Screw you Lindsey.
You have obviously have lived a very limited Musical life, Especially as it pertains to guitar players.