is guthrie govan the best electric guitar player in the world?
yes
90%
[ 127 ]
no
5%
[ 8 ]
there may be somebody in their bedroom fiddling away who could be better
4%
[ 6 ]
wasn't there
0%
[ 0 ]
Total Votes : 141
Author
Message
tafolla-howe-govan
Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 101 Location: Good ole NC
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:10 pm Post subject:
Yeah I love that song, i really hope it makes it to the dvd.
That's really cool about Rhode Island Shred. That song is already fast enough, I keep speeding it up in my head trying to imagine how he could double the tempo
I can't wait for some new videos to start surfacing to get my fix
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:56 am Post subject:
Ha! A customer of mine who was at the Jan 19 Wed show just advised me that he's got the whole show on tape and that he's moved the footage to DVD. This won't be a pro kind of thing of the Jan 20 Thu show - it'll be kind of like the clinic DVD - but this one will have Guthrie and the band at the top of their game. The guy told me that the audio and video quality of the footage is better than the clinic DVD, so it should be absolutely killer! I can't wait to see it myself.
In the meantime, the pro audio/video crew are working away busily on the Jan 20 show footage and the guy there is telling me that for save for a few EC tunes the stuff is just incredible and that people will be devastated by it. So, it won't be too long, guys! We've got some killer video stuff on the way to quench our insatiable thirst for GG material until the solo album finally comes out (now it's looking like mid-year). You guys thought the clinic DVD and the current Fellowship DVD were great? This stuff will take it to a whole new level. Be prepared! _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
I was standing next to Tony as he was getting everything on video (don't know HOW I could have forgotten he was there that nite!), and I saw what was coming in on his viewfinder, and it looked really good!
I know (from another buddy's recordings of other artists' performances in the Tone Mecca in the past) that the room records pretty well on the current crop of digital video recorders (sound-wise)...so I'm pretty excited to hear & see what our customer managed to capture!
Can't wait...!! _________________ Noel E.
Tone Merchants
Ha! A customer of mine who was at the Jan 19 Wed show just advised me that he's got the whole show on tape and that he's moved the footage to DVD. This won't be a pro kind of thing of the Jan 20 Thu show - it'll be kind of like the clinic DVD - but this one will have Guthrie and the band at the top of their game. The guy told me that the audio and video quality of the footage is better than the clinic DVD, so it should be absolutely killer! I can't wait to see it myself.
In the meantime, the pro audio/video crew are working away busily on the Jan 20 show footage and the guy there is telling me that for save for a few EC tunes the stuff is just incredible and that people will be devastated by it. So, it won't be too long, guys! We've got some killer video stuff on the way to quench our insatiable thirst for GG material until the solo album finally comes out (now it's looking like mid-year). You guys thought the clinic DVD and the current Fellowship DVD were great? This stuff will take it to a whole new level. Be prepared!
yes there are better guitarists.. using the Vincenzo patented metaphysical slide rule we can see that Guthrie is a 13.8 on the rule, whereas George Formby and Kirk Hammett both scored a 15.3, and a little bit further up the scale we can see that the 18th century Chippendale ottoman in the main reception of Longleat house was the worlds best guitarist ever.
Another vote for didn't go, the advantage of not having an option means I don't feel compelled to vote for any of the wrong answers.. I'll be doing that in May most likely
Speaking of George Formby. Many of you are familiar with George Foreman's Grill.
But not many know that George Formby did it first.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:26 am Post subject:
Regarding the poll options, I'll say this much: one just can't get as good as Guthrie fiddling away in the bedroom. Sure, Guthrie went through his phase practicing many hours jamming along to records and such during his formative years, but having talked to him over many hours during his visit here and through our regular correspondence, he simply doesn't take a rigorous approach to practice or anything like that.
He'll tell you that he kept improving by going out and playing with better musicians whenever he could. Guthrie gigged and still gigs with whatever situation suits his fancy: jamming with techno artists, accompanying a Norah Jones type female torch jazz singer, a local folk-rock band, blues jams at a local bar, etc. He goes out and plays and has been doing so since the early teens. You heard the old saying, "You will improve more in an hour of gigging than in weeks of woodshedding locked away in your bedroom."
How did Guthrie get so good in so many styles? It would seem that there aren't enough hours in a day to put in so many hours of practice to master all those styles and techniques. The simple secret to it is that Guthrie sat in with better country players, better jazz players, better classic rockers, better slide players, better shredders, and learned by simply playing with them in jams or at gigs of all sorts over so many years. He would jam along to records of Albert Lee or Wes Montgomery or Yngwie or ZZ Top or Sonny Landreth simply because he loved their music. He never sat down and said, "Okay, now I'm going to focus on alternate picking in triplets for an hour. Then I'll work on sweep picking arpeggios in different keys for another hour. Then I'll work on legato and tapping for half-an-hour, etc."
That's just not how Guthrie did things to improve and progress as a player. Guys who developed by such rigorous methods sound quite mechanical and rigid. There are quite a few well-known players (who I won't name here) who sound like that although they're awesome technicians. As I said in another post, Guthrie is a very intuitive type of a player. For one, he won't play things that he wouldn't consider "fun". For him, it's always been about it all being fun. To him, country is fun. Jazz is fun. Shred is fun. Metal is fun. Techno is fun. Classical is fun. Funk is fun. Rock is fun. He genuinely loves them all. IMHO, that's what makes Guthrie so special. He doesn't take it all too seriously. Yes, music is a serious thing because that's what he's good at and it's his profession, but to him, it's not some serious academia or spiritual philosophical way of channeling things or anything like that.
And it certainly isn't a competition. He could care less about who's considered the "best" or where he stands amongst his contemporaries or master players of the past, etc. He only thinks about, hopefully, being able to do what a bunch of other great players that he admires could do and just constantly improving himself. The wide range of musical genres that he's into is simply staggering. I'd imagine that 70~80% of the music he listens to doesn't have any guitar stuff going on. He's just more interested in music, not guitar playing. He's more interested in making music than playing the guitar. In the end, that's what it comes down to. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
i understand why people hate to classify any single guitarist as "the best". it certainly is a subjective manner, and there are many great ones out there. it seems to me though that guthrie really gets it. like ed says he really transcends the instrument, and is a fan of all music, this is obvious when you hear him play. it's not that i disagree with ed's assesment, its that i would just add a couple of things to it. maybe this is just obvious and nobody's saying it, but guthrie was born with a tremendous amount of talent and innate ability. when you consider the great composers, you have to recoginize that something was just different about them, they stood out. mozart was one of the only ones who could compose at such a young age. thats not normal. i probably dont even have to say this, but you take any kid at age three and start them playing, and give them a similair background as guthrie had, and you'll have a great player no doubt. but you wont have guthrie. perhaps ill modify my position somewhat and assert that guthrie is my favorite player.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:33 pm Post subject:
sterlingsilver wrote:
maybe this is just obvious and nobody's saying it, but guthrie was born with a tremendous amount of talent and innate ability. when you consider the great composers, you have to recoginize that something was just different about them, they stood out. mozart was one of the only ones who could compose at such a young age. thats not normal.
Hey Sterling, yes, Guthrie obviously was born with a tremendous gift. Guthrie is actually a very down-to-earth normal person... until he picks up a guitar. He is the most appropriate real-life embodiment of "Clark Kent becoming Superman" I have ever seen in my life. Even my wife said, "He really becomes a monster when he steps up on stage with the guitar." I had a lot of casual music fans who had never heard of or seen Guthrie attend the opening night Jan 18 show and they saw Guthrie before the show and I knew what most of them were thinking, "That skinny scrawny guy is the monster player you were talking about?" And when he stepped up on stage and started playing, it was as though I could hear the collective thump of their jaws falling to the floor.
sterlingsilver wrote:
i probably dont even have to say this, but you take any kid at age three and start them playing, and give them a similair background as guthrie had, and you'll have a great player no doubt. but you wont have guthrie. perhaps ill modify my position somewhat and assert that guthrie is my favorite player.
Guthrie started playing at the age of 3. Basically, he can't remember a time when the guitar wasn't a part of his life. He was on national British TV by the time he was 9. It's kind of mind-boggling to think of anyone playing music at such a young age. I can't get my 4-year-old to even fret a note and pluck a string on a baby acoustic I bought him.
No, it's not about how early one starts. Some great players started out much later in life. Some of the greatest classical composers started relatively late in music (Wagner at age 15, Tchaicovsky at age 21, etc.). And kid prodigies don't mean that they'll develop into great artists later in life. There have been a lot of kid whizzes who just disappear into obscurity as they enter their late-teens or early-20's.
As for Guthrie, I certainly believe Guthrie has that innate "prodigy" talent. What Guthrie has, what Allan has, what Shawn Lane had, what Yngwie has, what McLaughlin has, what Metheny has, etc., one either has it or doesn't. Rest of us mortals could practice 10 hours a day for the next 100 years and we won't even begin to approach their proficiency on the instrument or their innate musicality. As for Guthrie, he's still a developing talent. His best years could be 10~15 years from now. Who knows? He still needs to get out that first album of songs that actually go back as far as 15 years and I understand that he's got tons more. He just needs to get out and play and record and get the stuff out there. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:39 am Post subject:
sterlingsilver wrote:
guthrie is my favorite player.
I've been hearing that with increasing frequency lately from a lot of people. Now that's impossible to argue with! _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 101 Location: Good ole NC
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject:
Ed, how is the Jan 19th concert dvd coming along? Have you spoken to Guthrie yet concerning the release of it?
I'm sure I speak for the majority of the people on this board when I say don't worry about us just buying the bootlegged concerts and not the official releases. Guthrie is too special, I've been searching for a while for a player of his caliber, and I am more than willing to buy everything that features his playing on it. You should even charge 16 bucks for the concerts and give Guthrie half of it He more than deserves it
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:41 pm Post subject:
tafolla-howe-govan wrote:
Ed, how is the Jan 19th concert dvd coming along? Have you spoken to Guthrie yet concerning the release of it?
I'm sure I speak for the majority of the people on this board when I say don't worry about us just buying the bootlegged concerts and not the official releases. Guthrie is too special, I've been searching for a while for a player of his caliber, and I am more than willing to buy everything that features his playing on it. You should even charge 16 bucks for the concerts and give Guthrie half of it He more than deserves it
I sent Guthrie a copy of it and it's going to have to end up in his hands somehow while he's on tour of Europe with Asia, but I'm sure that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The performance of that evening was stellar (and he agreed that it was their best overall night) and the footage is really good considering that it was recorded on a Mini DV, so I'm sure he'll be agreeable to making it available to you guys. I just want him to see it first and get his okay.
Well, the Jan 20 show footage will be an official DVD and some of the Jan 19 footage may make it on there as "bonus" official bootleg stuff with more pro audio and video treatments. You guys have to promise to buy that one (as well as the album) from whatever channels even if you get this one, okay? _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Ed,
I've just got the DVD, 19th. Really, really good!!. In my case, because I have seen him playing so many times in LIVE, in Chelmsford, it is not the same, but I can see this man leaving the planet Earth and going to the planet in which, for example, Holdsworth settled his "farm" to be his closest neighbour
Thanks Ed. _________________ Javi
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This stuff will take it to a whole new level. Be prepared! 
yes there are better guitarists.. using the Vincenzo patented metaphysical slide rule we can see that Guthrie is a 13.8 on the rule, whereas George Formby and Kirk Hammett both scored a 15.3, and a little bit further up the scale we can see that the 18th century Chippendale ottoman in the main reception of Longleat house was the worlds best guitarist ever.
Now 