Listening Room Blog

One week into our Listening Room readers poll for best album, the results are, well, interesting – but not entirely surprising.

Our poll so far is dominated by classic rock releases, but with a good mix of newer albums that will probably give the old timers a run for their money before we announce the results later in the week.

It’s really all up to you.

So far, Bob Dylan has the early lead, although we won’t tell you which album yet. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and The Band are in the top 15. But Radiohead is in the mix, and releases from White Stripes and Smashing Pumpkins are poised to make a move.

Like we told you when we posted the poll last Sunday, it’s hardly scientific, but certainly democratic: Every vote counts.

Here’s how to vote:

Send us a list of 5 to 10 of your top albums of all time – any genre – and we’ll tabulate the votes. Later this week we’ll tell you the results.

So add your list in the comments section below, or reach us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jfitzgibbon or  http://twitter.com/dianacostello. Or you can simply email us at  jfitzgib@lohud.com or dcostello@lohud.com.

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It should come as no surprise that the feud between Noel and Liam Gallagher finally led to the demise of British rockers Oasis.

In fact, the only stunner is that they lasted as long as they did given the long-festering bitterness between the two musical brothers.

But they’re hardly rock’s only sibling rivalry.

(photo courtesy of the Associated Press)

Now, don’t think siblings and music don’t mix. There are plenty of successful partnerships that worked — from the Wilson sisters of Heart, to Eddie and Alex Van Halen, to Radiohead’s Jonny and Colin Greenwood, to Ron and Russel Mael of Sparks, among others.

But there are more than a few examples where brotherly love went only so far. Here’s our look at some:

• Ray and Dave Davies: The Kinks’ feud is probably one of rock’s most famous before the Gallagher brothers meltdown. Dave formed the band and always resented when Ray joined and became the Kinks’ most famous member. Dave just thought Ray was a spoiled egomaniac, and fist fights – on and off stage – were not exactly rare.

• John and Tom Fogerty: The fighting Fogertys were initially bandmates in Creedence Clearwater Revival. But when John came into his own as lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter, things soured between the brothers. It was so bitter that when John buried the hatchet and went to see his dying brother in 1990, Tom’s parting words were “Saentz was right” — a reference to Fantasy Records executive Saul Saentz, who had long been in a well-known, vicious and prolonged court battle with John over the royalties to Creedence’s music.

• Curt and Chris Kirkwood: The Meat Puppets brothers stopped working together for a decade after Curt tired of working with his brother. Curt reportedly lost it because Chris’ heroin habit took precedence over the band’s music. To be fair, the Kirkwoods reformed after Chris went through rehab.

• Don and Phil Everly: The rock pioneers grew so distant that they didn’t speak to each other for over a decade. The long-feuding Everlys split on July 14, 1973, when Don showed up drunk for an Everly Brothers show at Knotts Berry Farm – billed as their last performance. Phil tried do carry on, but finally got so mad that he smashed his guitar and stormed off the stage, leaving Don to finish the show alone. They only saw each other in person once over the next 10 years — at their father’s 1975 funeral.

Those are the ones that come to mind, but it’s far from the full list — Robin and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, for example.

Then there are your mild cases: Mark and David Knopfler of Dire Straits, Chris and Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes, and former Split Enz duo Neil and Tim Finn reportedly get along just fine, but have trouble getting along as bandmates.

So, the Gallagher brothers are certainly in good company.

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This is it. The final week before The Green Emerald, a rock opera written by Mercury Landing’s Corey J. Feldman, is performed in New York City.

There are so many really cool layers to this project, including an illustrated storybook by Chris Hingel and live projections of the artwork.

As you may have seen, we here at The Listening Room have been following the progression of this saga, posting pieces of the story over the past few weeks.

Below we have the final chapters of the story — except for the last one! Feldman wants to hold off on the big conclusion until the actual performance. Fair enough. (Here’s the past posts if you need to catch up.)

You can purchase tickets and pledge money towards the printing of the hardcover storybooks by visiting this Website.

Feldman says the style of music is influenced by classic rock, jam, jazz, progressive, Latin, world music, and much more.

The Green Emerald performance will take place at 8 p.m Dec. 4th and 5th at the Bowery Poetry Club, located at 308 Bowery in Manhattan.

THE GREEN EMERALD BAND consists of 7 all-star members involved in New York’s vibrant music scene:

Corey J. Feldman (Guitar/Vocals) – www.mercurylanding.com
Kat Rees – (Vocals) – www.myspace.com/katreesmusic
Dan Griffith (Guitar) – www.myspace.com/stiltsmusic
Matt Robbins (Keyboards) – www.myspace.com/mattrobbinsjazz
Nick Hundley (Bass Guitar) – www.myspace.com/linfinity – www.myspace.com/shilparay
John Adamski – (Drums) – www.juliusc.com
Devon Caesar (Narrator)

It’s been a wild ride for Ritchie Blackmore.

He was the driving force behind one of heavy metal’s founding members, and formed a second formidable metal band before he radically changed gears and devoted himself to Renaissance-inspired folk music.

But what’s never been in doubt is his remarkable talent.

Blackmore got his start in the mid-1960s, playing with local bands — including Heinz & the Wild Boys — in his native England and recording a number of albums that drew limited attention. He later teamed with keyboard player Jon Lord and co-founded Roundabout — the band that would shortly become Deep Purple.

The band went through some early lineup changes, including a change in singers from Chris Curtis and later Rod Evans, and they scored an early hit with “Hush.”

But when they settled on Ian Gillan on vocals, adding Roger Glover on bass and Ian Paice on drums, things started to take off.

Blackmore’s first stint with Purple would only last through 1975, but the band’s work was iconic. Tunes like “Lazy” and “Smoke on the Water” — a hit in both the U.S. and England — put them firmly on the rock and roll map.

Despite the success, Blackmore increasingly feuded with his bandmates, and left the band in 1975. Without missing much of a beat, Blackmore resurfaced the following year with Blackmore’s Rainbow, with a new lineup that included singer Ronnie James Dio — who would evolve into one of metal’s premier singers, ultimately replacing Ozzy Osborne in Black Sabbath before forming his own band.

Rainbow quickly drew a loyal following, and would later score a hit with “I Surrender.” But friction within the band — and a few changes in lead singer — fueled the group’s breakup in the mid-1980s.

Blackmore quickly moved to his next project — his past. He reformed Deep Purple with a lineup that included Gillan back on vocals. The band recorded and toured through 1993, when it again disbanded.

Taking another shop at rekindling his past success, Blackmore then reformed Rainbow, this time with Doogie White on vocals.

But by 1997, Blackmore appeared ready for a new direction. He formed Blackmore’s Night with his wife, Candice Night. The Renaissance-influenced pop group continues to this day, with the couple releasing eight albums over the years, most recently the 2008 release, Secret Voyage.

Hat’s off to Blackmore for reinventing himself musically. But he’ll be hard-pressed to eclipse the hard rock legacy he created fronting Purple and Rainbow — when I saw him.

And that’s what gets him on our list of ‘Guitar Players You Should Know.’

(NOTE: This is part of my ongoing series of reports on guitar players who fly under the mainstream radar. Keep checking The Listening Room for future installments of guitar players you should know – JF)

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NME says the best of the decade was Is This It by The Strokes.

Rolling Stone magazine says the best ever was the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

What do you say?

Well, welcome to the Listening Room’s second readers’ poll.

Earlier this month we asked our readers to give us their lists of the greatest guitat players. Today we’re asking you all to give us your list of the greatest albums. Consider it a tribute to a dying art form — to the end of an era, when CDs, vinyl and tapes no longer seem to matter. Except to us here at the Listening Room, of course.

As we told you in our first poll, this is hardly scientific. We simply want to see where our readers and colleagues place the music they’ve been exposed to. Rolling Stone, in its list of the top 500 albums, put the Beatles on top. NME did a more contemporary listing and gave you the top albums of this decade. We’re letting you decide.

And, no, we’re not asking for the list of greatest rock albums. We’re asking for your list of greatest albums. My own list includes Marvin Gaye, just as it includes Radiohead and Led Zeppelin — and it came damned close to including Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

It really is an open contest. As we did last time, we’ll tabulate the lists you submit, which should include 5 to 10 albums you consider noteworthy, musicially influential, or that you simply enjoy. We’ll total them up and see which gets the most votes.

So, submit your votes in the comments section below, or visit us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jfitzgibbon or  http://twitter.com/dianacostello) or simply email us at  jfitzgib@lohud.com or dcostello@lohud.com.

We’ll give you the results in about a week.

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There are a couple of albums that I consider lost in time.

To me, music does tend to reinvent itself anyway. It’s something like a massive solera system, where it all takes a similar path, filters out and ultimately pours out of the same cask — albeit with different nuances.

One of those albums is Television’s Marquee Moon and particularly the title track. It’s back on top of my playlist these days.

I’m actually not sure how it jumped onto the top of the stack again — although it does that every few years. I’ve been listening to a bit of Wilco lately and there’s something about their guitar work that reminds me of Tom Verlaine, Television’s frontman.

Either way, Marquee Moon was released in 1977, and was quickly dubbed one of the greatest guitar albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. It doesn’t have screaming licks. It’s simply melodic and beautiful — and inventive.

Were the rock gods less fickle, Verlaine and company would’ve enjoyed greater success, and shared in the acclaim that contemporaries like the Talking Heads, Blondie and others eventually enjoyed.

As we told you in our earlier profile of Verlaine, he did just fine elsewhere. He packed it up and headed to Europe, where he enjoys relative success and where he continues to live and perform.

But whatever his musical path, I’m grateful it started with Marquee Moon, the song and the album.

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There’s just about two more weeks until the performance of The Green Emerald, a rock opera written by Mercury Landing’s Corey J. Feldman.

There are so many really cool layers to this project, including an illustrated storybook by Chris Hingel and live projections of the artwork.

As you may have seen, we here at The Listening Room have been following the progression of this saga, posting pieces of the story over the past few weeks. Be sure to read on to see what’s happening next in this fantastical world Mr. Feldman has so artfully crafted for us. (Here’s the past posts if you need to catch up.)

But hold up! Before you start reading, you should also know that Feldman is trying to raise some money to support the printing of the hardcover storybooks. You can purchase tickets and pledge money towards to the books by visiting this Website.

Feldman says the style of music is influenced by classic rock, jam, jazz, progressive, Latin, world music, and much more. If you’ve ever heard Mercury Landing, then you know the boy’s not afraid to mix up styles!

The Green Emerald performance will take place at 8 p.m Dec. 4th and 5th at the Bowery Poetry Club, located at 308 Bowery in Manhattan.

THE GREEN EMERALD BAND consists of 7 all-star members involved in New York’s vibrant music scene:

Corey J. Feldman (Guitar/Vocals) – www.mercurylanding.com
Kat Rees – (Vocals) – www.myspace.com/katreesmusic
Dan Griffith (Guitar) – www.myspace.com/stiltsmusic
Matt Robbins (Keyboards) – www.myspace.com/mattrobbinsjazz
Nick Hundley (Bass Guitar) – www.myspace.com/linfinity – www.myspace.com/shilparay
John Adamski – (Drums) – www.juliusc.com
Devon Caesar (Narrator)

As a longtime fan of this band, I was very excited to see Metallica play in the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden. And they definitely didn’t disappoint. They played with the same ferocious energy and passion that got me hooked when I first saw them as a teenager. As usual, I had a very sore throat the following day.

Their usual suite of pyrotechnics and flair were on display in the form of laser beams in the dark and fireballs blasting during their epic 80’s song entitled “One”. A new feature to this tour was a set of large coffins that were suspended above the stage and would rotate up and down during certain songs off the new album. Metallica has always been a band which places a heavy emphasis on giving fans a great experience as well as delivering great music.

They played a really good mix of new and old tunes that had longtime fans as well as the newbie fans banging their heads and dancing. I pretty much expect to hear “Enter Sandman” “One” and “Master of Puppets” at every Metallica show. They played those songs very well. Especially “Puppets”, which is my all time fave Metallica song. I was surprised and excited to hear “Fade to Black” (power ballad from the 1984 album “Ride the Lighting”) live for the first time since I first saw them in concert. Frontman James Hetfield rotated between acoustic and electric guitars and perfectly delivered the vocals to do justice to a true Metallica classic.
Other classics “Dyer’s Eve”, “Trapped Under Ice” and “Last Caress” were a few more pleasant surprises that are not usually on the standard ‘Tallica setlist.

The rest of the band—lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, and bassist Rob Trujullio also delivered great performances without any noticeable missed notes or beats. Apparently the concert was on the same day as Kirk Hammett’s birthday as Hammett got doused with several cakes and pies when his band mates gave him an impromptu birthday celebration on stage at the end of the show.

When Hetfield asked the crowd how many people were there to see Metallica for the first time, I was pretty surprised to see a strong contingent of hands go up. It’s nice to see that even after all these years, Metallica is still getting new fans. And deservedly so.

Setlist:
That Was Just Your Life
The End of the Line
Creeping Death
The Shortest Straw
Fade to Black
Broken, Beat & Scarred
My Apocalypse
Sad But True
One
The Judas Kiss
Kirk Solo #1
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Dyers Eve
Kirk Solo #2
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Encore Jam
Last Caress
Trapped Under Ice
Seek and Destroy

Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Date: Sunday November 15, 2009

Download the show

Last month, on what was the 15th anniversary of his death, NPR dubbed Danny Gatton the “World’s Greatest Unknown Guitarist.”

And with good reason. During a performing and recording career that spanned more than two decades, Gatton earned well-earned acclaim for his virtuoso guitar playing, which blended rockabilly, jazz and blues.

In short, he could just flat-out play.

Gatton had a head start with music: His father, Danny Gatton Sr., was a locally reknown guitarist who gave up music to raise a family — and school his son in the insturment. The younger Gatton needed little prodding.

By his teens, Gatton was playing in local bands around the family’s Washington, D.C., home.  He increasingly gained wide acclaim, playing with a variety of performers and jamming with prominent blues, jazz and rockabilly performers. In later years he would play behind noted performers that included rockabilly crooner Robert Gordon and Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Roger Miller.

But it was his solo work and performances that incresingly gained him acclaim — and respect — in the industry.

In all, Gatton released eight albums before his death in 1994, either as a solo artist or in various ensembles. An additional eight releases of his work were issued posthumously, all of which showcase his remarkable talent.

The tragedy of his death on Oct. 4, 1994, is magnified by the mystery surrounding it. Gatton locked himself in the garage of his Maryland home and shot himself. He left no note or obvious explanation. Friends later suggested he may have suffered from depression.

Months after his death, Gatton was honored at Tramps in New York City, with a three-day musical festival that included performances by musical giants like Les Paul and James Burton — with the proceeds going to Gatton’s wife and daughter.

In 2003, author Ralph Heibutzki also published a Gatton biography, titled “Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton.” which details both the musical accomplishments of Gatton’s life as well as his lost promise.

If there is a silver lining to his death it is that Gatton left behind a substantial collection of music. Give him a listen. You won’t be disappointed.

(NOTE: This is part of my ongoing series of reports on guitar players who fly under the mainstream radar. Keep checking The Listening Room for future installments of guitar players you should know – JF)

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Sometimes a writer just tells a story the right way, and there’s really no point in trying to tell it differently. Such is the case today with my colleague, columnist Phil Reisman.

In his latest column for The Journal News, Phil talks about singer/songwriter Chip Taylor, a Yonkers native and brother to actor Jon Voight. The news here is Taylor’s latest release, which pays homage to his hometown – the city of hills.

Anyway, here’s Phil’s column about Yonkers boy Chip Taylor:

The story of Yonkers is worthy of a song

To be dismissive about the so-called “city of hills” is to forget that the hills come with deep valleys of disappointment. And that the story of Yonkers is the story of working people who are forever struggling up those steep slopes.

Somebody should write a song about this mythic place.

Actually a well-known somebody by the name of Chip Taylor wrote 11 songs about it and packaged them in a new two-CD record album aptly titled, “Yonkers NY.” (trainwreckrecords.com)

With dark humor, the singer-songwriter perfectly captured the gritty essence of Yonkers in the very first verse of the title track.

Born and raised in Yonkers, New York

It doesn’t matter if you’re tall or you’re short

Sooner or later you’ll be down on your luck

You’ll take a chance just to make a buck

Taylor grew up in the Yonkers of the 1950s when the factories still hummed on Nepperhan Avenue and Getty Square had a movie theater. He was the youngest of three boys. The oldest, Barry, became a geologist. The next in line, Jon, became Jon Voight, the famous movie actor. Yeah, that’s right — Taylor, whose real name is James Wesley Voight, is the uncle of Angelina Jolie.

Taylor achieved early success as a country songwriter for big-time artists. Fooling around one day at a music publishing company in New York, he wrote and recorded “Wild Thing.” When he got home to Yonkers that night, he picked up a guitar and sang it to his brother, Jon, who enthusiastically fell to the living-room floor and declared it was the best song he had ever heard.

In 1966, the primitive, punk-sounding rock tune was a huge hit for The Troggs, a British band, and has since been covered by Jimi Hendrix and many others.

From “Wild Thing,” Taylor went on to the next thing and next thing after that. His biography is extensive. So with “Yonkers NY,” it appears as if he has come full circle with a collection of autobiographical songs. It was a spontaneous creation, he told me.

“The reason is hard to explain because I’m a stream-of-consciousness writer, and I don’t really think that much about what I’m doing until the stuff starts to come out,” he said. “So I didn’t predetermine that I wanted to talk about Yonkers.”

The first to come out was “Charcoal Sky,” which is a beautiful little song about visiting the Nepperhan train station with his father and brothers.

Without that steam boys — there’d be no American dream.

“All of sudden,” Taylor continued, “I was back there and within a week I had written all these songs about my upbringing. So it’s something that I look back on and say, ‘Well I’m proud to talk about it and sing about it.’ “

Years ago, Loudon Wainwright III wrote “Westchester County,” a tongue-in-cheek tribute to country clubs and country day schools. Taylor’s world is one of pawn shops and gin rummy. Indeed, some of Taylor’s songs reflect Yonkers’ darker underside — the lure of street rackets.

“Yonkers people were mostly poor folks in those days,” he said. “If you get a way to get out, it’s very understandable. Not good, not right. But there would be temptations floating around Yonkers, you know, more than there would be in Scarsdale.”

He laughed and then added, “Those guys might get more involved in the corporate kind of stuff.”

Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@lohud.com.

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Word is that The Who will play the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIV next year. They’re obviously not the first rockers to do it: U2, the Stones, Bruce and others have done it before.

But, personally, it feels wrong to me, just like hearing Led Zeppelin on a Cadillac commercial or Bob Seger peddling pickup trucks. Now The Who are just the latest rockers to cash in.

And I guess that’s the way it works these days, when the height of musical integrity a rocker demonstrates is to refuse to lend their music and their likenesses to “Rock Band.”

Maybe I’m just too much of a purist.

Frankly, I don’t watch the halftime shows at the Super Bowl, parpticularly since they’ve become such a hyped-up separate event over the years. And this one seems particularly unappealing.

The Who – or rather Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend – are a shadow of what they once were. Daltrey has lost nearly all of the vocal range he once had and Townsend’s “windmill” guitar playing just seems silly at his advanced age. Sorry, that’s just how I see it.

But that’s what rock has evolved into, and you can’t blame The Who for cashing in the way everyone else has by selling their music to video games and TV commercials.

So, hats off to The Who. But I won’t be watching.

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The results are in….

Last Saturday we posted our first Listening Room readers’ poll, and we asked you to submit your lists of the greatest guitar players of all time. And boy, did you ever respond.

In all, we received votes for more than 140 guitar players, and tallied those up based on the number of votes each received.

Topping the list was Jimi Hendrix, who won easily.

Hendrix was in very good company, of course. Here’s the top 15 guitarists as voted by you:

1 – Jimi Hendrix
2 – Jeff Beck
3 – Stevie Ray Vaughan
4 – Eric Clapton
5 – Carlos Santana
6 – Eddie Van Halen
7 – Duane Allman
8 – Django Reinhardt
9 – Tom Morello
10 – Mark Knopfler
11 – BB King
12 – John Frusciante
13 – Buddy Guy
14 – Derek Trucks
15 – Pete Townsend

Then we had a batch of guitarists who just missed the top tier:

• Stevie Vai
• Les Paul
• John McLaughlin
• Jorma Kaukonen
• Slash
• Gary Moore
• Jack White
• Jerry Garcia
• Trey Anastasio
• Wes Montgomery
• Kirk Hammett
• Prince
• Warren Haynes
• The Edge
• Tony Iommi

Then there’s the category we’ll call Honorable Mention: Guitar players who received multiple votes but fell just under the top two levels of vote getters:

• Jonny Greenwood
• Angus Young
• Richard Thompson
• Lee Ritenour
• Steve Morse
• Joe Satriani
• Alan Holdsworth
• Jimmy Page
• Chuck Berry
• Jimmy Herring
• Chet Atkins
• James Burton

Now, here are some observations: Considering how many names of guitar players were submitted, we were surprised that no one put any of these musicians on their lists (in alphabetical order):

Rick Derringer
Robben Ford
Peter Frampton
Robert Fripp
John Lee Hooker
Alvin Lee
John Mayer
Ronnie Montrose
Ted Nugent
Carl Perkins
Joe Perry
Randy Rhoads
Tom Verlaine

You can definitely add Elvin Bishop and Ry Cooder to that list as well. And we were equally surprised that these following guitarists didn’t get more votes (again, in alphabetical order):

Larry Carlton
Jonny Greenwood
Kirk Hammett
Eric Johnson
Jimmy Page
Les Paul
Joe Satriani
Richard Thompson
Stevie Vai
Jack White

Either way, thanks to all who participated. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We’ll also be doing more readers’ polls in the coming weeks. We’ll pick a category in a week or two and put it out there.

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This acorn didn’t fall far from the tree — but he certainly rolled in his own direction.

Last week we told you about Murali Coryell’s new album, Sugar Lips, and his performance at the Towne Crier Café in Pawling.

Now we add him to our growing list of Guitar Players You Should Know — where he firmly belongs.

Coryell comes from solid pedigree: He is the son of jazz-fusion guitar legend Larry Coryell, and the brother of jazz guitarist Julian Coryell.

He grew up surrounded by some of the biggest names in music, from Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix, to Miles Davis and Jack Bruce. Coryell says he initially shunned the music industry — how does one follow in such giant footsteps?

But when he discovered blues he found his own voice.

“I had to find  my own style,” Coryell told me last week. “Everybody, they kind of expect you to do what your dad does.”

“It was incredibly burdensome and pressured,” he said. “I remember being so stressed out with the pressures of all that and feeling like potentially you’re a failure if you don’t do this. But it was when I fell in love with the blues and decided like, you know what? This is something that regardless of whether I succeed or don’t succeed, I have to do this, and this I can do. It wasn’t this impossible thing.”

And he’s begun building his own legacy. Sugar Lips, his sixth album, is due for release in the coming days, and highlights both his accomplished guitar playing as well as a surprisingly soulful voice.

Of course, Murali Coryell doesn’t entirely shun his father’s fame. The elder Coryell joins him on the new album, as does blues great Joe Louis Walker, a longtime inspiration.

The results are solid, and for any fan of modern electric blues it’s as close to a must-have CD as you’ll come across.

After all, at this rate Coryell won’t stay under the radar for long.

(NOTE: This is part of my ongoing series of reports on guitar players who fly under the mainstream radar. Keep checking The Listening Room for future installments of guitar players you should know – JF)

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We’ve gotten over 100 players nominated for the Listening Room readers poll of greatest guitar players – and we’re looking for more.

As we told you a few days ago, we’re doing a less-than-scientific list of our readers’ choices for the greatest guitar players of all time. We’re not asking for rankings: Every guitar player mentioned on your list counts as one vote. The player with the most votes at the end gets ranked by the Listening Room, and we’ll also give you a list of runners-up and honorable mentions based on your votes.

Anyway, send in your lists of 5 to 10 guitar players, in no particular order, and we’ll tally them up. Don’t worry about genre, past or present, alive or dead: They’re all guitar players in our book.

We’ll post the results on Thursday, and we’ll follow up with other polls.

We’ll take entries in the comments section below, on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jfitzgibbon or  http://twitter.com/dianacostello) or you can emai jfitzgib@lohud.com or dcostello@lohud.com.

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The thing about music is everyone has an opinion and no one is necessarily wrong – sort of.

Nowhere is this more evident than with guitar players. Everyone has their favorites, across genres, styles and technique. Take Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarist, which was compiled in 2003. There’s an argument at every entry.

Is Chuck Berry really a better guitar player than Eddie Van Halen? No, but he was a more influential guitar player. The one that fueled an argument at the office yesterday was Jack White vs. Slash. Is White more creative, influential and innovative than Slash? Of course. But is he techinically a better guitar player than Slash? Not close, in my view.

So let’s start some new debate. What do our readers think? Let’s see if we can’t put together the Listening Room’s Greatest Guitar Players of All Time as determined by you, the reader.

We’ll take entries here in the comments section, on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jfitzgibbon or  http://twitter.com/dianacostello) or you can emai jfitzgib@lohud.com or dcostello@lohud.com.

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