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Overlooked guitar solos

by [Derek's Stratocaster guitar]Derek K. Miller, October 2005

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For those who enjoy them, great guitar solos are transcendent experiences, certainly much more than the notes on a page would indicate. They combine tone, technique, expression, and composition into something wordless, but as emotional as a human voice.

So people often make lists of their favourites, especially in rock and blues. (Jazz, being about improvisation, and country, which tends to focus more on the singing don't inspire quite the same list-making insanity.) In May 2005, for instance, the listeners of CBC Radio's "Go" voted the following as the seven greatest guitar solos of all time:

  1. "Comfortably Numb" - Pink Floyd
  2. "Sultans of Swing" - Dire Straits
  3. "Layla" - Eric Clapton
  4. "All Along the Watchtower" - Jimi Hendrix
  5. "Eruption" - Van Halen
  6. "Midnight at the Oasis" - Maria Muldaur
  7. "Like a Hurricane" - Neil Young

In 2001, Guitar World magazine compiled a similar list. All very well. Yet these lists too often include the same set of songs from Hendrix, Clapton, Van Halen, Floyd, Zeppelin, and Skynyrd, when there are, of course, thousands of other candidates out there—even from some of the same players. Here are a few I think have been overlooked:

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