Un or under-heralded guitarists

I was watching Kenny Greenberg play guitar as part of Pat McLaughlin's stellar band, and thinking there's no way the guitar can be played any better than that. There are many famous guitarists, but so many more that are un-heralded or under-heralded who are as good or better. Aside from some wildly talented but well known on ND guitarists like Dave Alvin, Chuck Prophet and Kelly Joe Phelps, here are a few off the top of my head who are just incredibly talented guitarists who could teach a thing or two to some far more famous names:

Kenny Vaughan
Andrew Hardin
Chris Miller
Thad Beckman
John Jackson
Joe Eddy Hines
D. Clinton Thompson
Scrappy Judd Newcomb
Willie Porter

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Permalink Reply by L A Johnson on May 2, 2012 at 5:41am

Stephen Stills(66-73)

Terry Kath (69-71)

Permalink Reply by Jeff Newport on May 5, 2012 at 9:11am

Lowell George

Paul Barrerre

Sonny Landreth

Ronnie Earl

Ana Popovic

Permalink Reply by Tom McD on May 5, 2012 at 9:41am

Charlie Sexton

Bernie Leadon

Rusty Young

Davey Johnstone

Bo Ramsey

Dave Rawlings

Jorma Kaukonen

Debbie Davies

Rory Block

Curtis Burch

Buddy Whittington

 

That my list

Permalink Reply by Rick Fiddler on May 5, 2012 at 11:23am

David Lindley can play anything with strings.  Recently saw him at a ukulele gathering and he is amazing. 

Permalink Reply by Jack on May 6, 2012 at 8:53am

Great choice.  Have seen him live with his band a few times, you do get the feeling anything could happen on guitar. His "El Rayo X" is a pretty cool record.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Francis Andersen on May 6, 2012 at 9:50am

anyone else familiar with DOUG MACLEOD?

i just leanred about him.

this video absolutely fascinated me.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Francis Andersen on May 6, 2012 at 9:53am

Jack, you might find the train theme especially interesting.

Permalink Reply by Shane on May 6, 2012 at 10:26am

Love me some Doug. Check out his early electric stuff.

Permalink Reply by Jack on May 6, 2012 at 8:27pm

Matthew, never heard of him before, so thank you! That video is wonderful, the hand movements are almost like a dance.  The way he modulates his voice is just so cool and his guitar playing is exactly what this post was getting at. Going to spend some time this week learning more. That was a captivating performance.

Early in the song he references "a ass pocket full of brandy" (I think it was brandy) which reminded me of the RL Burnside record with Jon Spencer called "A Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey",  which got me to thinking of RL's guitarist Kenny Brown, another guy to add to this list.  Fat Possum Records took some of Burnside's vintage songs and and along with new songs re-recorded them with RL and a band of young whippersnappers, Kenny among them, and for the most part I thought the modernization of RL's music worked exceedingly well.  Kenny was a big part of it. He put out a pretty solid solo record called Stingray.

Having worked for the old Santa Fe Railway years back, yeah, the train theme hits home, and your mentioning the train aspect reminded me of another great guitarist, Rick Shea, who co-wrote a great train song called "Emperor of the North".  Rick should have been on my original list when I started this discussion, he's exactly the kind of guy I had in mind. And boy can he sing too.

Permalink Reply by Bill Thompson on May 13, 2012 at 2:54pm

What, no Monte Montgomery fans here?  This dude takes the playing of an electric-acoustic to new heights, if not volumes...

Permalink Reply by Jack on May 15, 2012 at 11:22am

Bill, Monte was mentioned a few times, see page 5 of these comments...

Permalink Reply by Gary Bowden on May 14, 2012 at 8:56am

Someone has already mentioned Richard Thompson,so I'm going to mention him again.He should be in the Top 5 of the greatest guitarists list.Not Keith Richards...I think Bob Mould should be mentioned as well,considering his work in Husker Du and in Sugar..

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Created by No Depression Feb 17, 2009 at 9:06pm. Last updated by No Depression Sep 24, 2012.