What's Your Favourite Guitar Solo?

In a similar vein:

Fairport Convention, Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman

Thread needs some Eddie Hazel:

Funkadelic, Comin' Round the Mountain

I always enjoy Lindsay Buckingham - Sisters Of The Moon (the second one, at 3:42) and Landslide are a couple of very different favourites

(I was also going to say various versions of Gimme Shelter but figured it'd probably already been mentioned on the thread. It had - by me, two years ago)

david sylvian on "art of parties"

Rusty Young's okay by me. Those instrumentals he wrote with Poco kicked ass. Fool's Good, Grand Junction, Feudin', Rocky Mountain Breakdown (yeah, it has words but y'know what I mean), etc.; all great.

To answer the question: Frank Zappa in 'Inca Roads'.

Franco - "Merengue"

Been a few Fripp mentions here but not one for the solo on "Sailor's Tale" off of Islands. This is a key moment in the development of Crimson, the point where Fripp sloughed off the baroque prog affectations and turned towards something darker and heavier.

Wilco - "At Least That's What You Said"

'Like a Hurricane' live by Neil Young

'Broken Chairs' live by Built to Spill

is it true jimmy page plays on "sympathy for the devil"?

― Brio, Friday, 18 September 2009 17:46 (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think he might do, on one of those "Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra" things. Not the Stones, obv.

okay so I don't know if it's my absolute 100% all-time favorite, but because I'm sure no one else will mention it, I gotta rep for the solo in "Designing a Steeper Cliff" by late great Chicago art-rockers The Fire Show, whose guitarist has the most wonderfully ugly fuzzed-out guitar tone I've ever heard, the kind that feels like it's removing layers of skin with every note, and nowhere does he put it to better use than here. everyone's grooving along on one of those super-infectious dub-inflected wobbly post-punk grooves, when suddenly the bottom drops out, leaving you hanging in a wash of feedback for a second or two as the guitar whines into life, the drummer plays a short fill and then BAM!, return to Groove City, where it turns out that the entire population has been transformed into brain-hungry groove-zombies, and they're closing in on you...

technically, the playing isn't flashy or anything, but that moment gets me every time. rarely do I feel so violently hated by a piece of music, and almost never do I get such enjoyment from it.

the most wonderfully ugly fuzzed-out guitar tone I've ever heard, the kind that feels like it's removing layers of skin with every note

rarely do I feel so violently hated by a piece of music, and almost never do I get such enjoyment from it

WANT THIS

OK, I found a clip of The Fire Show's "Designing a Steeper Cliff." Not bad, but not a patch on Rapeman's cover of "Just Got Paid" either.

Steve Albini on "Just Got Paid"

/end

To answer the question: Frank Zappa in 'Inca Roads'.

Which version? Full-length Helsinki original, chopped/screwed version for One Size Fits All, Dub Room Special, other? They're all great, but 'RDNZL' is even better.

Which version? Full-length Helsinki original, chopped/screwed version for One Size Fits All, Dub Room Special, other?
...or maybe even one of the eviscerated chunks that go to make up maybe half a dozen or so of the "Shut Up and Play..." and "Guitar" albums. No, probably the chopped/screwed version for OSFA. 'RDNZL' is great, as are 'Toad O-Line', 'Duke of Orchestral Prunes', 'Zoot Allures', 'Watermelon' (of course) and many many more.

Because nobody else will mention it, and it's so out-of-character epic:

The Posies - "Flood of Sunshine"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpOYFDHvwbM

From the sublime to the ridiculous:

The Bonzo Dog Band - "Canyons of Your Mind"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQ0tpQmobc

"Pablo & Andrea" by Yo La Tengo or "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains

"Voodoo Chile" too tbh - pretty much the whole song

& "Terraplane Blues" by John Lee Hooker

tbh I could probably just keep listing things that occur to me, so I'll stop now..

3 from the white stripes:

black math (fuckin hot rod grease lightning)

ball & biscuit (pompous majesty, the white stripes)

you don't know what love is... (closing solo is razor sharp, yet light as birds playing along the coast)

There ain't nothing better than James Burton's lead on "Love Hurts" by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.

steve hillage - rainbow dome musik!

slight sidetrack - was i just imagining it, or was the section of that song with the guitar solo "the music of the future" in bill and ted's excellent adventure?

the ecstatic, vocal-sounding runs embedded in total fruit warning by us maple

now you're talking

faust - it's a bit of a pain

maybe not absolute favorite, but a solid one i always love when it comes up on shuffle: "Bad Times" by the D-Coys

skids of one skin

"Time," Pink Floyd

I could name a million solos but the real answer will always be 'Maggot Brain', miles clear of the rest. It's like the Usain Bolt of guitar solos.

Marc Ribot's colo in Tom Waits's "Jockey Full of Bourbon."

Canyons of Your Mind seconded!

Sonny Sharrock - Many Mansions
He spends the first five minutes locking in with the bassist, laying down a huge riff and allowing Pharoah Sanders plenty of space to solo (and he solos beautifully), then in the last few minutes Sonny's slide guitar erupts in multiple directions, hot lava baby!

thats a good one

somewhat surprisingly, fripp sorta owns this for me with his collabos -- "ill come running" and "heavenly music corporation" w eno and "hammond song" w the roches

oh yeah wait and COWGIRL IN THE SAND and EFFIGY and RAMBLE TAMBLE

yeah those!

We need CCR solos poll.

Tommy Bolin on Billy Cobham's "Quadrant 4"

This

lock thread

end civilization

delete time and space

Probably the solo in Shatterhand by The Nightblooms, in that it's amazing both as a guitar solo and as a commentary on guitar solos. Uses a talkbox too, as any contendor for best guitar solo should.

At the moment, this is the solo at the end of Hotel Illness. The drumming, too. Hellfire.

Here are mine!

what a fun list, now I want to go listen to all those.

the violin in “out of the blue” is what kills me. like david laflamme or papa john creach careening through a trans dimensional portal or something

Oh I need to check this one out. You should make a spotify or youtube list of these.

For Velvet Underground I’d pick “pale blue eyes” and for Radiohead it’s gotta be Paranoid Android. “Go to sleep” isn’t as amazing on the album as on live performances.

Baby’s on Fire is top 10 material for sure.

“Born under punches” is TOO LOW. But happy it’s there.

Just commented on fb about one you missed, and probably my favorite guitar solo of all time. Jimmy Scott's solo in Pretenders' "Kid" is masterful without bragging, a self-contained composition without peer nestled inside an already brilliant song. From the arpeggiated chords that preface it to the final harmonic that puts the cherry on top, not to mention all the key bends and swerves, it's one I could hear 10,000 more times in my life and never tire of.

Robbie Robertson on "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from the '66 Manchester show (aka Bootleg vol. 4) is most triumphant.